When Your Children Hurt Quotes & Sayings

You've got to learn to let go and let your children fall, and fail. If you try to protect them from hurt, and always rush to their side with Band-Aids, they won't learn about life, and what is true, what works, what helps, and what are real consequences of certain kinds of behavior. When they do get hurt, which they will, they won't know how to take care of their grown selves. They won't even know where the aspirin is kept. — Anne Lamott

Humphrey will go into a black neighborhood in Milwaukee and drench the streets with tears while deploring "the enduring tragedy" that life in Nixon's America has visited on "these beautiful little children" - and then act hurt and dismayed when a reporter who covered his Florida campaign reminds him that "In Miami you were talking just a shade to the Left of George Wallace and somewhere to the Right of Mussolini." Hubert — Hunter S. Thompson

Think of each wound as you would of a child who has been hurt by a friend. As long as that child is ranting and raving, trying to get back at the friend, one wound leads to another. But when the child can experience the consoling embrace of a parent, she or he can live through the pain, return to the friend, forgive, and build up a new relationship. Be gentle with yourself, and let your heart be your loving parent as you live your wounds through. — Henri Nouwen

They may look grown-up," she continued, "but it's a disguise. It's just the clay of time. Men and women are still children deep in their hearts. They still would like to jump and play, but that heavy clay won't let them. They'd like to shake off every chain the world's put on them, take off their watches and neckties and Sunday shoes and return naked to the swimming hole, if just for one day. They'd like to feel free, and know that there's a momma and daddy at home who'll take care of things and love them no matter what. Even behind the face of the meanest man in the world is a scared little boy trying to wedge himself into a corner where he can't be hurt. — Robert McCammon

The child opened her beak even wider, and the stork let out a moan. "It really wouldn't hurt you to take an interest in others," she said. "I tell you I'm depressed, I tell you I feel cornered and lonely, and your response is 'Fine. Now feed me,' which is actually very insensitive of you. All mothers feel unconditional love for their children, but there's a timer on it, all right. It doesn't last forever, especially when you're selfish."

The child closed her beak. — David Sedaris

When it comes to your children, you don't want hard. You don't want to see them hurt. — Katie McGarry

Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God's "curses" are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God's wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children. — Scott Hahn

Dads. Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child's entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them? — Dan Pearce

We'll bury our mothers and fathers - shuttling our children off for sleepovers, jumping on red-eyes, telling eachother stories that hurt to hear, about gasping, agonal breaths, hospice nurses, scars and bruises and scabs, and how skin papers shortly after a person passes. We will nod in agreement that it is as much an honor to witness a person leave this world as it is to watch a person come into it. — Kelly Corrigan

Being a mother is about protecting your children from every conceivable thing that might cause them hurt, but it's also about trusting them to live the best way for them, the best way they can; and trusting that even when you are not there to hold their hand, they can succeed. — Rowan Coleman

What is that old children's rhyme, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'? Anyone who says that doesn't understand the power of words. They can cut deeper than any knife, hit harder than any fist, touch parts of you that nothing physical will ever reach, and the wounds that some words leave never heal, because each time the word is thrown at you, labeled on you, you bleed afresh from it. It's more like a whip that cuts every time, until you feel it must flay the very skin from your bones, and yet outwardly there is no wound to show the world, so they think you are not hurt, when inside part of you dies every time. — Laurell K. Hamilton

You can't listen to what people who aren't musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don't want to hear, 'Your kid is ugly.' But I knew the record was good and it would sell. — Brian McKnight

The only prescription for morality is this: Remember that every woman could have been your mother, every girl could be your daughter. Remember that every man could have been your father, every boy could be your son. When it comes to matters of the heart, that's all that needs to be kept in mind, always, at all times. Whatever form of hurt you cause, will echo in your children one day. Whatever form of judgments you make, must be held up against the condition of your father or your mother. When this is done - one sees that there is no room to judge and that there is no room to hurt, another. — C. JoyBell C.

