The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidence in themselves and happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they do have and of all the opportunities that come their way.

Benjamin Spock

More Quotes by Benjamin Spock
Categorized in : Children Growing Up Parenting
More Quotes From Benjamin Spock
Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do. by Benjamin Spock

Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.

Benjamin Spock
trust family positive

The main source of good discipline is growing up in a loving family, being loved and learning to love in return.

Benjamin Spock
growing-up discipline return

Humans can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet they're potentially more vicious than any other. They are the only ones who can be persuaded to hate millions of their own kind whom they have never seen and to kill as many as they can lay their hands on in the name of their tribe or their God.

Benjamin Spock
hate names hands

Can we make a better world for our children? I believe we can, if enough people are concerned and get involved in changing what is wrong with society.

Benjamin Spock
believe children people
If I could make only one wish for a child, I'd wish him the quali... by Benjamin Spock

If I could make only one wish for a child, I'd wish him the quality of lovingness.

Benjamin Spock
quality wish children

Physical punishment teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right, and they may resent this in the parent-for life.

Benjamin Spock
punishment parent children

Respect children because they're human beings and they deserve respect, and they'll grow up to be better people.

Benjamin Spock
respect growing-up children
The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steer... by Benjamin Spock

The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

Benjamin Spock
parenting dad children
Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense. by Benjamin Spock

Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

Benjamin Spock
common-sense common

A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.

Benjamin Spock
selfish satisfaction successful
Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creati... by Benjamin Spock

Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.

Benjamin Spock
captain-kirk creativity choices

The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children.

Benjamin Spock
parenting jobs children

Children who grow up getting nutrition from plant foods rather than meats have a tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer

Benjamin Spock
cancer growing-up children

I'm not a pacifist. I was very much for the war against Hitler and I also supported the intervention in Korea, but in this war we went in there to steal Vietnam.

Benjamin Spock
vietnam korea war

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

Benjamin Spock
mother baby children

A boy, by the age of 3 years, senses that his destiny is to be a man, so he watches his father particularly-his interests, manner, speech, pleasures, his attitude toward work.

Benjamin Spock
attitude boys father
It's up to each of us to help create a better world for our child... by Benjamin Spock

It's up to each of us to help create a better world for our children.

Benjamin Spock
helping children world

I think that parents ought to get some idea of how the so- called "experts" have changed their advice over the decades, so that they won't take them deadly seriously, and so that if the parent has the strong feeling, "I don't like this advice," the parent won't feel compelled to follow it. . . . So don't worry about trying to do a perfect job. There is no perfect job. There is no one way of raising your children.

Benjamin Spock
strong jobs children

When I was 88 years old, I gave up meat entirely and switched to a plant foods diet following a slight stroke. During the following months, I not only lost 50 pounds, but gained strength in my legs and picked up stamina. Now, at age 93, I'm on the same plant-based diet, and I still don't eat any meat or dairy products. I either swim, walk, or paddle a canoe daily and I feel the best I've felt since my heart problems began.

Benjamin Spock
vegetarian-diet heart years
There are only two things a child will share willingly; communica... by Benjamin Spock

There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and its mother's age.

Benjamin Spock
mother funny children