I think that giving mindless praise is ridiculous. But I understand why parents do it. They want their kids to feel good about themselves. But parents are never going to teach their children true, positive self esteem by praising everything they do.
There are parents with wealth who just want their kids to be wealthy, and then there are other parents with money who want to teach their kids how they got it. That's what my dad was like.
There is an old saying that you're a product of your environment. Parents can only do so much when eight hours of the day is spent at school. As parents, we try to teach our kids to be respectful to others and teach them old values, but a lot of it is down to the schools.
A lot of parents aren't exactly sure how to go about solving a problem with a kid in a way that's mutually satisfactory - doing that with their child feels very foreign to a lot of people. It probably explains why so many parents tell me their kids don't listen to them and why so many kids tell me that they don't feel heard.
I understand why parents worry about books - they're worried about their kids. They want to keep their kids safe. But parents aren't always realistic.
There are many kids who are greedy or don't appreciate things or take things for granted but it's not their fault. It's the parents who have to show and teach them the difference between right and wrong.
I feel sorry for the poor kids whose parents feel they're qualified to teach them at home. Of course, some parents are smarter than some teachers, but in the main I see home-schooling as misguided foolishness.
I feel like kids are the perfect psychic investigators of their parents, and kids understand their parents' unconscious better than the parents ever do.
The hardest part about this business is being away from the kids. But what I hope to teach him - and what I hope to teach all kids that are kind of looking at this - is that to achieve anything, it takes a lot of sacrifice.
I worry about the kids who have too much. As a parent living in a so-called good neighborhood with children who went to private high school, I found myself spending much time in parent groups worrying about alcohol, unsupervised parties, and parents not being parents. We've got to send messages to our kids about what is important.
I spent a lot of time in boarding school. This is something I will never do to my kids. I think if you're having kids, then you have to take care of them; otherwise, what's the point? There are many things that parents say are good for the kids, but the truth is they say that because it is good for the parents.
I want to teach parents how they can help their kids with death, grief, and losing things, the journey of life.
We're doing a bunch of shoots with kids about the election, about politics, about racism. I like to talk about heavy topics with kids because you find out what their parents are feeding them at home, and then you find out their quick reactions to things. It's so refreshing when kids are so honest.
If you're a teacher you have to teach the curriculum, all that stuff, you have to teach morals, you have to teach values, and you have to teach, all-importantly, self-control. Because a lot of kids don't have it.
I think about some of those parents and friends of mine who have to turn their kitchen tables into home offices and school rooms and juggle that, trying to teach their kids. That's pretty hard.
For kids, it's best to teach them how to fold their clothes first. Kids will be able to fold their clothes at about three years old. You don't want to teach them how to put away toys first because it's difficult. Clothes are something kids wear every day, so it's easy for them to have a sense about their belongings.