When I became pregnant with Arianna, my firstborn, I did all the following EXCEPT look up on any helpful positive parenting quotes:
- installed an app that would keep me up to date on what to expect every week as she was growing inside me,
- scoured the Internet looking for advice on how to care for a newborn,
- attended workshops on breastfeeding and gentle birthing.
I was excited, nervous… and confident that I had covered all the bases.
And struggle though I did with the physical and mental exhaustion when she came along, my husband and I, we both pulled through. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, ha!
Still, nothing prepared me for toddler Arianna.
And nothing still prepared me for pre-school Arianna.
It was both enlightening and horrifying at the same time, because I felt a creepy sense of deja vu sprinkled with a healthy dose of payback. And for the first time in my life, I understood how my parents must have felt. (I’m sorry, mama and papa!)
This time around, with Olivia, I feel better equipped to handle her baby phase. But man, oh man, I’m arming myself with all the wisdom I can acquire from the parenting experts. So this is a list of the 30 best positive parenting quotes I’ve found to inspire me on the best days and uplift me on the worst. I hope they’ll do the same for you.
30 best positive parenting quotes to inspire and uplift you
I have categorized these positive parenting quotes so that whenever you feel like you need some backup in the following areas, you can head over to them directly.
- Modelling behavior
- Be respectful and kind
- To discipline is to teach
- Establish a strong connection
- Child’s play
- A good education
- Nurturing their dreams
1. Modelling behavior
Our children see us day in and day out, so it’s only natural that some of our behavior and language rubs off on them. I don’t know about you, but nothing has made me feel like a bad mother more than this. Seeing my mini me pick up every single thing I say and do, both good and bad. As my friend puts it bluntly, monkey see, monkey do.
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
James Baldwin
One of the most important things we adults can do for young children is to model the kind of person we would like them to be.
Carol B. Hillman
To our children, everything their beloved mommy and daddy does is worth copying. They want to grow up to be exactly like mommy and daddy. If you’ve never had a mirror held up in front of you before, there is no better place to see your own reflection than in your own children.
The sign of great parenting is not the child’s behavior. The sign of truly great parenting is the parent’s behavior.
Andy Smithson
Most of us know that it’s important to model good behavior. But like I mentioned in my previous post, we’re not perfect parents. We don’t need to be. We just need to be good ones, by making a conscious decision to be a positive role model every day.
When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it’s our job to share our calm, not join their chaos.
L.R. Knost
No parent is ALWAYS conscious, gentle, positive, peaceful and authentic. We have to CHOOSE to be and practise moment by moment…day after day. The more we practise, the stronger we grow.
Lelia Schott
2. Be respectful and kind
I’ll be honest, this is a real struggle for me. Because of the way I was brought up, yelling and punishment comes as a natural response, almost a reaction.
But reading the following positive parenting quotes strikes a chord with me every time. So I have to keep these close to heart, and I hope you do, too.
Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
Rumi
No matter the problem, kindness is always the right response.
L.R. Knost
Many awful things have been done in the name of love, but nothing awful can be done in the name of respect.
Magda Gerber
Our children deserve the same respect that we seem to want to command from them. Because why would we disrespect someone we proclaim to love unconditionally, by yelling at them (or worse), just because they are smaller and weaker than us?
It is not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.
L.R. Knost
Speak with your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become.
Brooke Hampton
Whitney Houston once said that she believes that children are our future. If so, then let us raise a generation of kind and loving children, that they may grow up to nurture peace and harmony in this world.
3. To discipline is to teach
Becoming a parent has made me relearn everything I knew from my childhood. It FLOORED me to learn that the discipline I was taught both at home and in school, was not what discipline is supposed to be.
Too often, we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioral consequences.
Daniel J. Siegel
Children need tough love, but love that still respects them as an individual. They learn this tough love from the boundaries that we enforce, boundaries that are firm and unwavering, that they will test, time and again. But they are safe, because of it.
Boundaries are one of the highest forms of love.
Janet Lansbury
Acknowledging isn’t agreeing with or condoning our child’s actions; it’s validating the feelings behind them.
