Love That Boy Quotes

“The next parent who Googles Is my 2-year-old gifted? should get a curt response: Your 2-year-old is a gift.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“We should measure our children not by the mountains they conquer but by their efforts to climb. Oh - and let them pick which hills to scale.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“I circle back to the happiness paradox—how I wanted him to be happy, but my actions might have had the opposite effect. “Were you happy as a little kid?” I wince, afraid of the answer. “I’d say so.” Now? “Am I happy now? I’d say so. My kind of happy.” “But you don’t have many friends.” “That’s the problem,” Tyler objects. His tone is matter-of-fact, not accusatory or defensive. “You have a picture in your head of what makes a kid happy. But then you have a kid and it doesn’t turn out that way. That just means your picture didn’t come true. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy. I have a different picture.” “Are you happy in your picture?” “Most of the time, yes,” he says. “Are you always happy in yours?” “No, buddy. Not always.” “Same with me.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“In our lust for academic excellence, we forget the pride and promise of our children’s first day of school. It is not their destiny on that September day to be the smartest or most accomplished children. It is their time to learn. To learn to be their best, not their best impression of what we want them to be. The next parent who Googles “Is my 2-year-old gifted?” should get a curt response: “Your 2-year-old is a gift.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“A parent's love is unconditional. A parent's satisfaction comes with caveats.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“We're simply committed to raising our children to have good characters and strong values”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations

“When a parent takes charge of a child's academic success and interests outside of school, the kid loses ownership -- the sense that life's ups and downs are in the kid's own hands, not the Mom's and Dad's. The goal is to help your child do the hard things "because I want to," rather than "because I've got to.”
― Ron Fournier, Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations