Adolescence represents an inner emotional upheaval, a struggle between the eternal human wish to cling to the past and the equally powerful wish to get on with the future. Louise J Kaplan
Adolescence is a time of active deconstruction, construction, reconstruction – a period in which past, present, and future are rewoven and strung together on the threads of fantasies and wishes that do not necessarily follow the laws of linear chronology. Louise J Kaplan
Normally an infant learns to use his mother as a ‘beacon of orientation’ during the first five months of life. The mother’s presence is like a fixed light that gives the child the security to move out safely to explore the world and then return safely to harbor. Louise J Kaplan
It is not speech or tool making that distinguishes us from other animals, it is imagination. Louise J Kaplan
Young people…have more compassion and tenderness toward the elderly than most middle-aged adults. Nothing – not avarice, not pride, not scrupulousness, not impulsiveness – so disillusions a youth about her parents as the seemingly inhumane way they treat her grandparents. Louise J. Kaplan
Adolescence is the conjugator of childhood and adulthood. Louise J Kaplan
Adolescents are the bearers of cultural renewal, those cycles of generation and regeneration that link our limited individual destinies with the destiny of the species. Louise J Kaplan
Adolescence is the time to enlarge the natural sentiments of pity, friendship, and generosity, the time to develop an understanding of human nature and the varieties of human character, the time to gain insight into the strengths and weaknesses of all men and to study the history of mankind. Louise J Kaplan
Fathers represent another way of looking at life – the possibility of an alternative dialogue. Louise J Kaplan
Hopefulness is the heartbeat of the relationship between a parent and child. Each time a child overcomes the next challenge of his life, his triumph encourages new growth in his parents. In this sense a child is parent to his mother and father. Louise J Kaplan
Fathers have a special excitement about them that babies find intriguing. At this time in his life an infant counts on his mother for rootedness and anchoring. He can count on his father to be just different enough from a mother. Fathers embody a delicious mixture of familiarity and novelty. They are novel without being strange or frightening. Louise J Kaplan