Struggle For Kids Quotes & Sayings

It's called Yes Please because it is the constant struggle and often the right answer. Can we figure out what we want, ask for it, and stop talking? Yes please. Is being vulnerable a power position? Yes please. Am I allowed to take up space? Yes please. Would you like to be left alone? Yes please. I love saying "yes" and I love saying "please." Saying "yes" doesn't mean I don't know how to say no, and saying "please" doesn't mean I am waiting for permission. "Yes please" sounds powerful and concise. It's a response and a request. It is not about being a good girl; it is about being a real woman. It's also a title I can tell my kids. I like when they say "Yes please" because most people are rude and nice manners are the secret keys to the universe. — Amy Poehler

I had a sense that my mother was struggling, when I was a kid, working twelve hour days, making $12,000 a year with two kids in a trailer park. — Cecily McMillan

According to a 1995 study, a sample of Japanese eighth graders spent 44 percent of their class time inventing, thinking, and actively struggling with underlying concepts. The study's sample of American students, on the other hand, spent less than 1 percent of their time in that state. "The Japanese want their kids to struggle," said Jim Stigler, the UCLA professor who oversaw the study and who cowrote The Teaching Gap with James Hiebert. "Sometimes the [Japanese] teacher will purposely give the wrong answer so the kids can grapple with the theory. American teachers, though, worked like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class kept gliding along. But you don't learn by gliding. — Daniel Coyle

were her kids. But the drugs and the late-night fighting revealed troubles that too many hillbilly transplants knew too well. Confronted with such a realization of her own family's struggle, Mamaw — J.D. Vance

I think it's important for kids to express themselves with bad fashion. I struggle a little bit now because I have a daughter and I feel with fashion, like they're sexualizing the kids so young. Little kids in high heels and that kind of thing is really difficult for me to wrap my head around. — Busy Philipps

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard. — Pedro Noguera

If there's no fire, there's no scream. If there's no scream, then no one hears you and no one comes to help you in the first place. The depth of my struggle has definitely determined the height of my success. To be able to teach my kids not just about success but about the struggle that comes with it. — R. Kelly

When I throw back my head and howl
People (women mostly) say
But you've always done what you want,
You always get your way
- A perfectly vile and foul
Inversion of all that's been.
What the old ratbags mean
Is I've never done what I don't.

So the shit in the shuttered chateau
Who does his five hundred words
Then parts out the rest of the day
Between bathing and booze and birds
Is far off as ever, but so
Is that spectacled schoolteaching sod
(Six kids, and the wife in pod,
And her parents coming to stay)...

Life is an immobile, locked,
Three-handed struggle between
Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)
The unbeatable slow machine
That brings what you'll get. Blocked,
They strain round a hollow stasis
Of havings-to, fear, faces.
Days sift down it constantly. Years.

--The Life with the Hole in It — Philip Larkin

As it was, being a bad mother was child's play compared to being a good mother, which was an incessant struggle, a lose-lose situation 24 hours a day; long after the kids were in bed the torment of what I did or didn't do during those hours we were trapped together would scourge my soul. — Mary Kubica

I have a lot of
I struggle with a lot of shame over my past. There have been times when I've been incredibly embarrassed about the things that happened to me. I don't think that there is one human being in this world that would wish, you know, to be injured as a kid the way
in ways that I was. — Traci Lords

Now The Head Lines


How do you like your truth?
Gently spoken on breakfast TV
By a man and a woman who sit comfortably
Saying riots, and murder, when will it end?
As they struggle to act as if they are good friends.

How do you like your truth?
Bite-sized in sound bites cut easy to chew, With a talking head saying the victim's like you
And when you've digested the horrors you've seen
You find good, you find evil, and no in-between.

