Quotes About Children

"It is your responsibility to raise your children to adulthood. You cannot abandon them. You must stay with them. Only in a very extreme situation, if they are highly self-destructive and unmanageable, would you have to part from them. But this would only be in the latter stages of their development and would only be a real exception to the rule."

Quotes about raising children

"Teach your children the power and the presence of Knowledge within themselves and the great dangers of self-deception and social manipulation."

"Many of the greatest contributors to humanity were born under very unpleasant or impoverished circumstances. Often they were not the children of loving and protective parents."

Spiritual families and natural families

"You may not be intrinsically related to your own offspring. That is one reason why parents and children fight. Intrinsic relationship is established beyond this world."

Parenting by example

“In the New Message, there is not a great emphasis placed on teaching children because it is the parents that must gain a foundation in Knowledge and must learn to discern their own worldly wisdom to whatever extent it has been established thus far from their own desires, beliefs and preferences. To prepare the parents, then, is really the first step, for they cannot give their children what they themselves have not yet learned. If the parent has not yet learned real discernment, has not yet learned the value of discretion, has not yet learned how to listen within themselves objectively, has not yet learned how to restrain judgment and condemnation of others, well, what can they give their children except their own prejudices, their own expectations and the burden of whatever was placed upon them in their childhood as well? What is important for children is what is important for adults – Knowledge, wisdom, relationship and purpose.”

“Ultimately, the greatest gift you can give your child regarding purpose is to be living a real purpose yourself, to be demonstrating a purpose yourself. In fact, all four of these things We have mentioned—Knowledge, wisdom, discernment and purpose—are best taught through demonstration. If a child grows up in an environment where his or her parents are engaged in real purposeful work, well, that is worth more than all the words in the world. That says more than words can convey.”

"After your day of hard labor, you come back and you learn to still your mind and to listen. Here you are not simply asking God for things. You are learning to receive. It is difficult at first because the condition of your mind is so aggravated, is under so much pressure, is so consumed with trying to offset the effects of poverty and oppression that at first it seems almost impossible. But like all accomplishments, it takes time, patience and daily application. Even if you are living in a refugee camp or a slum of a city, you have the opportunity to develop an inner life and to teach this to your children."

The gift of children

"Having children is beneficial to many people. Then life is more about providing for others. There is a certain peace in this, even though it is not easy. Here you do not have time to be constantly questioning,'Who am I? How am I doing today? What is my mental state? What is my physical state?' You have to take care of people."

"Those of you who are parents realize the responsibility and the cost, and yet your children give you something you never would have gotten otherwise."

Honoring the experience of the child

“You do not need to teach children Knowledge because you cannot teach Knowledge. You can only remind people that Knowledge is alive within them and that there is a way to Knowledge, that there are steps to Knowledge that they can take.”

“For the young child, then, what is important is for them to begin to value what they see and feel. It is too soon at a very early age to learn discrimination regarding their own experience. First, they must learn how to pay attention to their own experience and how to value their own experience.”

“You want a child to begin to listen to their experience. Ask them what they see. Ask them what they feel. Let them express themselves even if what they are seeing and feeling seems absurd or untrue. What is important is that they can learn to listen within themselves. What they hear is not so important yet, not as important as the desire and ability to hear and to listen and to feel what their own experience is telling them."

"For the very young child, have them listen to their experience. ‘What did you feel today in seeing this thing? How did you feel about being around these people? What are you feeling at this moment?’ And just let them express themselves. Let them listen. Let them try to understand what their own experience is and encourage their expression.”

"While it is not necessary that a young person learn about the New Message from God, it is important that they can participate in gaining the skills that the New Message provides: learning to experience Knowledge, learning to discern what is going on objectively, learning to value one’s own experience over the expectations of others, recognizing the hazards and opportunities of the world, developing wisdom around how to participate with people, when to express oneself and not to express oneself, how to listen to others to discern what they are really communicating, how to interpret the forces around them. This all seems very advanced, but really, in essence, it is quite simple if the individual can value their own experience and over time gain skill in interpreting what is happening within them and around them.”

