The importance of the family can never be underestimated. Families nurture or ruin children, our link to the future. Here are some brilliant quotations that can make us realize the value of the family and help us improve our own family life.
• I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. – Harry S. Truman
Many parents make the mistake of imposing what they want on their children. Parents can only guide young minds; let the children decide what they want. If they make mistakes, they will learn more about life.
• In every dispute between parent and child, both cannot be right, but they may be, and usually are, both wrong. It is this situation which gives family life its peculiar hysterical charm. – Isaac Rosenfeld
Differences of beliefs and opinions between parents and children provide the important check and balance for family and individual issues. Communication is vital for effective family dynamics and decisions.
• Nor need we power or splendor, wide hall or lordly dome. The good, the true, the tender – these form the wealth of home. – Sarah J. Hale
Sometimes, there is more love to be found in families living in a hut than from those living in castles. Goodness, truth, love, tenderness, fairness, and understanding comprise the true wealth of a family.
• It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place. – Colette
It is amusing how some kids can be more brilliant than their folks. Wise words can come from the mouths of babes. Some of the best lessons in life could be learned by parents from their children.
• If you as parents cut corners, your children will, too. If you lie, they will, too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won’t, either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out. – Marian Wright Edelman
What the parents are, the children usually become. No mangoes ever come from a banana tree. Every generation swears to be better than their parents’ generation, but somehow, they always end up a lot like them.
• Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. – Michael Levine
Parenting is not an easy occupation. You can never be an expert parent for there is always something new to learn about children and family every day.
• The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. – Theodore Hesburgh
Love is the foundation of the family. When children don’t see and feel their parents’ love for each other, the family structure could weaken and crumble.
• Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. – Virginia Satir
Children develop their early self-esteem and self-confidence in the home. A loving, nurturing, and encouraging atmosphere is needed to make children acquire the firm belief in themselves, which will greatly help them in their future lives.
• Govern a family as you would cook a small fish – very gently. – Chinese proverb
Parents should rule their family with gentleness, tenderness, and love, not hatred and fear.
• A man can’t make a place for himself in the sun if he keeps taking refuge under the family tree. – Helen Keller
One of the basic functions of a family is to prepare children to later fly out of the nest and live lives of their own. Parents should know when to release children to discover the great, big world and find their own fortune and happiness.
• To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right. – Confucius
To cure the ills of the world, we need to start the healing with the individual and the family. There won’t be good values, peace, and understanding on earth if there are no good values, peace, and understanding in the basic social unit, the family.