What I really want for my children is that they be loved and that they be happy and that they lead a good life.
I am trying to get at the moral arguments and the ethical status of various attempts at enhancement, or genetic engineering, or the bid for designer children. But there are implications for society at large.
Today if you look at most economic textbooks, economics is not defined by subject matter. It's presented as a science of social choice that applies not only to material goods - not only to flat-screen televisions - but to every decision we make, whether it's to get married, or to stay married, whether to have children and how to educate those children, or how to look after our health.
Hollywood was never great for children.
Donald Trump has filed so many bankruptcies and busted so many companies that his children now have receding heir lines.
Students are very engaged by the issues, and it's not surprising because food choices are one of the few powers a child has.
I'm not talking about having to consult Julia Child before you can take a pot off the rack. I think that's something we can all do more and do better.
I am excited to have the opportunity to help provide the same swim instruction that I received as a child when I was enrolled in a water safety class at five-years-old.
Water has always been a large part of my life, so for me now, being a father with another child on the way, I'm just teaching some of the small things I've been able to learn - and passing that onto the younger generation. Small things like turning your faucet off when you brush your teeth, not taking a 30-minute shower when you really don't need to. So I want to teach the younger generation to spread the message and make a difference. I'm almost more excited to do this than I was to swim.
The desert could not be claimed or owned — it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East ... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.
It actually got me upset reading about adopted children. They become junkies or criminals or actors. I wanted to write a book from the children’s point of view.
Health messages are simply overwhelmed, in volume and in effectiveness, by junk-food ads that often deploy celebrities or cartoon characters to great effect. We may know that eating fruits and vegetables is good for us, but the preponderance of the signals we get - and especially the signals children get - push us in the direction of junk food.
Children have to be motivated to want to learn to read. Reading must not be taught simply as a school exercise.
A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.
There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.
It is the child's understanding that teaches the adults the way of the future. They're still doing it today with modern technology.
Elephants are my favourite creatures and have been since I was a boy and my mother read Kipling's The Elephant's Child to me. It was loving elephants so much that made we want to write my own story with an elephant at the centre and its bond with a child.
Every parent wants to do what's best for their child. Whatever I can afford, I'm going to get my kid the best education I can get.
I was kind of a strange child. My parents knew early on that something must have been wrong with me. I crawled backwards until I was two, but had Kennedy's inaugural address memorized by the time I was six.
Your children don't have to fear you to respect you.
Like Adam, formed from clay, children are formed from the biological material of which they are made or by the hands of their parents.
With writing music and writing songs and recording music and coming up with stuff, you need to kind of reengage that kind of inner child to come up with interesting perceptions.
I went to a bookstore to try to find a book. The bottom line is, it all comes by trial and error. It was scary and exciting at first you don't know what to expect. But once you look into your child's eyes, you forget about that.
People who grew up as child stars have the same thing in common. You're cute, they love you; you go through the awkward stage, they don't accept you any more. Very few make the transition to adult star.
They (children) are my teachers. I watch them and I learn. It is important for us to try and be like them and imitate them. They are golden.
