Here are 210 of the best parenting quotes I could find. The goal? To inspire you and (hopefully) help you raise wise and loving kids. Enjoy!
We have to prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child. Tim Elmore
When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son. The Talmud
To be a parent is to be chief designer of a product more advanced than any technology and more interesting than the greatest work of art. Alain de Botton
Evidence of good parenting: the child has no desire to be famous. Alain de Botton
Your children will reap what you sow. Virgil
My goal is not to be liked, it’s to raise loving and responsible kids. Maxime Lagacé
A lot of parents will do anything for their kids, except let them be themselves. Banksy
I don’t think anyone can grow unless he’s loved exactly as he is now, appreciated for what he is rather than what he will be. Fred Rogers
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. Robert A. Heinlein
Your children need your presence more than your presents. Jesse Jackson
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Instead of buying your children all the things you never had, you should teach them all the things you were never taught. Material wears out but knowledge stays. Bruce Lee
We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. Franklin D. Roosevelt
A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take. Cardinal Meymillod
Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Warren Buffett
It is a wise father that knows his own child. William Shakespeare
Related topics: patience, education, children
The Best Parenting Quotes
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed. Maria Montessori
Question for parents: do you want to make your children safe, or strong? Jordan Peterson (12 Rules for Life, Amazon book)
We’re a nation of exhausted and overstressed adults raising overscheduled children. Brené Brown
A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be. Frank A. Clark
The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed. Louisa May Alcott (Little Men)
My understanding of the way a child grows is that you create the garden, you don’t grow the flower. You can merely fertilize the earth and keep it soft and moist, and then the flower grows as best it can. Ram Dass
Every child should be taught that life is unfair so that we don’t end up with a bunch of adults who act like the world owes them something. Preethi Kasireddy
The task isn’t to tell children that they are amazing, it’s to model for them how one might live a very decent, self-accepting, humour filled and confident life knowing one isn’t anything of the sort – but fortunately, no one else is either. Alain de Botton (See also: How to Lend a Child Confidence, theschooloflife.com)
The task of a parent: to acclimatise the child to the true (often horrific) nature of reality without it giving up hope or the will to live. Alain de Botton
The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence. Denis Waitley
Tell kids stories about your failures. Tim Elmore
The best way, perhaps the only way, to change others is to become an example. Naval Ravikant
The experience of raising young children – when they’re happy, you’re happy. Naval Ravikant
True, unconditional, love is the province of parents and saints. Naval Ravikant
You can’t be wrong if you teach your kids playing, creating, listening, but most of all, loving. Maxime Lagacé
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James Baldwin
It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone. Marian Wright Edelman
One of the universal fears of childhood is the fear of not having value in the eyes of the people whom we admire so much. Fred Rogers
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood. Fred Rogers
6-year-olds should play outside and ask questions, not sit on a chair and memorize answers. Johnny Uzan
The best way of killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud. José Saramago (The Cave)
Parenthood is a great way to develop a leader’s mentality. Whatever the circumstances, there’s always one pair of eyes looking up to you. Johnny Uzan
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. Albert Einstein
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice. Charles Kettering
Children are a poor man’s riches. English proverb
Part 2. Parenting Quotes That Are…
The Most Famous Parenting Quotes
Searching for a famous parenting quote or author? Check out those by Anne Frank, Dalai Lama, Victor Hugo, Michelle Obama, etc.
