Before we sent kids to computer camps and told them they were having a good time, there was imagination among the human species.
Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted.
I firmly believe kids don't want your understanding. They want your trust, your compassion, your blinding love and your car keys, but you try to understand them and you're in big trouble.
In Cuba they don't celebrate Halloween but my favorite moments have been trick-or-treating with my kids here in the U.S.: they really enjoy it.
I've always felt a little different than everyone - you know, most of the other kids in my class - and I didn't quite see things the way they did or I didn't experience things the same way they did. I often felt a little bit like an outcast.
My husband gave up all his work to stay at home with the kids, and we split all the duties at home. I do all the boring stuff - like pay the bills, and he does all the exercising for both of us, which Im very grateful for... I thank him for it regularly.
Language is always evolving. It's difficult to read Shakespeare now because language has shifted. Similarly, kids these days can get to the point really quick in about 140 characters or less because of these new tools.
Hip hop has evolved, thankfully. Kids are making music that is important to their lives and outlooks.
I took to religion at about age 12; it was very hard for me to be Sabbath observant as a kid in a home which was not Sabbath observant. I think my parents thought the whole Jewish thing was a phase.
Every kid Grade 6 and up carries a cellphone - with that they can access the world. They are the most connected, aware generation that's ever existed.
There's also a growing trend toward having gardens in schools to literally show kids where food comes from by having them grow and prepare their own food. There's also a movement that's bringing farmers into schools and creating relationships between local farms and local cafeterias, so that instead of frozen mystery meat, you have fresh produce that's coming from the area that has a name and a face associated with it.
The obesity epidemic among American children is becoming so bad that I think there's a growing realization across the country that we've got to change what we're feeding our kids and that school may be a really good place to start.
Kids have no idea when they're drinking soda what they're really drinking, and a lot of them are stunned when they learn that drinking a Big Gulp is like taking a big jar of sugar and just pouring it down. There are 50 teaspoons of sugar in a 64-ounce Big Gulp.
When you are 25, 30, you know, you have no responsibility, no mortgage, no kids, no retirement to think about, nothing.
I jump out of the boat [in The Lost World], and I'm trying to swim to the kid, and my boots fill with water, and I start to drown, and the director has no idea why I'm flailing around. He's, "Come on, come on!" And I managed to rescue myself. I'm wet and sitting on the banks of the river, and John walks over to me and says, "Are you all right, dear boy?" "Yeah, I'm all right."
I was lucky to grow up with phenomenal parents who were into talking about things. When something hit me hard as a kid, we'd just talk about it. I'm usually pretty open about what's going on with me. I'm not a great actor in the sense that I can't fake it if I'm going through something difficult.
Honestly, I was a good kid but I figured out pretty early that I had a gift for making people laugh. I wanted to entertain and when that happens you tend to get yourself in trouble in class.
I used to play trumpet when I was a kid, and then I got braces, and I couldn't really play it anymore, so sometimes I wish I could still play that; I think it's a great instrument, so maybe one of these days I'll pick it back up.
I learned how to play the music working with my dad. Because in the beginning I was super excited, I had this gig, I was a kid, I got cocky and didn't want to take lessons.
Circulating through the children's ward and seeing terminally ill kids, heads shaved, smiling and having a ball despite the tubes and needles sticking into them, I thought: What do I have to worry about? If God takes me, at least I've lived for 35 years.
The kids competed for a full 32 minutes. We want the kids to compete on every possession.
It's taken me to be an older guy, an old man, to have an old man's voice. Because I only liked old men's voices. As a kid, I didn't like pip-squeaked singers.
You know, we have a fiscal train wreck before us. And unless we act, and act deliberately, we're not going to enable our kids to have what we have. It's plain and simple as that.
Have you seen 'American Idol' lately? I'm sure that some kids somewhere at this moment are thrashing themselves silly over what they call 'Rock n' Roll.
As accurately as I possibly can. I explain , to my kid, that love's an elusive, fragile and resilient thing. And as far as the lyrics, I say that part of being an adult is being sexual, and when you're in a relationship, to express yourself that way is a beautiful thing.
