James Dobson Quotes about Children

There is nothing more important than parents passing on a generational legacy of faith and values to their children.

Children are not casual guests in our home. They have been loaned to us temporarily for the purpose of loving them and instilling a foundation of values on which their future lives will be built.

We are so busy giving our children what we never had that we forget to give them what we did have.

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.

A child identifies his parents with God, whether or not the adults want that role. Most children 'see' God the way they perceive their earthly fathers.

By learning to yield to the loving authority of his parents, a child learns to submit to other forms of authority which will confront him later in his life — his teachers, school principal, police, neighbors and employers.

The footsteps a child follows are most likely to be the ones his parents thought they covered up.

Don't throw away your friendship with your teenager over behavior that has no great moral significance. There will be plenty of real issues that require you to stand like a rock. Save your big guns for those crucial confrontations.

Children represent God's most generous gift to us.

It is my view that our society can be no more stable than the foundation of individual family units upon which it rests. Our government, our institutions, our schools...indeed, our way of life are dependent on healthy marriages and loyalty to the vulnerable little children around our feet.

Loving discipline encourages a child to respect other people and live as a responsible, constructive citizen.

Real crying usually lasts two minutes or less, but may continue for five. After that point, the child is merely complaining... I would require him to stop the protest crying, usually by offering him a little more of whatever caused the original tears.

Some strong-willed children absolutely demand to be spanked, and their wishes should be granted. Two or three stinging strokes on the legs or buttocks with a switch are usually sufficient to emphasize the point, 'You must obey me.'

If you let a child know that you think he is lazy, sloppy, untruthful, unpleasant, and thoughtless, he'll probably prove you are right. Obviously, it is much better to make him stretch to reach a positive image than stoop to match one at ground level.

[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.

Traditional Judeo-Christian values literally hang in the balance in America. They can be 'forgotten' in a single generation if they are not taught to children and teenagers... It could happen here if we don't defend what we believe.

If a woman plans to terminate her pregnancy, she commonly refers to the life within her as the 'fetus'. But if she intends to deliver and love and care for the little child, she affectionately calls him 'my baby'.

We Americans are living a lifestyle of exhaustion. We don't have time for ourselves, much less for each other and our children.

'Dare to Discipline' was published in 1970 in the midst of the Vietnam War and a culture of rebellion. The book was written in that context, but the principles of child rearing have not changed.