This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
One of the most difficult lessons parents have to learn is this one: Children are only loaned for a brief term of infancy and childhood. Soon they become people, strangers in the home, and instead of children to be directed they are grown-ups to be studied, understood and accepted. The acceptance is never quite complete on either side, but affection will bridge the gap if it is permitted to do so.
Acceptance | Childhood | Children | Infancy | Parents | People | Will | Wisdom | Learn |
It is not enough for parents to understand children. they must accord children the privilege of understanding them.
Children | Enough | Parents | Understanding | Wisdom | Privilege | Understand |
John Wolfenden, fully John Frederick Wolfenden, Baron Wolfenden
Schoolmasters and parents exist to be grown out of.
Ama Ata Aidoo, fully Christina Ama Ata Aidoo
It’s a sad moment, really, when parents first become a bit frightened of their children.
T. Berry Brazelton, fully Thomas Berry Brazelton
Reading to children at night, responding to their smiles, with a smile, returning their vocalizations with one of your own, touching them, holding them – all of these further a child’s brain development and future potential, even in the earliest months. Research demonstrates that the early responsiveness of caring parents sets the tone for future self-esteem, trust, problem solving, ability to communicate successfully and motivation for future learning.
Ability | Children | Esteem | Future | Learning | Parents | Reading | Research | Self | Self-esteem | Smile | Trust |
The school system can’t make up for family failure. The total education of our children is a cooperative effort requiring community solidarity. Apathetic parents who foster a permissive home atmosphere create a problem for everyone.
Children | Education | Effort | Failure | Family | Parents | System |
Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we’d had.
Children | Opportunity | Parents |
While your parents and teachers are, for the most part, well-meaning people, they are nevertheless more interested in your finding ways to please them than in your finding ways to please yourself. And so, in the process of socialization, almost all people in almost all societies lose their way because they are coaxed or coerced away from their own Guidance System.
The toddler must say "no" in order to find out who she is. The adolescent says "no" to assert who she is not.
Avarice | Compassion | Nothing | Parents | People | Pride | Tenderness | Youth | Youth |
Fred Rogers, "Mister Rogers," born Frederick McFeely Rogers
There are many things children accept as “grown-up things” over which they have no control and for which they have no responsibility – for instance, weddings, having babies, buying houses, and driving cars. Parents who are separating really need to help their children put divorce on that grown-up list, so that children do not see themselves as the cause of their parents’ decision to live apart.
Cause | Children | Control | Decision | Need | Parents | Responsibility |
Anne Frank, fully Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank
How true Daddy’s words were when he said: “All children must look after their own upbringing.” Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Advice | Character | Children | Good | Parents | Right | Words |