Carl Pickhardt > Quotes

“Your job is to manage your relationship with me to get the freedom you need to grow. Part of my job is to tell you how to accomplish this objective. "First, you must understand change. Growth is change—the experience of moving from old to new, from the same to different, from familiar to unfamiliar, from known to unknown. Adolescence is change. To yourself and to me, you are no longer the old, same, familiar, known child that you used to be. Now you are becoming a new, different, unfamiliar, and unknown person for me to live with. This transformation is very important for you to understand, because as you change in your teen years, I change my parenting in response. "To your becoming new in some ways, I miss some of the 'old' child I knew. Feeling sad and lonely from this loss, I may hold on to the way you used to be to resist the change.”
― Carl Pickhardt, The Connected Father. Understanding Your Unique Role And Responsibilities During Your Child’s Adolescence.

“We disagree with the choice you have made, this is why, this is what we need to have happen now, and this is what we hope you can learn from this experience.”
― Carl Pickhardt, Who Stole My Child?: Parenting through the Four Stages of Adolescence

“To get along, sometimes one has to go along. To fit in, sometimes one has to accommodate. To communicate, sometimes one has to shut up. To make one’s way, sometimes one has to take what one can get.”
― Carl Pickhardt, Who Stole My Child?: Parenting through the Four Stages of Adolescence

“Try not to contaminate your parenting with social competition.”
― Carl Pickhardt, Who Stole My Child?: Parenting through the Four Stages of Adolescence

“• Everybody makes mistakes. • A mistake is a choice people would make differently if they could it do over again. • People don't makes mistakes because they want to; they make mistakes because they didn't know any better or didn't think more clearly at the time. • All mistakes are costly, but they can be worth the expense if they are used to inform and instruct. • A bad mistake can teach a good lesson. • Making a mistake is not a failing; not learning from a mistake is a failing. • It is ignorant to make a mistake; but it is stupid to repeat a mistake. • Sometimes people have to repeat the same mistake a number of times when there is something hard they don't want to learn, before they finally stop acting stupid and wise up. • The smartest people are not those who never make mistakes, but those who use mistakes to make better choices the next time around. • The stupidest people are those who are unable or unwilling to admit mistakes. The three phases described”
― Carl Pickhardt, The Connected Father. Understanding Your Unique Role And Responsibilities During Your Child’s Adolescence.

“To maintain healthy self-esteem, parents need to define themselves broadly and evaluate themselves kindly. Treating themselves well in these two ways not only leads them to being better positioned to support the adolescent when he or she is growing through inevitable hard times, but also helps them model how positive self-esteem can be maintained.”
― Carl Pickhardt, Who Stole My Child?: Parenting through the Four Stages of Adolescence

“Here is where parents can attach personal self-esteem to how the child acts and performs. A parent may”
― Carl Pickhardt, Who Stole My Child?: Parenting through the Four Stages of Adolescence