Advice to Parents

Do not expect your children to fulfill your own ambitions. Help them become who they truly are, not who you want them to be.

Do not expect your children to repay you for everything you have done for them. You gave them life—how could they ever repay such a gift? They, in turn, will give life to their own children, and those children to another generation. This is the natural and everlasting cycle of gratitude.

Never take out your anger or frustration on your child, or you may one day reap the consequences. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Never underestimate your child's problems. Life gives each of us burdens according to what we are able to bear. Remember that a child's life is every bit as difficult as your own—perhaps even more so—because they face it without the benefit of experience.

The most important conflicts are often those we have with our own children. Pay close attention to them, for we never know what kind of person a child will become.

Do not be too hard on yourself if there is something you cannot do for your child. Simply remember that you have not done enough unless you have done the very best you can.

Learn to love other people's children as well. Never treat another person's child in a way that you would not want others to treat your own.

A child is not a tyrant who takes over your life. Nor is a child merely your own flesh and blood. A child is a precious Cup of Life entrusted to you so that you may help kindle the flame of creativity within. A child is the living expression of love shared between two people. From the moment of birth, you are not simply raising a child—you are nurturing a living soul.

Never humiliate your child.

Love your child regardless of who they are or what they achieve, even if they never become successful by society's standards. Rejoice whenever you are with them, for children are life's greatest celebration and one of its most precious gifts.

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## Selected Excerpts from Korczak's Educational Philosophy

Children are not the people of tomorrow—they are people of today. They have the right to be taken seriously and to be treated with respect, tenderness, and understanding. They should be free to grow into the unique person hidden within each of them—the unknown individual who carries the hope of the future. Two rights are especially important: **the right to be loved and the right to be respected.**

Equality should exist between children and adults. Society often speaks of older people with respect while treating children with condescension and patronizing affection. This is a mistake. Children deserve the same respect as adults. They may know less and be capable of less, but they are human beings with their own dignity, and the adults they will one day become deserve our respect from the very beginning.

Many children instinctively recognize the hypocrisy of adults. Adults dislike being judged by children. We do not allow them to notice our mistakes or weaknesses. Instead, we appear before them wearing the mask of perfection. We play with marked cards, defeating the humble cards of childhood with the aces of adulthood. We are the ones who cheat, arranging the deck so that all the winning cards remain in our own hands.

There are many terrible things in this world, but perhaps the worst is when a child is afraid of a father, a mother, or a teacher.

Overprotection is just as harmful. Children need opportunities to gain experience, to take risks, and to learn from their mistakes.

The more a prosperous mother fears the possibility of losing her child, the fewer opportunities that child has to grow into a physically healthy, emotionally mature, and independent human being.

"The door? It may crush a finger. The window? The child may lean out and fall. A fruit pit? They might choke. The chair? It could topple over. The knife? They may cut themselves. A stick? It might put out an eye. A tin can picked up from the ground? Infection. A match? Fire."

Out of fear that death may take our child from us, **we take the child away from life ourselves.**

**In trying to prevent them from dying, we do not allow them to live.**