Associations and sympathy have far more influence with children, than argument or reasoning. Or rather, we might almost say, associations and sympathy have all the influence, and argument none at all… If you have no sympathy with [your children’s] childish feelings, you can gain no sympathy in their hearts for the sentiments and principles you may endeavor to inculcate upon them. If, however, you can secure their affection and sympathy, your power over them is almost unbounded. They will believe whatever you tell them, and adopt the principles and feelings you express, simply because they are yours. They will catch the very tone of your voice, and expression of your countenance, and reflect spontaneously, the moral image, whatever it may be, which your character may hold up before them.
~ Jacob Abbott

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
~ Erma Bombeck

Parents are not interested in justice, they are interested in quiet.
~ Bill Cosby

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
~ Phyllis Diller

The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
~ King Edward VII

The reason you want your kids to pay attention in school is you haven’t the faintest idea how to do their homework.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

Nurses nurse
and teachers teach
and tailors mend
and preachers preach
and barbers trim
and chauffeurs haul
and parents get to do it all.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

An advantage of having one child is you always know who did it.
~ Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz

Parenting — not politics, not the classroom, not the laboratory, not even the pulpit — is the place of greatest influence.
~ Kent and Barbara Hughes

Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they’re going to catch you in next.
~ Franklin P. Jones

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Our children are being raised by appliances.
~ Bill Moyers

Having a kid is like falling in love for the first time when you’re 12, but every day.
~ Mike Myers

Never raise your hand to your children; it leaves your midsection unprotected.
~ Robert Orben

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.
~ Robert Orben

I was doing the family grocery shopping accompanied by two children, an event I hope to see included in the Olympics in the near future.
~ Anna Quindlen

Having children is like living in a frat house — nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there’s a lot of throwing up.
~ Ray Romano

Have children while your parents are still young enough to take care of them.
~ Rita Rudner

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord.
~ John Ryle, in The Duties of Parents

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys, — these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily, — these are the clues you must follow if you would ind the way to his heart.
~ J.C. Ryle

Parents, do you wish to see your children happy? Take care, then, that you train them to obey when they are spoken to, –to do as they are bid…. Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long, and wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control.
~ J. C. Ryle

A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated family.
~ Thomas Scott

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
~ Thomas Sowell

Train up a child in the way he should go–but be sure you go that way yourself.
~ Charles Spurgeon

An evil upbringing in the home is worse than the wars of God and Magog.
~ Talmud, Berakot, 7

He who teaches his son is as if he had taught his son, his son’s son, and so on to the end of all generations.
~ Talmud, Kiddushin, 30

Do not threaten a child.  Either punish or forgive him.
~ Talmud, Semahot, 2, 6

Hardly anything can be more important in the mental training of a child than the bringing him to do it in its proper time, whether he enjoys it or not. The measure of a child’s ability to do this becomes, in the long run, the measure of his practical efficiency in whatever sphere of life he labors.
~ ~ H. Clay Trumbull, in Hints on Child Training

No parent ought to punish a child except with a view to the child’s good. And in order to do good to a child through his punishment, a parent must religiously refrain from punishing him while angry.
~ H. Clay Trumbull, in Hints on Child Training

Parents: A peculiar group who first try to get their children to walk and talk, and then try to get them to sit down and shut up.
~ Wagster’s Dictionary of Humor and Wit

Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
~ John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

I’ve got two wonderful children — and two out of five isn’t too bad.
~ Henry Youngman

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
~ Unknown