Quotes on Discipline: High-Level Parenting Insights About Loving Unconditionally Beyond Discipline!

• These quotes on discipline are spoken from a place of high awareness, unconditional love and deep respect for children.

• In this way you can view these parenting quotes as high-level parenting guidelines and parenting advice.

• These quote on discipline actually go beyond discipline in the traditional sense of the word as they are not encouraging old fashion discipline such as controlling the behavior of our kids.

• No, these parenting quotes celebrate children empowerment by providing unconditional support for our kids.

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Loving Unconditionally Quotes

Let's jump straight into the most important thing in parenting, namely loving unconditionally.

Loving unconditionally sounds trivial and banal but I can assure you it is not.

Unconditional parenting is about showing your kids that you love them even when they screw-up or misbehave.

I came across the following parenting quote by Harold Hulbert a little while back and was struck by the sheer, simple power of it and the radical, norm provoking message of being a pillar of unconditional love for your children, irrelevant of their behavior:

Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.
~ Harold Hulbert ~

Can you feel it? The power? It feels true doesn't it?

Because when is it, we really need to feel loved?

It's when we're sad, angry or frustrated, right!

Here is another parenting quote about loving unconditionally spoken by the unofficial king of unconditional parenting, Alfie Kohn:

You have to give them unconditional love. They need to know that even if they screw up, you love them. You don't want them to grow up and resent you or, even worse, parent the way you parented them.
~ Alfie Kohn ~

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Parenting Theories About The Big Picture!

So what does high-level parenting advice focus on?

The long term perspective!

Raising children to become loving, respectful and conscious adults!

Many common parenting techniques are simply short term survival strategies of desperate parents trying to cope with the here and now.

Typically many parents try to manipulate and control their children in order to get instant obedience so that they can have a more easy life.

This is understandable. Parenting can be really hard!

However, by questioning your own behavior as a parent, questioning your beliefs, your child discipline theories, you can actually raise parenting to another level.

Traditional parenting theories are typically just a reproduction of society's control focused value system - and they don't work!

They tend to suppress the individual and rob them of their sense of freedom.

Radical Honesty speaker Brad Blanton is particularly sceptical of society's norms and values as well as their theories.

In relation to parenting Brad Blanton says:

Event though all explanations and standards are just more bullshit from the mind, some work better than others.
~ Brad Blanton, Radical Parenting ~

What does work is connecting with your child to sense what your child really needs.

In this way positive parenting, attachement parenting and unconditional parenting are parenting styles that focus on the child's needs to bring those attractive long term results such as high self esteem, high awareness, critical thinking, taking responsibility for one's own life and genuine respect for other people.

Here are some parenting quotes that focus on seeing the Big Picture and questioning your own parenting belief systems:

Keeping the Big Picture in mind is one of the most important things parents can do, and also one of the hardest.
~ T. Berry Brazelton ~

If we don’t shape our kids, they will be shaped by outside forces that don’t care what shape our kids are in.
~ Dr. Louise Hart ~

When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.
~ Alfie Kohn ~

Children belong in families, which, ideally, serve as a sanctuary and a cushion from the world at large. Parents belong to society and are a part of that greater world. Sometimes parents are a channel to the larger society, sometimes they are a shield from it. Ideally they act as filters, guiding their children and teaching them to avoid the tempting trash.
~ Dr. Louise Hart ~

There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.
~ Frank A. Clark ~

Sometimes we have to put our foot down, ... but before we deliberately make children unhappy in order to get them to get into the car, or to do their homework or whatever, we need to weigh whether what we're doing to make it happen is worth the possible strain on our relationship with them.
~ Alfie Kohn ~

Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.
~ Lady Bird Johnson ~

Sometimes we can get very confused when the theories that we've learnt don't work or feel downright wrong.

So what can we do then?

Connect with your kid, sense the needs and let your theories go!

Here are more quotes on discipline:

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
~ John Wilmot ~

In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck - and, of course, courage.
~ Bill Cosby, Fatherhood ~

The following parenting quotes are not about disciplining your kids but about you, the parenting, questioning if what you do to your kids makes complete sense!

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Learn to Question Your Own Parenting Beliefs!

Parenting is a journey that never ends because parents have just as much to learn as kids do.

While children are learning about themselves in relation to the world, so are we.

I find that parenting has taught me so much about myself, my actions, my reactions, my beliefs, my theories, my limits etc.

For instance conflicts with my son has taught me to always look myself first to see if my beliefs (what I want my kid to do) make complete sense.

Often they don't!

Often they are just rigid beliefs passed on by society.

Here are more parenting quotes that focus on you, the parents:

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
~ C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality ~

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.
~ Josh Billings ~

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
~ Joyce Maynard ~

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.
~ Angela Schwindt ~

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Parenting Quotes About Children and Empowerment
- Avoiding Judgments, Teachings and Control!

What do we actually do when we 'teach', judge and control our children?

Well, some of things that may happen are that we end up killing our kids' sense of curiosity, natural desire for exploration and very importantly, their gut feeling.

