David Elkind Quotes

#1. We see these adolescents mourning for a lost childhood.

David Elkind

#2. Taking the child's point of view demands good will, time, and effort on the part of parents. The child is the clear beneficiary. Parents who make the effort to understand their children's point of view are likely to treat children fairly and in an age-appropriate manner.

David Elkind

#3. When we are polite to children, we show in the most simple and direct way possible that we value them as people and care about their feelings.

David Elkind

#4. Play is not only our creative drive; it's a fundamental mode of learning.

David Elkind

#5. If it is to be done well, child-rearing requires, more than most activities of life, a good deal of decentering from one's own needs and perspectives. Such decentering is relatively easy when a society is stable and when there is an extended, supportive structure that the parent can depend upon.

David Elkind

#6. If learning to read was as easy as learning to talk, as some writers claim, many more children would learn to read on their own. The fact that they do not, despite their being surrounded by print, suggests that learning to read is not a spontaneous or simple skill.

David Elkind

#7. We now recognize that abuse and neglect may be as frequent in nuclear families as love, protection, and commitment are in nonnuclear families.

David Elkind

#8. Certainly, young children can begin to practice making letters and numbers and solving problems, but this should be done without workbooks. Young children need to learn initiative, autonomy, industry, and competence before they learn that answers can be right or wrong.

David Elkind

#9. Shift from modern nuclear family to the postmodern permeable family.

David Elkind

#10. Friendships in childhood are usually a matter of chance, whereas in adolescence they are most often a matter of choice.

David Elkind

#11. Sigmund Freud was once asked to describe the characteristics of maturity, and he replied: lieben un arbeiten ("loving and working"). The mature adult is one who can love and allow himself or herself to be loved and who can work productively, meaningfully, and with satisfaction.

David Elkind

#12. Children in the 21st (century) have been transformed from net producers of their own toy and play culture, to net consumers of play culture imposed by adults.

David Elkind