“Parents are the ultimate role models for children. Every word, movement and action has an effect. No other person or outside force has a greater influence on a child than the parent.” ~ Bob Keeshan
Throughout your parenting journey, you learn a lot of things that benefit you, your children, but also the world around you.
As your children grow, you grow with them – in wisdom, love, awareness, and insights.
And today I’m going to share with you a list of 21 things that are meant to bring more wisdom into your life, so you can be an even greater parent than you already are.
21 Powerful Things Every Parent Should Know
1. Every parent should know that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.
“The guys who fear becoming fathers don’t understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. The end product of child-raising is not the child but the parent.” ~ Frank Pittman
2. Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.
“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
3. You have to be the parent your child needs, and not the parent you wished you had.
“There are times as a parent when you realize that your job is not to be the parent you always imagined you’d be, the parent you always wished you had. Your job is to be the parent your child needs, given the particulars of his or her own life and nature.” ~ Ayelet Waldman
4. Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness. For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.” ― Kahlil Gibran
5. The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
“The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.” ~ Peter De Vries
“It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.” ~ Joyce Maynard
6. Parenting is not about having children lean on you but making leaning unnecessary.
“But kids don’t stay with you if you do it right. It’s the one job where the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver
“The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.” ~ Frank A. Clark
“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots. The other is wings.” ~ Hodding Carter, Jr.
“Parenting is not about having children lean on you but making leaning unnecessary. They have a compass, let them follow their own compass; freeing you up to be your own person on your own time and allowing them to become who they are to become.” ~ Wayne Dyer
7. Children are educated by what you do is and not by what you say.
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ~ James Baldwin
“Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.’ ~ Robert Fulghum
“Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be.” ~ David Bly
“My father didn’t tell me how to live, he lived, and let me watch him do it.” ~ Clarence Budinton Kelland
“Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.” ~ Carl Jung
8. Your children need your presence more than your presents.
“Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give someone is your time. It is not enough to just say relationships are important; we must prove it by investing time in them. Words alone are worthless. “My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.” ~ Rick Warren
“Your children need your presence more than your presents.” ~ Jesse Jackson
9. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” ~ Frederick Douglass
10. If you want your children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.
“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.” ~ Robert A Heinlein
“It is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” ~ Ann Landers
“If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.” ~ Abigail Van Buren
11. Children have more need of models than of critics.
“Children have more need of models than of critics.” ~ Carolyn Coats
12. If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.
“If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.” ~ Haim Ginott
13. The best thing you can do for your children is to allow them to do things for themselves.
“I think that the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway… let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” ~ C. JoyBell C.
“Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you’re young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul, and that was why she ignored us, kids, when we cried. Fussing over children who cry only encouraged them, she told us. That’s positive reinforcement for negative behavior.” ~ Jeannette Walls
14. When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.
“When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son.” ~ The Talmud
15. What’s done to children, they will do to society.
“Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn’t have anything to do with it.” ~ Haim Ginott
“What’s done to children, they will do to society.” ~ Karl Menninger
“Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege, than the raising of the next generation.” ~ C. Everett Koop
16. Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.
“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.” ~ Bill Ayers
17. You are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality.
“Most things are good, and they are the strongest things, but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil.” ~ Walt Disney
18. The final forming of your children’s character lies in their own hands.
“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.” ~ Anne Frank
19. You can never really live your child’s life.
“You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
20. Stepparents are not around to replace a biological parent, rather augment a child’s life experience.
“Step-parents are not around to replace a biological parent, rather augment a child’s life experience.” » Azriel Johnson
21. There is no such thing as a perfect parent.
“There is no such thing as a perfect parent so just be a real one.” ~ Sue Atkins.
~love, Luminita💫
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Luminita D. Saviuc
Luminita is the Founder and Editor in Chief of PurposeFairy.com and also the author of 15 Things You Should Give Up to Be Happy: An Inspiring Guide to Discovering Effortless Joy. For more details check out the 15 Things You Should Give Up To Be Happy Book Page.
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