When any of us thinks of ourselves as a role model - whether that's as a parent being observed by their kids or a leader under the microscope of their followers - it creates a natural stepping up of how we carry ourselves and what we expect from ours...
You forget how many people watch TV until you come into a town like this. Everybody knows you, and I'm always humbled, especially when there are 500 little kids who all have their hair done like yours and want to be designers.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this idea of opening a restaurant back in Indiana on a little pond. The guests would order their dinner and then take a little boat out with a colored flag on the front of it. When the matching color of the flag ...
I had a very tough childhood. I came here from Italy in the '70s and didn't speak a word of English, so the kids at school tormented me. Truly, it was horrifying the names they called me, and the teachers never really did a thing to stop it.
The early readers are in-between books for the kids who aren't ready for novels yet but are done with my picture books. It's really rewarding to think that they can grow up reading my books at all the different levels.
I grew up in New York till I was 5, and I remember going to see 'Annie' and some musicals as a kid, and I remember my parents being somewhat okay with us watching 'Rocky Horror Picture Show,' which, it boggles my mind that they allowed me to watch it...
When 'The Cosby Show' came out, and everyone was up in arms about 'The Cosby Show' and that it was reflecting a world that didn't exist - but I knew black doctors. And I knew black lawyers. And I knew families that, you know, had a mother and a fathe...
I had these experiences as a kid; I remember certain things happening in school that were horrifying that I would see, certain things of violence or certain things of cruelty, but around that, something might happen afterwards to cause everyone to la...
I'm kind of crazy with karma. I really believe that everything you do revisits you, so, I'm really adamant about the kids seeing the grandparents, so like, I can see my grandkids, you know what I mean?
The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have... whether you like it or not.
Within childhood behaviors, there are known behaviors; there's teasing and there's name-calling, and different kinds of things happen as kids start to socialize. And then there's serious bullying, and then there's actual aggression and behavioral pro...
When I was seven, these kids in the alley behind our house in Omaha called me Freckleface Strawberry. I hated my freckles, and I hated that name. I thought it was humiliating in the way that only a seven-year-old could hate it.
Whether it's pool or Ping Pong, I can't stand to have my kids beat me. Especially Ping Pong! And when they beat me, they just needle the devil out of me. That's fine. I'd rather have that than let them win a shallow victory.
To teach an academic subject is certainly not easy, but compared to coaching, it is. We can say 'two plus two is four' to every kid and be sure that we are right. But in coaching, we have to literally get to the soul of the people we are dealing with...
My father loved me so much that he did not want me to be a laborer or anything. I don't know if it's the right thing to do - push your kids into something and then stay on them until they do it. Let them pick what they want to do.
When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, I believed - completely, wholeheartedly, without reservation or pause - that the Cleveland Indians were named to honor a Native American ballplayer named Louis Sockalexis, who played for Cleveland in the late...
Kids still can be said to live in their own little world. Even if their parents are helicoptering around them, assigning play dates and so forth, I think they're still living in some sense of their own little perceptual worlds.
As kids, we spontaneously sing and dance and tell stories, and along the way, someone comes and says, 'No. You shouldn't be doing that.' And we slowly begin to unlearn our passions. I think you have to hold on to those things.
We didn't have a phone when I was a kid, and I was too shy to smash any public phones, and our town didn't have a pool hall either, so I had to hang out at the public library - and anyway, I told myself stories.
I'm a farmer. I always will be a farmer. When I die, I'll be a farmer. It's something that I've wanted to do since I was 8 years old. I can tell you also that I see opportunity slipping away for our kids.
I was in a Montessori school. There was a drum circle with all the kids passing around a little bongo drum. I was the last person in the circle, and when it got to me I played 'Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits' - in front of all the parents. Blew the cr...
