Do Not Mistake A Child For His

The Strengths A Young Person Finds In Adults At This Time-their Willingness To Let Him Experiment, Their Eagerness To Confirm Him At His Best, Their Consistency In Correcting His Excesses, And The Guidance They Give Him-will Codetermine Whether Or Not He Eventually Makes Order Out Of Necessary Inner Confusion And Applies Himself To The Correction Of Disordered Conditions. He Needs Freedom To Choose, But Not So Much Freedom That He Cannot, In Fact, Make A Choice.

Children Cannot Be Fooled By Empty Praise And Condescending Encouragement. They May Have To Accept Artificial Bolstering Of Their Self-esteem In Lieu Of Something Better, But What I Call Their Accruing Ego Identity Gains Real Strength Only From Wholehearted And Consistent Recognition Of Real Accomplishment, That Is, Achievement That Has Meaning In Their Culture.

You See A Child Play, And It Is So Close To Seeing An Artist Paint, For In Play A Child Says Things Without Uttering A Word. You Can See How He Solves His Problems. You Can Also See What's Wrong. Young Children, Especially, Have Enormous Creativity, And Whatever's In Them Rises To The Surface In Free Play.

It's A Long Haul Bringing Up Our Children To Be Good; You Have To Keep Doing That — Bring Them Up — And That Means Bringing Things Up With Them: Asking, Telling, Sounding Them Out, Sounding Off Yourself — Finding, Through Experience, Your Own Words, Your Own Way Of Putting Them Together. You Have To Learn Where You Stand, And Make Sure Your Kids Learn [where You Stand], Understand Why, And Soon, You Hope, They'll Be Standing There Beside You, With You.

When We Looked At The Life Cycle In Our 40s, We Looked To Old People For Wisdom. At 80, Though, We Look At Other 80-year-olds To See Who Got Wise And Who Not. Lots Of Old People Don't Get Wise, But You Don't Get Wise Unless You Age.