At the end of the day my most important job is still mom-in-chief. Michelle Obama
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. Victor Hugo
Spend more time smiling than frowning and more time praising than criticizing. Richard Branson (Virgin)
Your child will learn more from your beautiful thinking, talking and behaviour than anything else in the world. Yoko Ono
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. Maya Angelou
Use your success, wealth and influence to put them in the best position to realize their own dreams and find their true purpose. Put them through school, set them up with job interviews and help them become leaders in their own right. Hold them to the same level of hard work and dedication that it took for you to get to where you are now, and where you will eventually go. Kobe Bryant (See also: Letter to My Younger Self, theplayerstribune.com)
I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don’t make up their minds, someone will do it for them. Eleanor Roosevelt
I wish with all my heart that every child could be so imbued with a sense of the adventure of life that each change, each readjustment, each surprise – good or bad – that came along would be welcomed as part of the whole enthralling experience. Eleanor Roosevelt
Modern education is premised strongly on materialistic values. It is vital that when educating our children’s brains that we do not neglect to educate their hearts, a key element of which has to be the nurturing of our compassionate nature. 14th Dalai Lama
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglas
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands. Anne Frank
More kids are ruined by the behavior of their parents than by the amount they inherit. Children learn from your actions. Warren Buffett
When a man dies, if he can pass enthusiasm along to his children, he has left them an estate of incalculable value. Thomas Edison
We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid. Alice Walker
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. Friedrich Nietzsche (The Dawn)
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection. Sigmund Freud
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society. Benjamin Franklin
Do I want to be a hero to my son? No, I would like to be a very real human being. That’s hard enough. Robert Downey Jr
If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. Bette Davis
More famous quotes
Short Parenting Quotes
One-liners, short parenting quotes, sayings, thoughts and captions for your bio, social status, self-talk, motto, mantra, signs, posters, wallpapers, backgrounds.
Let kids be kids. David Perell
Encourage talking. David Perell
Kids spell love T-I-M-E. John Crudele
Everything depends on upbringing. Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace)
Noble fathers have noble children. Euripides
Their lives should be good, not easy. @DailyDadEmail
Parenthood is the opiate of the masses. Chuck Palahniuk
Strengthen a parent and you strengthen a child. Fred Rogers
A parents words become the children’s thoughts. Bill Masur
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert
A boy needs a father to show him how to be in the world. Ian Morgan Cron
Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them. Lady Bird Johnson
Most parents : “Be safe”. Wise parents : “Become strong”. Fateh Singh
Your kids are wildflowers. Give them the right environment. Maxime Lagacé
Mother is a verb. It’s something you do. Not just who you are. Cheryl Lacey Donovan
There are not perfect parents just as there are no perfect children. Fred Rogers
The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering. Benjamin Spock
My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it. Clarence Budington Kelland
Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children. Charles R. Swindoll
The love you give your kids will travel several generations into the future. Thibaut
Fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man. Frank Pittman
Children aren’t coloring books. You don’t get to fill them with your favorite colors. Khaled Hosseini
More short quotes
Inspirational Parenting Quotes
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence. Plato
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. Edith Wharton
It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings. Ann Landers
Coach me and I will learn. Challenge me and I will grow. Believe in me and I will win. Unknown
The joy of mentoring isn’t in seeing your proteges follow in your footsteps. It’s in helping them discover and develop their own principles and passions. Adam Grant
As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has – or ever will have – something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression. Fred Rogers
What I would like to give my daughter is the habit of living with freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation. Erica Jong
God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. Rudyard Kipling
What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then. Fred Rogers
In every neighborhood, all across our country, there are good people insisting on a good start for the young, and doing something about it. Fred Rogers
One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation. Fred Rogers
All of our growth is rooted in the firm trust that all of those who first cared about us maintained. Fred Rogers