When you're a child, grownups always tell you that "sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you". They say it as if it's a kind of spell that's going to protect you. I've never seen the logic of it. Cuts and bruises quickly disappear. You forget all about them. The psychological wounds inflicted by bullies with words go much deeper. — Susan Boyle

When you are first hurt, your anger is fresh and bright and clean. It is hot and eager to defeat injustice. It makes you sharp and keen and quick. so that you can outrace your hurt and leave it lying on some faraway ground where it happened. This is why children cry so bitterly and scream until their faces go read at the smallest hunger or loneliness. They must get terribly, piercingly angry so that they can get out in front of all the little hurts of being new, or else they will never get free of them. But anger can go off like milk in the icebox. It can go hard and rotting and turn everything around it rotting too. By the time you have made your peace, your anger has reeked up your whole heart, it's so gunked up with fuming. That's why you must wash your anger every now and again, or else you can't even move an inch. — Catherynne M Valente

We can be much, much more than we were taught in teachers college ... more than stern ladies at the front of the room who teach children to recite by rote. We can be, we MUST BE, learning partners, champions, observers, explorers, friends- and , for these special hurt children we need to be family — Jenny Bowen

We women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we ... bear what we must for our children. You will protect them. It will hurt you; it will hurt them. Your job is to hide that your heart is breaking and do what they need you to do. — Kristin Hannah

Dads. Do you not realize that your child needs to feel your skin on his? Do you not realize the incredible and powerful bond that skin on skin contact with your daughter will give you? Do you not understand the permanent mental connections that are made when you stroke your son's bare back or rub your daughter's bare tummy while you tell bedtime stories? And if any idiot says anything about that being inappropriate, you're gonna get kicked in the face, first by me, and then by every other good dad out there. Touching your child is your duty as a father. — Dan Pearce

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful - something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace. — Susan Forward

And do you know the oddest thing about murder and war and violence?'
'Oh, Mary Shelley, please stop talking about those types of things.'
'The oddest thing is that they all go against the lessons that grown-ups teach children. Don't hurt anyone. Solve your problems with language instead of fists. Share your things. Don't take something that belongs to someone else without asking. Use your manners. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Why do mothers and fathers bother spending so much time teaching children these lessons when grown-ups don't pay any attention to the words themselves? — Cat Winters

So," he said, shaking his head. "I'm too much for you. You should have said something. We might be married, Mercy, but no still means no."
I widened my eyes at him. "I just haven't wanted to hurt your feelings."
"When I give you that little nudge, hmm?" His voice took on a considering air. "Come to think of it, I'm feeling a little nudge coming on right now."
"Now?" I whispered in horrified tones. I looked up toward Jesse's room. "Think of the children."
He tilted his head as if to listen, then shook it. "They won't hear anything from there." He started slowly down the stairs.
"Think of Darryl, Zack, Lucia, and Joel," I said earnestly. "They'll be scarred for life."
"You know what they say about werewolves," he told me gravely, stepping down to the ground.
I broke and ran - and he was right on my tail. Figuratively speaking, of course. I don't have a tail unless I'm in my coyote shape. — Patricia Briggs

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can't find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day? — Dan Pearce

When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done. — Stephen King

It is hard to be with another's pain if we cannot be with our own. Since I was a child I have always felt a deep sense of responsibility to ease others' pain. But I have discovered that often, beneath this genuine and admirable desire, lies an inability to be with my own sorrow. Several years ago, watching a close friend suffer when a brain aneurysm took away her life as she knew it, I wrote in my journal, I won't ask much. But if you would just let me save your life, perhaps it will not hurt so much to know I cannot save my own. — Oriah Dreamer

Do you not realize that your kids are going to make mistakes, and a lot of them? Do you not realize the damage you do when you push your son's nose into his mishaps or make your daughter feel worthless because she bumped or spilled something? Do you have any idea how easy it is to make your child feel abject? It's as simple as letting out the words, "why would you do that!?" or "how many times have I told you ... — Dan Pearce