Ezra Taft Benson Children Quotations

Build traditions of family vacations and trips and outings. These memories will never be forgotten by your children.

Pride adversely affects all our relationships - our relationship with God and His servants, between husband and wife, parent and child, employer and employee, teacher and student, and all mankind.

Mothers play an important role as the heart of the home, but this in no way lessens the equally important role fathers should play, as head of the home, in nurturing, training, and loving their children.

Go on daddy-daughter dates and father-and-sons' outings with your children. As a family, go on campouts and picnics, to ball games and recitals, to school programs, and so forth. Having Dad there makes all the difference.

It is mother's influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child's basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother's loving example to choose righteousness.

A woman whose life is involved in the righteous rearing of her children has a better chance of keeping up her spirits than the woman whose total concern is centered in her own personal problems.

I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein.

When our children obey the Lord and go to the temple to receive their blessings and enter into the marriage covenant, they enter into the same order of the priesthood that God instituted in the very beginning with father Adam.

I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human figures. I have seen women and children scavenge army garbage dumps for scraps of food. Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my memory.

I love all our Father's children of every color, creed, and political persuasion.

The seeds of divorce are often sown and the problems of children begin when Mother works outside the home.

Encourage good music and art and literature in your homes. Homes that have a spirit of refinement and beauty will bless the lives of your children forever.

For nearly six thousand years, God has held you in reserve to make your appearance in the final days before the Second Coming of the Lord. . . . God has saved for the finalinning some of His strongest and most valiant children, who will help bear off the kingdom triumphantly. That is where you come in, for you are the generation that must be prepared to meet your God. . . .

It is a truism that children need more of Mother than of money.

... in all seriousness... you who submit yourselves to an abortion or to an operation that precludes you from safely having additional healthy children are jeopardizing your exaltation and your future membership in the kingdom of God.

And so today, the undermining of the home and family is on the increase, with the devil anxiously working to displace the father as the head of the home and create rebellion among the children. [Isaiah] describes the condition when [he] states, "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them." and then these words follow-and consider these words seriously when you think of those political leaders who are promoting birth control and abortion: "O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths."

This is our first interest as a church-to save and exalt the souls of the children of men. There is no richer program anywhere in the world than we have in the Church today for the building of men and women and providing the answers to the problems that face parents, families, and individuals. It is a program that is needed today as never before.

Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children's needs. That decision can be most shortsighted.

Woman was given to man as an helpmeet. That complementary association is ideally portrayed in the eternal marriage of our first parents - Adam and Eve. They labored together; they had children together; they prayed together; and they taught their children the gospel together. This is the pattern God would have all righteous men and women imitate.

Mothers stay close to your daughters Earn & deserve their love & respect Be united with their father in the rearing of your children Do nothing in your life to cause your daughters to stumble because of your example.

God help us to be grateful for our blessings, never to be guilty of the sin of ingratitude, and to instill this same gratitude into the lives of our children.

Mothers, train up your children in righteousness; do not attempt to save the world and let your own family fall apart.

Encourage your children to come to you for counsel with their problems and questions by listening to them every day. Discuss with them such important matters as dating, sex, and other matters affecting their growth and development, and do it early enough so they will not obtain information from questionable sources.

The Book of Mormon contains the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ (D&C 20:9). That does not mean it contains every teaching, every doctrine ever revealed. Rather, it means that in the Book of Mormon we will find the fulness of those doctrines required for our salvation. And they are taught plainly and simply so that even children can learn the ways of salvation and exaltation.

There is no greater Church calling than that of a home teacher. There is no greater Church service rendered to our Father in Heaven's children than the service rendered by a humble, dedicated, committed home teacher.

The world teaches birth control. Tragically, many of our sisters subscribe to its pills and practices when they could easily provide earthly tabernacles for more of our Father's children. We know that every spirit assigned to this earth will come, whether through us or someone else. There are couples in the Church who think they are getting along just fine with their limited families but who will someday suffer the pains of remorse when they meet the spirits that might have been part of their posterity.

True to form, many of the people who desire to frustrate God's purposes of giving mortal tabernacles to His spirit children through worldwide birth control are the very same people who support the kinds of government that perpetuate famine. They advocate an evil to cure the results of the wickedness they support.

Praise your children more than you correct them. Praise them for even their smallest achievement.

Mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unused one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children.

Above all else, children need to know and feel they are loved, wanted, and appreciated. They need to be assured of that often. Obviously, this is a role parents should fill, and most often the mother can do it best.

The leisure time of children must be constructively directed to wholesome, positive pursuits. Too much time viewing television can be destructive...It is estimated that growing children today watch television over twenty-five hours per week.

Grandparents can have a profound influence on their grandchildren. Their time is generally not as encumbered and busy as the parents', so books can be opened and read, stories can be told... Children then obtain a perspective of life which not only is rewarding but can bring them security, peace, and strength....