Janet Lansbury
When we label a behavior “not nice”, “mean” or “bad”, children take these judgments personally. It’s not only the behavior that’s bad – THEY are bad.
Janet Lansbury
It pains me when Arianna asks if she was a good or bad girl that day. Because it is a reflection of my labeling and judgment of her. It’s a constant reminder that she is ALWAYS a good girl, which I will keep repeating until it becomes nature… to BOTH of us.
4. Establish a strong connection
We can offer our children tough love by keeping the boundaries up, but at the same time, empathize with their struggles in accepting them. The one positive parenting saying that I will keep repeating to myself like a mantra is this: CONNECTION OVER CORRECTION.
Parenting is a relationship and not a technique, that’s why we should keep our focus more on connection and less on instruction.
Bridgett Miller
When you look really closely at your child, beneath it all, is the need to be seen and heard. And if that need does not get fulfilled, then, they find ways, many different ways, as many as possible, going ALL out of their way, to make us SEE them and HEAR them, just to know that we CARE.
Every day, in a 100 small ways, our children ask, “Do you hear me? Do you see me? Do I matter?” Their behavior often reflects our response.
L.R. Knost
Our children need to know that mistakes are okay, imperfections are normal and failure is just a step on the path to success.
L.R. Knost
One day your child will make a mistake or a bad choice and run to you instead of away from you and in that moment you will know the immense value of peaceful, positive, respectful parenting.
L.R. Knost
Too much love never spoils children. Children become spoiled when we substitute presents for presence.
Anthony Whitman
We need to be that safety net for our children. The one that they know will always be there, no matter what. Because that is what will enable them to have the courage to venture out into the world and leave their mark on it.
Fear is not a safety net. A strong connection is.
5. Child’s play
When I first discovered Montessori, I was in awe of her foresight and had so much respect for her faith in children’s capabilities. How would we have otherwise known the importance of play to a child?
Play is the work of the child.
Maria Montessori
Children do not play because they learn; they play because they play.
Magda Gerber
For a child, it is in the simplicity of play that the complexity of life is sorted, like puzzle pieces joined together to make sense of the world.
L.R. Knost
Do not dismiss your children’s play. Research has shown that it can be profound learning for their growing minds. It is how they learn to navigate this scary world, and provides a foundation for…
6. A good education
You only need to look at your toddler to see that Montessori was right. Your child is a baby no more, and an adult wannabe. Wanting to do everything on his own and in certain tasks, perfectly capable of doing so!
So this is a reminder to myself to cherish the (messy) journey over the end goal. Because without failing once, or twice, or many more times, we would never know to stop pouring when the cup is full, or how bad it hurts to fall off the edge.
Little children, from the moment they are weaned, are making their way toward independence.
Maria Montessori
The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.
Maria Montessori
Be careful what you teach. It might interfere with what they are learning.
Magda Gerber
It’s important to remember that every child is a genius, but also every child is different. So stop comparing and instead, celebrate their own individual brand of brilliance.
Childhood is not a race to see how quickly a child can read, write and count. It is a small window of time to learn and develop at the pace that is right for each individual child. Earlier is not better.
Magda Gerber
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
Albert Einstein
7. Nurturing their dreams
Before our children manage to find their inner cheerleader, we are their first and primary line of support. So we can set up that budding inner voice to be the harshest critic, or the world’s best cheer squad. It’s our job to cultivate the right environment that will nurture a confident, self-loving child.
Behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first.
Matthew Jacobsen
The gardener does not make a plant grow. The job of a gardener is to create optimal conditions.
Sir Ken Robinson
Every day our children spread their dreams beneath our feet. We should tread softly.
Sir Ken Robinson
So there you have it, the 30 best positive parenting quotes to inspire you on the good days, and uplift you on the bad ones. Being a parent is a lifelong responsibility, but it’s definitely one worth working hard for. Remember that it is a choice to be a good parent everyday and we can only keep getting better at it.
❤️❤️❤️????????. Love this!