This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
How many parents experience the child's reactions in terms of his being obedient, of giving them pleasure, of being a care to them, and so forth, instead of perceiving or even being interested in what the child feels for and by himself?
Care | Experience | Giving | Parents | Child |
Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
While parents possess the original key to their offspring's experience, teachers have a spare key. They, too, can open or close the minds and hearts of children.
Parents |
Religious education in the true sense is to encourage the child to understand his own relationship to people, to things and to nature. There is no existence without relationship; and without self-knowledge, all relationship, with the one and with the many, brings conflict and sorrow. Of course, to explain this fully to a child is impossible; but if the educator and the parents deeply grasp the full significance of relationship, then by their attitude, conduct and speech they will surely be able to convey to the child, without too many words and explanations, the meaning of a spiritual life.
Conduct | Education | Existence | Meaning | Parents | Relationship | Sense | Speech | Will | Words | Child | Understand |
James Cotter Morison, fully James Augustus Cotter Morison
A good education is generally considered as reflecting no small credit on its possessor; but in the majority of cases is reflects credit on the wise solicitude of his parents or guardians, rather than on himself.
Joan G. Cooney, fully Joan Ganz Cooney
What always puzzles me is why parents aren't more alarmed about the impact of television content, and why they don't make their concerns felt, but they don't.
Parents | Television |
Johann Pestalozzi, fully Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
I wish to wrest education from the outworn order of doddering old teaching hacks as well as from the new-fangled order of cheap, artificial teaching tricks, and entrust it to the eternal powers of nature herself, to the light which God has kindled and kept alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interests of parents who desire their children grow up in favour with God and with men.
Children | Desire | Education | Eternal | God | Light | Nature | Order | Parents | God | Old |
I wish to wrest education from the outworn order of doddering old teaching hacks as well as from the new-fangled order of cheap, artificial teaching tricks, and entrust it to the eternal powers of nature herself, to the light which God has kindled and kept alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interests of parents who desire their children grow up in favour with God and with men.
Children | Desire | Education | Eternal | God | Light | Nature | Order | Parents | God | Old |
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
Appearance | Day | Desire | Envy | Grief | Heart | Little | Lying | Men | Parents | Sorrow | World |
Joseph Chilton Pearce, aka Joe
...There are many other facets to the current collapse of childhood. I have touched on the issue only briefly, but one thing is clear, our schools have deteriorated because they must deal with damaged goods. Most responsible for this damage is hospital childbirth; second comes television. Next comes day care, which fosters television and is a result of hospital childbirth. Premature schooling runs fourth. (A fifth must wait a bit for discussion.) And as our damaged children grow up and become the parents and teachers, damage will be the norm, the way of life. We will habituate to damage. Nothing else will be known. How can you miss something you can't even recognize, something you never had?
If advertising has invaded the judgment of children, it has also forced its way into the family, an insolent usurper of parental function, degrading parents to mere intermediaries between their children and the market. This indeed is a social revoluation in our time!
Advertising | Children | Judgment | Parents |
Karl Menninger, fully Karl Augustus Menninger
The secret cruelties that parents visit upon their children are past belief.
Kurt Hahn, fully Kurt Martin "the rod" Hahn
Seven Laws of Salem: Give children the opportunity for self-discovery. [Give them a chance to discover themselves.] Make the children meet with triumph and defeat. [See to it that they experience both success and defeat.] Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause. [See to it that they have the chance to forget themselves in the pursuit of a common cause.] Provide periods of silence. [See to it that there are periods of silence.] Train the imagination. [Train the imagination, the ability to participate and plan.] Make games important but not predominant. [Take sports and games seriously, but only as part of the whole.] Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege. [Free them of the rich and influential parents and from the paralysing influence of wealth and privelege.]
Ability | Chance | Children | Experience | Important | Influence | Opportunity | Parents | Sense | Success | Wealth |
Adolescents sometimes say..."My friends listen to me, but my parents only hear me talk." Often they are right. Familiarity breeds inattention.
Familiarity | Parents | Friends |