Alfie Kohn - Children Quotes

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In short, with each of the thousand-and-one problems that present themselves in family life, our choice is between controlling and teaching, between creating an atmosphere of distrust and one of trust, between setting an example of power and helping children to learn responsibility, between quick-fix parenting and the kind that's focused on long-term goals.

Alfie Kohn
Children learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions

Alfie Kohn
Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled— those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control.

Alfie Kohn
The value of a book about dealing with children is inversely proportional to the number of times it contains the word behavior. When our primary focus is on discrete behaviors, we end up ignoring the whole child.

Alfie Kohn
Most of us would protest that of course we love our children without any strings attached. But what counts is how things look from the perspective of the children

Alfie Kohn
If children feel safe, they can take risks, ask questions, make mistakes, learn to trust, share their feelings, and grow.

Alfie Kohn