If kids come to us from strong, healthy functioning families, it makes our job easier. If they do not come to us from strong, healthy, functioning families, it makes our job more important.

If you can't solve it, it's not a problem - it's reality.

There is something profoundly satisfying about sharing a meal. Eating together, breaking bread together, is one of the oldest and most fundamentally unifying of human experiences.

What is important for kids to learn is that no matter how much money they have, earn, win, or inherit, they need to know how to spend it, how to save it, and how to give it to others in need. This is what handling money is about, and this is why we give kids an allowance.

There is one thing you and I as parents cannot do, not do we want to do if we really think about it, and that's control our children's will--that spirit that lets them be themselves apart from you and me. They are not ours to possess, control, manipulate, or even to make mind.

Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, You are listened to, You are cared for, You are very important to me

Our children are counting on us to provide two things: consistency and structure. Children need parents who say what they mean, mean what they say, and do what they say they are going to do.

There's no problem so great it can't be solved. If it can't be solved, it's not a problem, it's reality.

Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.

The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the process.

We need to encourage members of this next generation to become all that they can become, not try to force them to become what we want them to become. . . . You and I can't even begin to dream the dreams this next generation is going to dream, or answer the questions that will be put to them.

Our children need to be able to see us take a stand for a value and against injustices, be those values and injustices in the family room, the boardroom, the classroom, or on the city streets.

If you cannot solve it, it is not a problem - it is reality.