Quotes from Wendy Mogel

The sages advise us to study Torah lishma-"for its own sake" rather than to impress others with our scholarship. A paradox of parenting is that if we love our children for their own sake rather than for their achievements, it's more likely that they will reach their true potential.

If we want to give our children what they need to thrive, we must honor their basic nature- boyish or girlish, introverted or extroverted, wild or mellow.

A Hasidic teaching says, "If your child has a talent to be a baker, don't tell him to be a doctor." Judaism holds that every child is made in the divine image. When we ignore a child's intrinsic strengths in an effort to push him toward our notion of extraordinary achievement, we are undermining God's plan.

Real protection means teaching children to manage risks on their own, not shielding them from every hazard.

Unsure how to find grace and security in the complex world we've inherited, we try to fill up the spaces in our children's lives with stuff: birthday entertainments, lessons, rooms full of toys and equipment, tutors and therapists. But material pleasures can't buy peace of mind, and all the excess leads to more anxiety—parents fear that their children will not be able to sustain this rarefied lifestyle and will fall off the mountain the parents have built for them.

No one is born feeling grateful; it's an acquired skill. That's why traditional Jewish law forbids spending money on the Sabbath. God commands us to stop shopping and count our blessings on that one day because he knows that left on our own, we wouldn't be so inclined.

A cornerstone of Jewish thought is that God created each of us to fulfill a specific purpose during life in this world. Each person is responsible for discovering and carrying out their divinely intended purpose.

One of the most generous gifts you can give your child is to study her temperament, and once you've learned it, work to accept it.

We take a snapshot of our teens in their current phase and mistake it for the epic movie of their entire life.

There was a time when a young person rose when an adult entered the room, would not consider calling adults by their first names, and automatically came to the door to pick up a date. I am not nostalgic for this time. Socially acceptable behavior also included discrimination of every sort, sweeping family problems under the rug, and establishing household order through intimidation and submissive deference to Dad the All-Knowing Patriarch.

Always, Judaism stresses deed before creed. Your actions, not your beliefs, are the true measure of your character...Judaism teaches that whether a person is considerate of others is as important as whether he prays daily. We are the sum of our actions, and most of our actions are small deeds, not large gestures.

A large, nationally representative study published in the journal Pediatrics showed that children aged ten to fifteen who play video games on any platform for an hour or less a day demonstrate better psychosocial adjustment compared with no play, whereas the opposite was true for those engaging in more than three hours of daily play.

If a child is distressed and sees Mom react with panic, he knows he should wail; if she's compassionate but calm, he tends to recover quickly.

How Do I Decide? A Contemporary Jewish Approach to What's Right and Wrong, Rabbi Roland B. Gittlesohn's

Everything You NEVER Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex but Were Afraid They'd Ask, by Justin Richardson and Mark Schuster.

The Blessing of a B Minus: The Real Lessons of Homework, Chores, and Jobs

Daughters don't need to respect their mothers, she says, and mothers don't need to demand that feeling from their daughters. The daughter can feel any way she likes. But in order to have the privilege of your attention she is required to speak politely.

Teens are by nature, experimental learners. There is no real understanding of biology without the lab.