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Selected poems, stories, anectodes, quotes and thoughts on the subject of children and parents, ranging from heart-warming to thought provoking to downright funny!

I have seed to raise and I plough the field
And I plant my crops with care,
And I thank the Lord for the rain He sends
As I watch them growing there.
But I don't sit down with a book by day,
And let my crops run wild,
For crops won't grow by themselves, I know;
Is it different with a child?

--Edgar A. Guest

 A young successful attorney said:
"The greatest gift I ever received was a gift I got one Christmas when my dad gave me a small box. Inside was a note saying, `Son, this year I will give you 365 hours, an hour every day after dinner. It's yours. We'll talk about what you want to talk about, we'll go where you want to go, play what you want to play. It will be your hour!'" "My dad not only kept his promise," he said, "but every year he renewed it--and it's the greatest gift I ever had in my life. I am the result of his time."
Children Live What They Learn

If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns violence.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
He learns faith.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance & friendship,
He learns to love the World.

--Dorothy Law Nolte

Poetry, being imaginative, fresh and honest, is the very language of children, and in a family many of their incidental remarks are essentially love poems. Once, when we were in the living room with a guest, my small daughter came and sat close to me on the sofa and whispered, "Will you look at me, too, some of the time, and smile, and speak to me?" This is one version of a child's eternal love poem to the World.

--Rachel Peden

A man who was walking along a road saw a crowd of boys surrounding a dog.
"What are you doing with the dog?" asked the kindly man.
"Whoever tells the biggest lie, he wins the dog."
"Oh, my, my, my," exclaimed the man, "when I was a little boy like you here I never told a lie."
There was a moment's silence. "Here," said one of the little fellows, "you win the dog."

Charles W. Morton, an Atlantic Monthly editor, once told of the Harvard freshman who came to Dean Briggs' office to explain his tardiness in handing in an assignment. "I'm sorry, sir, but I was not feeling very well," he offered.
"Young man," Briggs said, "please bear in mind that by far the greater part of the world's work is carried on by people who are not feeling very well."

* * * * *

Children are seldom resentful--which is a difference between them and adults. They hold grudges no better than a lap dog. What happens to them happens to them, like an illness, and if it is not too extravagantly unfair they forget about it. Parents learn that a child's angry glare or floods of tears after a punishment or scolding may leave the grownup feeling like a despotic brute, but that half an hour later, when adult feelings are still in tatters, the child is likely as not to come flying into the room, fling both arms about the grownup's neck & shout, "I love you!" --Phyllis McGinley
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