Children Learn What They Live: Parenting to Inspire Values

Since its publication in 1954, Dorothy Law Nolte's inspirational and educational poem, Children Learn What They Live has been published worldwide, translated into 10 languages, taught in parenting and teaching courses, distributed in doctors offices, and printed on posters and calendars. In Children Learn What They Live: Parenting to Inspire Values, authors Nolte, a teacher and lecturer on family life, and Rachel Harris, Nolte's friend and teaching associate, have taken the classic poem and fleshed it into a small gem of a book. The expanded version maintains the grace and wisdom of the original, yet adds significant insight into the process of encouraging values through example. "If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn," begins the poem (and the book), and so Nolte and Harris suggest effective ways to avoid or prevent constant criticism. As a set of guiding principals, as teaching tools, or as gentle reminders, Nolte and Harris's approach to teaching values to children encapsulates the best in parenting wisdom. --Ericka Lutz