Parents set themselves to bend the will of their children to their own – to break their stubborn spirit, as they call it – with the ruthlessness of Grand Inquisitors. Cunning, unscrupulous children learn all the arts of the sneak in circumventing tyranny: children of better character are cruelly distressed and more or less lamed […]

If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.

Every child has a right to its own bent… It has a right to find its own way and go its own way, whether that way seems wise or foolish to others, exactly as an adult has. It has a right to privacy as to its own doings and its own affairs as much as […]

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage – it can be delightful.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

If parents would only realize how they bore their children!