How do you like your truth?
Fantastic, sensational, printed in bold,
Today it's exclusive, tomorrow it's old,
All on the surface with nothin too deep
With a story about animals to help you to sleep

How do you like your youth?
From perfect families with parents thet care,
Or in perfect families but still in despair,
Ten out of ten parents say they'd not choose
To have bad kids like those in the news. — Benjamin Zephaniah

Connecting with the kids is a great joy for me. I love meeting them backstage or at a signing event. I am overwhelmed when I meet kids who struggle with terminal illnesses. — Jodi Benson

Teach your students real-world writing purposes, add a teacher who models his or her struggles with the writing process, throw in lots of real-world mentor texts for students to emulate, and give our kids the time necessary to enable them to stretch as writers. — Kelly Gallagher

If you love freedom, if you think the human condition is dignified by privacy, by the right to be left alone, by the right to explore your weird ideas provided you don't hurt others, then you have common cause with the kids whose web-browsers and cell phones are being used to lock them up and follow them around.
If you believe that the answer to bad speech is more speech - not censorship - then you have a dog in the fight.
If you believe in a society of laws, a land where our rulers have to tell us the rules, and have to follow them too, then you're part of the same struggle that kids fight when they argue for the right to live under the same Bill of Rights that adults have. — Cory Doctorow

Kelli Farrell talks about the difference between girls and boys who struggle to get through high school: "Girls, especially those whose moms are head of household, get the message that men come and go, that they're going to have to take care of themselves and their kids. They're ready for the opportunity to step up. By the last year or two in high school, many boys have already steeled themselves for failure. They've checked out intellectually, mentally, and emotionally. — Peg Tyre

We've fallen down on our responsibility to our children by somehow creating this world where they're surrounded by images of sexuality; and yet, we as adults struggle to talk to kids honestly about sex, the rules of dignity and consent. — Laurie Halse Anderson

That force - which the system tried to laugh at - when it finally broke through and the movement was recognized, the media said they were "just a bunch of spoiled kids, dope smokers [who] don't know what the hell they want." To demean it as something laughable - but that didn't work for very long. It's still an ongoing struggle; they're trying to find out how to fight. It's very exciting times. — Haskell Wexler

I feel somewhat privileged because I often feel very sorry for kids. I often feel very sorry for 20-year-olds and teens who grew up with the internet and have grown up completely connected because, for me, people like me know what it was to struggle, but it wasn't a struggle. It was great! It was fantastic. The thrill of the hunt. — Justin Broadrick

Childhood obesity isn't about looks. And it's not about weight. It's about how our kids feel. And those are really the implications of the problem and the words that tell a fuller picture of the challenges that we face; you know, kids struggling in ways that they didn't a generation ago. — Michelle Obama

In a world with no systems, with chaos, everything becomes a guerilla struggle, and this predictability is not there. And it becomes almost impossible to save lives, educate kids, develop economies, whatever. — William J. Clinton

I know plenty of Hollywood kids who still struggle with being whole. Their lives are never fully their own - always in the grip of a parent who put celebrity ahead of them. — Shawn Amos

The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they're leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle - it shows people that it's big business against the people. — Bonnie Raitt

Sometimes I imagine that Tack and I will just crap out - flake on the whole war, the struggle, the resistance. Say good-bye and see you never. We'll go up north and build a homestead together, far away from everyone and everything. We know how to survive. We could do it. Trap and hunt and fish for our food, grow what we can, pop out a whole brood of kids and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Let it blow itself to pieces if it wants to.
Dreams. — Lauren Oliver

Well, nothing's a life or death struggle anymore, is it? The era of honor and sacrifice is over." I looked again at the O'Brian novels, lined up in order. "Jack Aubrey's full of human failings - so's Maturin - but they have principles, and they'd give their lives for them. Or for each other. Now it's all about money and status and celebrity. Not that people haven't always cared about those things, but it used to be considered venal, didn't it?" I shrugged. "It's like nobody bothers to grow up anymore. We just want to be kids all our lives. Collecting toys, having fun. — Beatriz Williams

I mean, you can't be a revolutionary after the revolution, can you? Didn't we all struggle so that kids like Lil wouldn't have to? — Cory Doctorow

I think the 20s are a vastly overrated decade. We promise kids that once they get out of school, life will begin and their dreams will come true. But then comes the struggle. — Tyne Daly

Families are struggling to put bread on the table, send their kids to college and take care of their basic needs. America needs a political revolution. — Bernie Sanders

All too often, parents and kids struggle to find an empathetic ear when confronting bullying situation; these escalate and too often result in marginalization, on top of what may well be a daily gauntlet of harassment and abuse that is fundamentally torture. — Lee Hirsch

Parenting is a constant struggle between making your kids life better and ruining your own. — Willie Robertson

I was lucky to come from a difficult area. It teaches you not just about football but also life. There were lots of kids from different races and poor families. People had to struggle to get through the day. — Zinedine Zidane

