To sense when a teenager needs understanding and when misunderstanding is a difficult and delicate task. The sad truth is that no matter how wise we are, we cannot be right for any length of time in our teenagers' eyes.

Many teenagers are tormented by terrors they deem private and personal. They do not know that their anxieties and doubts are universal.

Misbehavior and punishment are not opposites that cancel each other - on the contrary they breed and reinforce each other.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.

A modern teacher educates children to value their emotions.

How can we help a child change from undependable to dependable, from a mediocre student to a capable student, from someone who won't amount to very much to someone who will count for something. The answer is at once both simple and complicated: We treat a child as if he already is what we would like him to become.

While parents possess the original key to their offspring's experience, teachers have a spare key. They, too, can open or close the minds and hearts of children.

Teenagers crave independence. The more self-suf-ficient we make them feel, the less hostile they are toward us.

To be himself, one neeeds to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise

Wise parents know that fighting a teenager, like fighting a riptide, is inviting doom.

Responsibility is fostered by allowing children a voice and wherever indicated a choice in matters that affect them.

Only if a child feels right can he think right.

Each of us carries within himself a collection of instant insults.

Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.

Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it.

I have great faith in 'ordinary parents.' Who has a child's welfare more at heart than his ordinary parent? It's been my experience that when parents are given the skills to be more helpful, not only are they able to use these skills, but they infuse them with a warmth and a style that is uniquely their own.

Parenthood is an endless series of small events, periodic conflicts, and sudden crises which call for a response. The response is not without consequence: it affects personality for better or for worse.