"For parents everywhere, it is important over time, instead of casting expectations and demands on the performance of their children, they should look to see what signs are being given to them from their children about their children’s inclinations and strengths, weaknesses and natural abilities. Sometimes this cannot be discerned until a person reaches young adulthood. But to give a young person the encouragement and to teach them to learn the Way of Knowledge so they can gain access to this great intelligence that God has given them is perhaps the greatest gift a parent can give a child beyond providing for their basic material needs."

"Humanity must grow up. Its citizens must become aware and alerted, prepared and strengthened. Allow children to be children, but as an adult, you must gain this greater perspective and assume greater responsibilities."

Quotes about sharing wisdom with children

"You can never be too young to learn about Knowledge—to learn how to recognize your deeper experience and be true to yourself."

"For your children, teach them how to follow and listen to their own deeper experience and give them a demonstration of courage and integrity from yourself, from your own life."

"Tell your children that there is a Greater Power within them that will guide and protect them if they listen. Share with them your insights."

“Do not think that children are wise. They have no wisdom yet. They will walk off the cliff if you let them. They will put their hands in the fire if you let them. They do not have wisdom yet. Wisdom now is very important. Certainly every parent knows they must teach their children certain basic things to avoid danger. And this is the very, very beginning of wisdom training, which ultimately is how to be in the world, how to be in the world guided by Knowledge.”

“This wisdom training should not be accompanied by very fearful language. You do not want to terrorize children; you simply want them to be able to understand on their own what they are looking at while giving them certain guidelines—places that are safe, places that are unsafe, human engagements that are safe, human engagements that are not safe. This is normal, of course, in nearly all families, but it is not taken very far in most circumstances. You have to stay with this throughout your child’s development.”

“Share the wisdom from other people—from teachers, from poets, from musicians, from great thinkers. Expose them to wisdom. Don’t tell them what it means or how they should regard it. Let them deal with it themselves when they are able, when they reach an age when they can consider more complex thoughts or deeper insights, when their evaluative skills grow.”

“While the child is born with Knowledge intact fully, they must learn wisdom. Wisdom must be learned, and therefore it is very important in beginning to support your child to teach them wisdom at a very fundamental level—what will help them from what will hurt them, what looks good from what really is good, what is advantageous and what is dangerous.”

“By all means, share with them the wisdom you have learned in your life, the things that you did that did not work, the things that you did that were real mistakes, the things you did do that really made a difference, that were very wise and effective. Share your experience here, but do not add a great deal of evaluation. Just say, ‘I did this and this is what happened and it was a mistake.’ Or ‘I did this and this is what happened and it really worked out very well for me.’ And any insights you have that prove to be correct, share these with your children. They want to know. They are interested in these things. But you must start early. You cannot start speaking to your child when they are an adolescent, for they may not be listening to you anymore. They are trying to listen to other people. They are already differentiating themselves from you.”

“You want your children to be free thinkers, not simply echoes of the culture. You want children to think for themselves, to make decisions, not simply follow what their friends are telling them or what they think they must believe in order to be socially acceptable. You have to deal with these forces of compromise, and in many cases, they cannot be overcome, but the greatest strength that a child has in thinking for themselves and in reconsidering their ideas and beliefs, the greater advantage they will have in the future to set a true course in their life as they grow.”

"These are all recommendations for young people, but they apply to people of all ages. These are things you should teach your children. This helps them to build the foundation for becoming strong, balanced and powerful in their lives. This message is for young people, but again, its wisdom is for people of all ages. For learning the wisdom of the world is necessary and can be initiated at any age, and gaining contact with Knowledge and taking the steps to Knowledge within yourself is needed by all people at all times."

Quotes about gender, sexuality and children

“Sexuality prematurely is damaging. It is preemptive. It shifts a person’s focus before they have gained a sense of themselves and their direction in life. And it is true that young boys and girls who had not had a lot of social exposure in this way later went on to become real contributors and successful in their endeavors in life.”

"Boys and girls are put together way too early. They tend to mimic each other. They compete with each other, and they are urged to assume traditional roles with each other, restraining both the young boys and the young girls from cultivating and recognizing their own natural abilities and inclinations. Everyone is expected to mate and to raise families and to have romance. So children are programmed to have romance when they are five years old through the media and through all the images of the culture. This is true in so many places today. How can people’s individual talent and ability ever be recognized under influences like this? It is like preparing all boys to be soldiers and nothing else. And the loss to society is incalculable—the loss of talent, the loss of inspiration, the loss of people’s natural direction."

