Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom.
Erik EriksonRead
Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Children learn courage and resilience from the integrity and honesty of their elders regarding life and death.
This quote emphasizes the role of adults in shaping children's attitudes towards life and mortality. If elders demonstrate integrity, they instill confidence in children, allowing them to approach life's challenges without fear, as they understand the natural cycle of life and death. The integrity shown by adults helps build a foundation of strength, enabling children to navigate the world with courage.
Themes
ChildrenIntegrityFearLifeDeathElders
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a speech on parenting at a community event.
More from Erik Erikson
All quotes βMen have always shown a dim knowledge of their better potentialities by paying homage to those purest leaders who taught the simplest and most inclusive rules for an undivided mankind.
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Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.
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You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly.
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You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.
Erik EriksonRead
In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.
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