You can read the best experts on child care. You can listen to those who have been there. You can take a whole childbirth and child-care course without missing a lesson. But you won't really know a thing about yourselves and each other as parents, or your baby as a child, until you have her in your arms. That's the moment when the lifelong process of bringing up a child into the fold of the family begins.
Stella ChessEven today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don't need parents' full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.
Stella ChessThat a good fit between parental handling and child temperament is vital to help children adapt to the imperatives of their society is a crucial concept that can be applied to other cultures.
Stella ChessYou can read the best experts on child care. You can listen to those who have been there. You can take a whole childbirth and child-care course without missing a lesson. But you won't really know a thing about yourselves and each other as parents, or your baby as a child, until you have her in your arms. That's the moment when the lifelong process of bringing up a child into the fold of the family begins.
Stella ChessAn actress reading a part for the first time tries many ways to say the same line before she settles into the one she believes suits the character and situation best. There's an aspect of the rehearsing actress about the girl on the verge of her teens. Playfully, she is starting to try out ways to be a grown-up person.
Stella ChessThere is a parallel between the twos and the tens. Tens are trying to test their abilities again, sizing up and experimenting to discover how to fit in. They don't mean everything they do and say. They are just testing. . . . Take a good deal of your daughter's behavior with a grain of salt. Try to handle the really outrageous as matter-of-factly as you would a mistake in grammar or spelling.
Stella ChessA child is nothing like a racing car. . . . Souping up babies doesn't work that way. The child is what she is. There is a certainirreducible if elusive core. Pushing, pulling, stretching, and shrinking will not really change it. There may be spectacular interim results. The baby may say the alphabet before she walks, master two-times or even ten-times table at three. In the long run, however, this forced precocity tends to be irrelevant. . . . Whatever gains there are become unimportant. The losses can be irrevocable.
Stella Chess