January

"I'm sure the reason such young nitwits are produced in our schools is because they have no contact with anything of any use in everyday life."

Petronius
27- 66 C.E.
The Satyricon

February

"You are troubled at seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Is it nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy as now."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Émile: Or, Concerning Education, 1883

March

"Little children love the world. That is why they are so good at learning about it. For it is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning. Can we bring ourselves to let children learn and grow through that love?"

John Holt,
How Children Learn

April

"Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today."

Barack Obama

May

"The best-kept secret in child psychology is that children who were never spanked are among the best behaved."

Murray Straus, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology,
University of New Hampshire

June

"We must learn to accept the fact that during their developmental years children cannot be expected to exhibit adult behavior."

Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.,
author of How to Raise a Healthy Child In Spite of Your Doctor

July

"Children are entitled to care, security and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and may not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment."

Swedish Corporal Punishment Ban, Parental Code

August

"Babies are born loving perfectly. They give fully, trust completely and enter every moment with an awareness of connection."

Lauren Porter,
Co-Director, Centre for Attachment (NZ)

September

"If I had to make a general rule for living and working with children, it might be this: be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued."

John Holt,
Freedom and Beyond

October

"Nobody tells you that if you live long enough and if you survive the inevitable stresses and mistakes, the best part of parenting is having your children in your life as adults ... your ultimate purpose is to get through the child development years to savor the pleasure of having in your life a magnificent adult with whom you have an excellent relationship ... if you're aware at the beginning how this process works, you can make better choices about the kind of memories you want to end up with."

Lois Haddad,
Sleep Talk

November

"When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change."

Thich Nhat Hanh,
Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

December

"Children's liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list."

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

More Quotes of the Month