Quotes from Benjamin Spock

What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all.

Every child senses, with all the horse sense that's in him, that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly, wondering how awful it might be.

The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

When women are encouraged to be competitive, too many of them become disagreeable.

I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mother and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidences in themselves - happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they have, and of all the opportunities that come their way. They will make light of any handicaps.

It's not the words but the music that counts.

A word about TV: If a television is on, an infant will stare at it. This is not a sign of advanced development. TV entertains at a cost. Young children easily become dependent on the TV for stimulation and lose some of their natural drive to explore. A child with a plastic cup and spoon, a few wooden blocks, and a board book can think up fifty creative ways to use those objects; a child in front of a TV can only do one thing.

In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

Your baby doesn't need a pillow for her head, and you should not use one. Likewise, it's best to keep stuffed animals out of your baby's crib or cradle; little babies don't care much about them, and they may pose a suffocation

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

The surest way to raise mentally healthy children is to cultivate loving, nurturing, and mutually respectful relationships with them. Loving means, first of all, accepting your child as a person. Every child has strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges. Loving means adjusting your expectations to fit your child, not trying to adjust your child to fit your expectations.

Perhaps a child who is fussed over gets a feeling of destiny; he thinks he is in the world for something important, and it gives him drive and confidence.

Another subtle but worrisome effect television has on its viewers is its tendency to promote passivity and a lack of creativity. Watching television requires little mental activity on the viewer's part. You simply sit and let the images flow by. Some research suggests that this sort of nonparticipatory viewing fosters a short attention span, making it hard for children to apply themselves in school. Obesity

Respect children because they're human beings and they deserve respect, and they'll grow up to be better people.

There are only two things a child will share willingly: communicable diseases and his mother's age.

As a peace activist, I am dismayed by the encouragement of aggressiveness and violence by television, movies, and war toys.

Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

I think we should bring up our children with much less pressure to compete and get ahead: no comparing one child with another, at home or in school; no grades. Let athletics be primarily for fun, and let them be organized by children and youths themselves.

I love to dance and I'd love to be saying goodbye to my friends while the band was playing and they were dancing...I want them to remember I was a dancing man in my day.