Quotes about children's education

"It is incredible that people have not been encouraged as children to develop this looking and listening ability. This is a critical part of your child’s development. Developing discretion and discernment is so important, and yet it is not part of children’s curriculum. They are being prepared to have overworked minds like their parents, to be constantly exhausted by having the mind try to consider so many things and do so many things and plan so many things. Children are naturally observant, but this is schooled right out of them. Children are naturally inquisitive, but this somehow becomes lost in their education as they are demanded to think and to recite and to believe and to analyze. It is important to learn these things to a certain point, but not to dominate your mind and life."

“Religious education at an early age can be very damaging to a young person, for it is necessary, ultimately, that a people, instead of praising God or believing in the dictates or the principles of a particular religion, value and follow what God has placed within them. In the New Message, this is called Knowledge. It is the deeper mind within each person.”

"Much of what holds people back in life is their irresolved feelings and judgments regarding their relationships, even relationships in the distant past. These feelings and judgments act as a kind of dam, holding people’s feelings back, arresting them in place, influencing their perception of other people and disabling them from being able to be emotionally open and accessible to their children and to other people."

"People carry this restraint into their parenting of their own children—keeping them distant from their children, disabling them from empathizing with their children. And they often end up acting like their own parents, reflecting their experience of parenting in their own childhood, carrying this forward now inappropriately with their own children, often subjecting their children to anger and harshness and emotional distance. It is a fundamental problem in human relationships, and it is not a problem that is unknown to people. It has become the focus for much therapy and mental health."

The future of the human race

"If your children are to have a world to live in, a safe and healthy world, then environment must become the most important thing. If environment becomes the most important thing or the number one concern, then war will be ended because war is damaging to the environment. Pollution, poverty, strife and conflict between cultures and nations is antithetical to maintaining a healthy environment."

"Not thinking ahead, humanity is going to take everything now, robbing your children of their future, creating a future of unimaginable difficulties."

"You will have to pay for the sins of the past, as your children will have to pay for the sins of the present."

"At this moment, people are selling their children’s future away. They are creating a nightmarish future for their children by the way that they live, what they consume, what they believe and what they assume to be true, based upon their own habits and personal preference."

"The disasters of the future will be the great calling for humanity to wake up and to grow up, to cooperate and to begin to use this world beneficially and sustainably so that you may have a future and so that your children may thrive and bring their gifts into the world."

"People are living in a world of human politics, human economics, human speculation and human fantasy—being heedless and foolish, squandering the wealth of the world as quickly as possible with nothing saved for the future, with no thought for the future, with no thought for the well-being of children and their children and the kind of world they will have to face and live in."

"Human neglect, human irresponsibility, human denial—all these things will guarantee a far more difficult future for you and for your children and for the future generations."

"You are determining your future and the future of your children and of all people at this moment by what you think, by how you live, by what you promote and advocate and by how you identify yourself as a human being within this world."

Preparing for children quotes

"If you are prepared for having a child, if you have built a financial foundation, if you have a strong and secure relationship, if you are emotionally ready, if you have gained the maturity to be prepared to raise a family, having a child—though challenging—is a very wonderful thing. But for people who are not ready, who do not have a financial foundation, who do not have a stable and secure relationship, who are not mature or emotionally ready, well, it is almost like a disaster."

The new world our children will inherit

"If humanity does not change its course of action within the next decade, then you will have fewer options and the future for you and your children will be far more grave and far more dangerous."

"You are entering a new world—a degraded world, a world of diminishing resources and productivity, a world whose deteriorating condition will have the greatest impact upon the lives of people everywhere and the circumstances they will have to contend with. This is casting a dark future for their children. They are stealing from their children. They are robbing their children of a safe and secure future."

"You must think now not only for yourself or for your community or for your nation, but for the whole world because that will determine your fate and destiny and the well-being of your children and the children of the world."

See Also

The new life

Parenting in the Great Waves of change

Further study

• Building the Four Pillars of Your Life (September 15, 2008)

• The Great Waves of Change, Chapter 7: Preparing Your Family