If our children obey us out of fear, how will they ever learn to be reflective and question silly norms and values?

If we always tell our kids what to do, how will they ever learn how to make good choices?

If we always disregard their opinion as irrelevant and unimportant, how will they ever get to learn the power of their gut feeling and natural instinct?

If we always judge our kids on their achievements, how will they ever learn that they are loved for who they are and not what they do?

Here are some quotes on discipline that are about children empowerment, respect and loving unconditionally:

A child seldom needs a good talking to as a good listening to.
~ Robert Brault ~

I say to my child, "If you have not failed yourself, you have not failed me, and you are the sole judge in the matter."
~ Robert Brault ~

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.
~ Annie Sullivan ~

Stop trying to perfect your child, but keep trying to perfect your relationship with him.
~ Dr. Henker ~

As your kids grow they may forget what you said, but won't forget how you made them feel.
~ Kevin Heath ~

And yet, parenting teens is so often about having the good judgment to withhold one's better judgment.
~ Robert Brault ~

Parents can tell but never teach, unless they practice what they preach.
~ Arnold Glasow ~

Taking time and sharing is the essence of teaching. The future of those we cherish will be a reflection of what we model today.
~ Parenting Quote ~

We are apt to forget that children watch examples better than they listen to preaching.
~ Roy L. Smith ~

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Give Your Kids Space to Learn Their Own Truths at Their Own Pace!

These quotes on discipline are not about tightening control but more about letting go of it!

They're about letting go of our tendency to teach and preach so that our kids may have an opportunity to learn about life and finding their own truths:

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
~ Roger Lewin ~

It is not about teaching, it is about allowing learning to take place.
~ M.D. ~

Kid to kid: "I don't get my mom -- she expects me to know why I want to do something before I even do it."
~ Robert Brault ~

The next parenting are about trusting your gut more than rigid discipline theories.

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Listening to Your Gut Is Your Greatest Gift to Your Kids!

When you sit down with an open mind and fully connect to and bond with your child, you much easier sense what it is your kid needs.

When you feel the need, meet it ... unconditionally!

Doing that is a tribute to the power of your gut feeling and intuition and to your kid's well being.

Forget about dogmas - listen to your kid and trust your gut!

Here are some wise parenting quotes about what children actually need:

Parents have become so convinced that educators know what is best for their children that they forget that they themselves are really the experts.
~ Marian Wright Edelman ~

Children naturally imitate those around them. When adults discover what a child's behavior is actually communicating, they are better able to respond to the need rather than react to the behavior.
~ Brad Blanton, Radical Parenting ~

Your children need your presence more than your presents.
~ Jesse Jackson ~

 

Adults who are respectful of children are not just modeling a skill or behavior, they are meeting the emotional needs of those children, thereby helping to create the psychological conditions for children to treat others respectfully.
~ Alfie Kohn ~.

If I had my child to raise all over again, I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later. I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less. I would do less correcting and more connecting. I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes. I'd take more hikes and fly more kites. I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play. I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars. I'd do more hugging and less tugging.
~ Diane Loomans, If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again ~

The next quotes on discipline are about you disciplining yourself rather than your children!

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What You Are Is What You Get

These parenting quotes are very simple and powerful in their message:

What you give, is what you get!

The way you treat your children will come right back in your face. So consider your moves well!

Here are some great quotes on discipline:

All children behave as well as they are treated.
~ Jan Hunt ~

Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be.
~ David Bly ~

To me parenting is all about trust. If you don't live by your words or actions how do you expect your kids to listen to you?
~ Kevin Heath ~

For only as we ourselves, as adults, actually move and have our being in the state of love, can we be appropriate models and guides for our children. What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.
~ Joseph Chilton Pearce ~

The real menace about dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
~ Jean Kerr ~

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
~ Robert Fulghum ~

Children have more need of models than of critics.
~ Carolyn Coats, Things Your Dad Always Told You But You Didn't Want to Hear ~

What's done to children, they will do to society.
~ Karl Menninger ~

Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.
~ Parenting Quote ~

And now for the last batch of parenting quotes.

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One of the Toughest Things:
- Parents Letting Go of Their Capable Kids!

Often we love our children so much that let the fear of losing them tends to guide our actions.

To protect them from physical injury etc. we try to control them more to shield them from exploring the consequences of their actions.

However, letting go empowers kids in the long run and teaches them responsibility and choice making from the consequences of their own actions.

Really, it's about trusting your kid!

Here are some quotes on discipline / parenting quotes about trust and parents letting go:

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings.
~ Hodding Carter, Jr. ~

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.
~ Sloan Wilson ~

It is one thing to show your child the way, and a harder thing to then stand out of it.
~ Robert Brault ~

As parents, we strive to raise kids certain of our love and confident of their next meal, which, let's face it, means giving up a little leverage.
~ Robert Brault ~

I hope you enjoyed these parenting quotes just as much as I did.

If you want to read more parenting articles written from the same philosophical standpoint of going beyond discipline and loving unconditionally, you're welcome to follow some of my links below.  

Your Positive Parenting Ally,
Birgitte

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