Teach your kids that talent doesn’t exist and that people who persevere are the wise ones. Maxime Lagacé
The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family. Reed Markham
Mostly you just have to keep plugging and keep loving — and hoping that your child forgives you according to how you loved him, judged him, forgave him, and stood watching over him as he slept, year after year. Ben Stein
There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children. Marianne Williamson
Mothers are the only ones that think nothing is beyond their control when it comes to their children. Ali Fazal
I have found the very best way to advise your children is to find out what they want to do and advise them to do it. Harry S. Truman
If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. Haim Ginott
Related article: Positive Quotes That Will Make Your Day Wonderful
See also: How to raise successful kids – without over-parenting (14 minutes YouTube video)
Helpful Parenting Sayings (Tips For Parents)
High standards, consistency, but most importantly, unconditional love, is what will help you raise good kids. Maxime Lagacé
You really have to be yourself. The best thing that you can do, for anybody, is just to offer one more honest adult in their lives. Fred Rogers
You cannot fix your children and you cannot plan their lives. You can guide, support, nurture and love them in the best way you can. Iyanla Vanzant
I am inviting you to go deeper, to learn and to practice so that you become someone who has a great capacity for being solid, calm, and without fear, because our society needs people like you who have these qualities, and your children, our children, need people like you, in order to go on, in order to become solid, and calm, and without fear. Thich Nhat Hanh
Stop telling children what to think and start teaching them how to think. Anthony Pompliano
When parents are too hands-on, kids fail to learn self-reliance. Instead of hovering like a helicopter parent, try submarine parenting: give kids the freedom to explore and surface if there’s a distress signal. Adam Grant
Snowplow parents prepare the road for kids. Responsible parents prepare kids for the road. Resilience is built not by eliminating struggle, but by normalizing it. Teach kids to see obstacles as temporary hurdles. Adam Grant
Parents focus too much on grades and goals, and too little on generosity. Kids raised to be kind are more successful in school and work — and happier too. At family dinner, don’t just ask kids what they achieved. Ask who they helped and who helped them. Adam Grant
These six words can save your child so much unnecessary pain: “I love you as you are”. Scott Barry Kaufman
Teach your kids about money before they’re old enough to earn their own. Morgan Housel
There’s someone around you who looks up to you. They may be struggling, full of doubt or afraid. You can change their life with four words. “I believe in you”. Said at the right time, those are the most powerful words in the world. Johnny Uzan
If you want to inhibit kids’ growth, keep telling them they are smart. If you want to give compliments and nurture growth, praise their curiosity and efforts. Unknown
Tips for Parents: 1. You are not always right. Don’t play God with your children. Model for them that it’s okay to be wrong sometimes. And if they question you, it’s not disrespect: It’s independent thinking, and that’s something to encourage, not shame. Neil Strauss
Best parenting advice I can give: Get your own sh*t together so you pass on as little of your own baggage as possible. The less weight your kids start with the more opportunities they’ll have. Mark Allan Bovair
Kids will follow your example. Not your advice. Don’t just tell them to: do more physical activity, eat healthier food, get outside more, do the right thing, be kind to others, read books. Make sure you are doing these things so your kids will follow. Lead by example. Jack Coulson
Being in shape is one of the greatest gifts you’ll ever give your children. Dan Go
The goal of raising children should be to create adults with the proper balance of self-love and discipline. Bill Masur
Related quotes and topic: encouragement
See also: Positive Parenting Tips (Organized by age, cdc.gov)
Funny Parenting Sayings
Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children. Sam Levenson
Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist. Michael Levine
Being a father is the single greatest feeling on earth. Not including those wonderful years I spent without a child, of course. Ryan Reynolds
Tip: It’s important parents take little “time outs” for themselves too. Even if you feel pretty guilty when you return 14 years later. Ryan Reynolds
Went to Disneyland because my daughter’s obsessed with Mickey Mouse. She was so excited when I got home and told her. Ryan Reynolds
The problem with teaching children to think for themselves is they might come to disagree with us. Alain de Botton
Children empty our pockets and fill our souls. Tim Fargo
Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going. Phyllis Diller
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. Charles Wadsworth
The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable. Lane Olinghouse
A lot of parents pack up their troubles and send them off to summer camp. Raymond Duncan
Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum
I haven’t talked to my sons for a few days so I changed the Hulu, Netflix and Amazon passwords. I heard from all 3 of them within 20 minutes. Ursula (@3sunzzz)
