Quotes About Understanding

As Thomas Gordon pointed out, 'Parents who find unacceptable a great many things that their children do or say will inevitably foster in these children a deep feeling that they are unacceptable as persons.' That doesn't change just because the parents remember to say soothingly, 'We love you, honey; we just hate almost everything you do.

How we feel about our kids isn't as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.

Just because a child's action may have a negative effect on you doesn't mean that was the child's intention.

There's a huge difference between a student whose objective is to get a good grade and a student whose objective is to solve a problem or understand a story. What's more, the research suggests that when kids are encouraged to focus on getting better marks in school, three things tend to happen: They lose interest in the learning itself, they try to avoid tasks that are challenging, and they're less likely to think deeply and critically.

Our main question shouldn't be "How do I get my child to do what I say?" but "What does my child need - and how can I meet those needs?" In my experience, you can predict much of what happens in families just from knowing which of those questions is more important to the parents. You don't even have to know the answers they've found. The questions are what count.

My advice is to make a point of apologizing to your child about something at least twice a month. Why twice a month? I don't know. It sounds about right to me. (Almost all the specific advice in parenting books is similarly arbitrary. At least I admit it.)

The failure to adopt other people's points of view, to take an imaginative leap out of oneself, is one way to account for much of the behavior we find, troublesome, from littering to murder. (Kafka once referred to war as "a monstrous failure of imagination.") Perspective taking helps us at once to see others as fundamentally similar to ourselves despite superficial differences (in that we share a common humanity)

The point isn't just whether children know what to expect; it's whether what they've come to expect makes sense.

The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul.

Man know much more than he understands.

Man knows more than he understands.

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring

Our whole way of living inhibits that necessary intimate contact with our fellow men, which is essential for the development of the science and art of knowing human nature. Since we do not find sufficient contact with our fellow men, we become their enemies. Our behavior towards them is often mistaken, and our judgments frequently false, simply because we do not adequately understand human nature.

Ich werde es hoffentlich stets ablehnen, Menschen überzeugen zu wollen. Man kann nur versuchen, ihnen die Möglichkeiten zu zeigen, aus denen sie wählen können. Schon das ist anmaßend genug, denn wer kennt die Möglichkeiten, die der andere hat? Der andere ist nicht nur der Mitmensch, sondern auch der ganz andere, den man niemals erkennen kann. Außer. man liebte ihn.

A friend is a person who likes you for what you are, in spite of all your faults, all your shortcomings.

The word LISTEN contains the same letters as the word SILENT.

I read like the flame reads the wood.

Men sedan man har upplevat och förstått mycket, att då ännu hålla fast, att icke dö utan känna, icke avvika utan hålla stånd, det är något.

Man muß die Welt sehen können und zu ihr hingehn." S.25

Take time as it comes, the wind as it blows, woman as she is.

We'll talk without listening to each other that is the best way to get along.

Quelquefois, il y a des sympathies si réelles que, se rencontrant pour la première fois, on semble se retrouver.

Perfection does not exist. To understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; the desire to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness.

A mulher que quer rejeitar responde apenas não. A mulher que explica quer que a convençam.