Quotes from Kevin Leman

Your child needs not only your attention but also a relationship with you.

Because no one is perfect, we all desperately need forgiveness. By forgiving others you allow them to be human, and in doing so it makes you more aware of how human you really are. Think of all the people you've judged because of their behavior. Isn't it true that some of them behave in very similar ways to you? There isn't a person on the face of this earth who doesn't need grace.

Couples who work together learn how to take stress not as a personal attack but as a challenge they can take on together. The key to growth and enrichment in marriage is in discovering ways to convey, "I understand how you feel and I'm going to do my best to meet your needs. I love you, and I'll be around forever.

Think about and meditate on things you are thankful for. More importantly, think about people you are thankful for and why.

I didn't have to be a slave to the worst tendencies of my personality.

If you give your people halfhearted leadership, you'll get a halfhearted following. But if you invest yourself in them, if you have a heart for them, your people will return your investment with a heartfelt following.

Reality discipline steers a course between an authoritarian style and a permissive style, giving kids some choices but also holding them accountable.

What happens to children of critical-eyed parents is that they begin avoiding criticism at all costs because it becomes too threatening. Rather than finish a task, they'll stop an inch short and start something else.

Everything is more effective when it's done in love rather than anger. Love really is a decision.

Big businesses are beginning to realize that the employee who puts his job before his home life is not as effective as the one who has a happy, fulfilling marriage.

Great leaders instill a sense of meaning and belonging in their followers by putting the personal imprint of who they are and what they stand for on their people.

For those of you who have childhood memories with pain or loss in them, it probably doesn't take much to recall those grievances and grudges. But as we look at the power of confronting the truth about your past, I hope that you (...) can avoid the waste before the days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. You can take control. You can avoid those wasted years. And it's never too late to start.

No matter what you've been through, you can make it!

There are all sorts of lies you tell yourself over and over until you accept them as readily as you do your own skin. And it isn't always easy to recognize them as lies.

The biggest lie you'll ever tell yourself is, "I'm going to try to do that." There's no trying. There's either doing it or not doing it. Trying is a state of mind. The difference between trying and doing? The level of commitment.

They believe they have to earn their value and their worth, and that's why they always try to please.

One Plus One Equals One.

Every day your child is assaulted with the pressures of not feeling good enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, etc., to be part of a peer group. What does she get from you? Realistic encouragement, kind truth, and empathy? Or criticism, put-downs, and "you ought to know better than that"?

Born to Rebel: Birth Order Family Dynamics and Creative Lives, a book that contained overwhelming statistical evidence that birth order theory does have credence and validity.

By their very nature, firstborns hate to make mistakes. They are careful and calculating and sticklers for rules and regulations.

Women are not for using. Women are for loving.

Most arguments with teenagers are setups. Your darling, simply stated, is manipulating you.

How parents interact with each child as he or she enters the family circle determines in great part that child's final destiny.