What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife. Rodney Dangerfield
A child, like your stomach, doesn’t need all you can afford to give it. Frank A. Clark
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. Franklin P. Adams
Related article: Funny Quotes From The World’s Funniest People
Deep Parenting Sayings
You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once. Polish proverb
What makes children happy doesn’t always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults. Brené Brown (Daring Greatly, Amazon book)
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain. John Locke
The problem with teaching children to be unmaterialistic is that they become impossible to bribe. Alain de Botton
So much better if parents remember they don’t own their children, merely borrow them from the universe for a few years. Alain de Botton
If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion. Thomas Sowell
You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child. Andrew Rae
Why bring children into this world just to send them to daycare and come back home when they’re already sleeping. @zen_fi
One of the reasons we judge each other so harshly in this world of parenting is because we perceive anyone else who’s doing anything differently than what we’re doing as criticizing our choices. Brené Brown
A mother feels empty when her child become self-sufficient. A father feels worthy when his child become self-sufficient. Alex Sauer
Mothers try to slow her sons manhood. Fathers try to speed his sons manhood. Alex Sauer
It’s nice to have a career where you add value to the world. But raising competent and caring kids is one of society’s greatest contributions. A whole generation is prioritizing work instead of their families. Y’all have been brainwashed. No wonder our society is struggling. Ryan Stephens
Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Kids need love, support and guidance. If you’re too soft, they become lazy. If you’re too demanding, they become imprisoned. Maxime Lagacé
Don’t cut your child’s wing and then later ask him to fly. Haemin Sunim
Wise Parenting Sayings
There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. Chinese proverb
It is greed to do all the talking and never to listen. Democritus
Modeling a behavior is 100x stronger than telling someone to act differently. Kids imitate the habits of their parents. Teammates match the competitive energy of one another. Employees learn to manage like their supervisor. Be the standard and others will raise their standards. James Clear
Your success as a parent is not determined by whether your kids get into elite schools or prestigious professions. The real test of parenting is not what children achieve, but who they become — and how they treat others. Adam Grant (Related topic: kindness)
Parents can believe that mistakes are good, and helpful and positive and productive for growth and learning, or they can think that they’re bad. Shane Parrish
Bring up your son with affection till he is five years of age, then be strict with him for the next ten years, and when a son attains the age of sixteen, start treating him like a friend. Chanakya
If you’re a parent and your child has no ambition to become famous, you’re doing something right. Alain de Botton
The ability to develop self-control depends upon being able to accurately predict the consequences of your own behavior. That’s why parental consistency is so important. Without it, a child wanders lost. John Rosemond
We must be what we wish our children to be. They will form their characters from ours. John S.C. Abbott
There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it. Fred Rogers
The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice. Peggy O’Mara
Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future… Let us treat them with all the kindness which we would wish to help to develop in them. Maria Montessori
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. Umberto Eco
Don’t teach your sons to obey you. Teach them to think for themselves. @LifeMathMoney
Don’t force your kid to comply with the school’s standards. Get him to find his own standards. Then hold him accountable. Johnny Uzan
Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. Emilie Buchwald
The guy who inspired me to hit the gym was my dad. He never pushed me to go. I just saw him go every morning & that was enough. Dan Go
A child learns quicker to talk than to be silent. Norwegian proverb
How do you celebrate your kids’ failures? Maxime Lagacé
Related topic: wisdom
See also: Nine Steps to More Effective Parenting (kidshealth.org)
Part 3. Parenting Quotes About…
Parenting Quotes About New Parents
Never is a man more of a man than when he is the father of a newborn. Matthew McConaughey
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. Benjamin Spock
Look at things in terms of growth rather than perfection. Thibaut
Look at things in terms of challenges rather than problems. Maxime Lagacé
Life starts out as partly destiny and partly free will, but then you have kids, and it’s all destiny. Robert Brault
At every stage of parenting, the worries of the previous stage feel madly exaggerated. Alain de Botton (As new parents, you will receive tons of advices…)
Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. P. J. O’Rourke