The only guy that speaks at any sort of depth is, in my mind, Eminem. He's a guy that does music that talks about the struggles of addiction and before that violence, with growing up in a broken family, not being a good enough father. So, you know that's what I enjoy about it. It's harder to listen to than ever before because I have a bunch of kids and you just can't put it on. — Marco Rubio

I think it's helpful for kids to know that their parents weren't perfect, that they messed up and learned from their mistakes. So be open about some of your own struggles or express gratitude that your kids are taking advantage of the opportunities they have instead of squandering many of them, the way you did. — Emily Yoffe

Saying you just want your kid to be happy puts enormous pressure on the child. They feel if they're not happy, they're failing. Periods of unhappiness are okay and our kids need to know that; it's the struggle that makes you who you are. — Julie Lythcott-Haims

You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst ... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with. — Andy Serkis

I'm not preparing our kids for a gentle world, full of interesting and stimulating experiences. I'm getting them ready to keep their damn mouths shut while some idiot tells them what to do. I'm preparing them to keep a sense of self when they can't define themselves by their work because the likeliest scenario is that (unlike doctors and lawyers and bankers) they will not want to. I'm getting them ready to scrap and hustle and pursue happiness despite the struggle. I — Linda Tirado

We're romantic. We're hopeful. We're done for. The worst part of this all? The idea of struggle and compromise seems exciting to us-that's how stupid we are. There's no stopping fools, I say. We're still kids at heart. Those dreams are still there. Now we just have to go chase them. — Alida Nugent

I used to struggle with letting go and allowing my children to find their own way, but something that I learned in the research dramatically changed my perspective and I no longer see rescuing and intervening as unhelpful, I now think about it as dangerous. Don't get me wrong - I still struggle and I still step in when I shouldn't, but I now think twice before I let my discomfort dictate my behaviors. Here's why: Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle. And let me tell you, next to love and belonging, I'm not sure I want anything more for my kids than a deep sense of hopefulness. — Brene Brown

Having a child who is struggling doesn't make you a bad parent, just as being a child who is struggling doesn't make your child a bad kid. — Ann Douglas

There's a saying, 'Death hath a thousand doors to let out life; I shall find one.' But the children. That's what I struggle with.' He shook his head. 'Why the children? — Ruta Sepetys

Most departments of education are set up largely to regulate schools and hold them in compliance. They don't really help schools. When a school is struggling with certain kids, they can't go to the state and say, "Can you help us with resources and training?" That should be their role. — Pedro Noguera

I don't just do music for the clubs, I do music for the struggle. I do music for everyday niggas, the kids who ain't got no sense of direction. I'm trying to restore some of the morals back into the game, as far as the street. — Young Jeezy

And I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing, in fact, I'm able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don't need, while a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds that they've got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans. — Barack Obama

Having achieved my own dreams, I want to give to kids who are less fortunate, who struggle with everyday obstacles. I want to give them something positive in their lives: support. — Kristi Yamaguchi

Throughout my childhood I believed that what I thought about was different from what other kids thought about. It was not necessarily more profound, but there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head. — Anne Lamott

You can put your TV in the garage, avoid movies altogether, and use earplugs to spare your hearing from the sounds of hip-hop or heavy metal, but these forms of entertainment will still change your life through their influence on everyone else in society. Though you may struggle to protect your own kids from music that encourages violence or drugs or irresponsible sex, you can't possibly protect them from all the other kids in your community who have received full exposure. — Michael Medved

Was it Jesus you saw a picture of?" he says and looks up at me. If it had not been for the friendly voice and the long pause before the question, I would have thought he was making fun of me. He finds it a little embarrassing that I am a Christian; all he wants is for me not to be different from the other kids, and of all the kids in the neighbourhood, his youngest son is the only one to call himself a Christian.
But he is really wondering about this.
I feel a flutter of joy because he actually cares, and at the same time I become a bit offended that he underestimates me like that.
I shake my head.
"It wasn't Jesus," I say. — Karl Ove Knausgard

The struggle to create a nation and world of economic and social justice and environmental sanity is not an easy one. The struggle to try and create a more peaceful world will be extremely difficult. But this I know: despair is not an option if we care about our kids and grandchildren. Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet. — Bernie Sanders