The young and the old don’t understand each other perfectly, but the old understand the young better than the young understand the old. The old have been young, but the young haven’t been old yet. Paul Graham
It all starts in childhood. Neurons are wired together by our early childhood experiences. If you want a better world, teach the world better parenting. Neil Strauss
Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them. Maria Montessori
To understand the baby’s mind, it is absolutely essential to take the path of observation and discovery. Maria Montessori
The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. Maria Montessori
It’s not possible to be a parent without having times of worry. Fred Rogers
The people who first feed us, hold us, play with us, and talk with us help us to begin to understand who we are and who we may become. A child’s very birth cries out for acceptance and care. Without these early on, he cannot survive. Fred Rogers
What you do or fail to do ripples across generations. Carlos Del Valle
See also: inspirational quotes for kids
See also: Baby-Proof Your Sanity: 6 Parenting Tips (webmd.com)
Quotes About Bad Parenting
You can obey a request much better than a command. Publilius Syrus
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education. Plato
You sow impatience when you don’t apologize for your impatience. Maxime Lagacé
Students with helicopter parents are more likely to burn out. They fail to develop the self-control and confidence to handle challenges. Adam Grant
Modern version of parenting: Shove an iPad in the child’s face anytime you’re actually required to be a parent. Teaches the child absolutely nothing about how to behave and interact with human beings. Preethi Kasireddy
First rule of parenting (and being a good person): You can pretend you care but you can’t pretend you are there. James Altucher
This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
If your kids misbehave and you get angry at them, the lesson you’re teaching them is about anger, not about behaving better. Be the person that you want your children to become. Neil Strauss
If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won’t either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out. Marian Wright Edelman
Being a role model is the most powerful form of education. Too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life. John Wooden
To let the child do as he likes, when he has not yet developed any powers of control, is to betray the idea of freedom. Maria Montessori
We’re raising children who have little tolerance for disappointment. Brené Brown
You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors. Brené Brown
If you’re teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are. Noam Chomsky
Quotes About Good Parenting
The best way to give feedback is to ask questions. Rorty Witt
Children become what they are told they are. Speak positively to your kids. Thibaut
Open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don’t make him afraid of the unknown, give him support. Osho
Ordinary parents do things for their kids and let them wait. Wise parents wait and let their kids fail. Maxime Lagacé
Showing an active interest in what a child is doing is sometimes the best compliment of all. Fred Rogers
I’m proud of you for the times you came in second, or third, or fourth, but what you did was the best you had ever done. Fred Rogers
We want to raise our children so that they can take a sense of pleasure in both their own heritage and the diversity of others. Fred Rogers
If the day ever came when we were able to accept ourselves and our children exactly as we and they are, then, I believe, we would have come very close to an ultimate understanding of what “good” parenting means. Fred Rogers
When I have kids someday, I think the most valuable thing I could teach them is being comfortable around people and opinions they disagree with. Harj Taggar
One person believing in you can change everything. If you can, be that person for someone else. @orangebook_
Please think of the children first. If you ever have anything to do with their entertainment, their food, their toys, their custody, their child care, their health care, their education — listen to the children, learn about them, learn from them. Think of the children first. Fred Rogers
Kids don’t need to be punished. They need to be told why their behavior was wrong and how they can make it right. Kids don’t just need to feel that they can count on others. They need to feel that others are relying on them too. Adam Grant
The parenting style that is good for grit is also the parenting style good for most other things: Be really, really demanding, and be very, very supportive. Angela Duckworth
The best advice to give is often just “you’re on the right track.” Sahil Lavingia
My motto is “Do not do that which other can do as well”. Booker T. Washington
See also: Parenting Style: The 80 Best Tips for Parents from PARENTS (parents.com)
Part 4. Conclusion
Anything that we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service. Fred Rogers
Call to action: Read Guide to Parenting (psychologytoday.com) or How to Be a Modern Parent (nytimes.com)
Hope you enjoyed these beautiful parenting quotes. If you did, please share them with a friend today!
Table Of Contents
Part 1
Top 15 Images
Best Quotes
Part 2
Parenting Quotes That ARE
Famous
Short
Inspirational
Helpful
Funny
Deep
Wise
Part 3
Parenting Quotes ABOUT
New Parents
Bad Parenting
Good Parenting
Part 4
Conclusion