I had the pleasure as Robin said to live a childhood dream as many young Americans and Puerto Rican children live that play youth baseball. And I feel honored and very thankful for that opportunity.

I don't need a holiday or a feast to feel grateful for my children the sun the moon the roof over my head music and laughter but I like to take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled.

Research shows that parents are the single biggest influence on children - if you are worried about your teen and drugs talk to them.

When I found out I had to take off my shirt in 'Teen' movie I panicked and hit the gym. I was like 'It's going to be on film documented for my children to see. I can't be 140 pounds. I need to put on a little bit of muscle.'

Who knows what technology will emerge in the next five years let alone 20. Yet the education we provide our children now is supposed to last for decades. We cannot train them for jobs that do not even exist yet but we can provide them with the minds and tools they'll need to adapt to our ever-changing set of circumstances.

As children many of us were taught never to talk to strangers. As parents and grandparents our message must change with technology to include strangers on the Internet.

As the father of six children I know very well the challenges technology poses to our families.

I'm sorry it's true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born we live for a brief instant and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much - if at all.

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators in every nation by children being taught mathematical concepts.

The role of the teacher remains the highest calling of a free people. To the teacher America entrusts her most precious resource her children and asks that they be prepared... to face the rigors of individual participation in a democratic society.

I studied with a blind teacher from about 5 until I was 16 at two different schools. From the age of 12 until 16 I was in a boarding school-which I believe at that time was compulsory for blind children.

Find a good teacher as I found for my sons. I feel the worst thing you can do is to try and teach your own children yourself because there is a natural rebellion that occurs.

Children are already accustomed to a world that moves faster and is more exciting than anything a teacher in front of a classroom can do.

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

Please stop teaching my children that everyone gets a trophy just for participating. What is this the Nobel Prize? Not everybody gets a trophy.

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.

Children even infants are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.

It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.

Look if you ask a child 'Would you rather have a fulfilled mother or a stay-at-home Sylvia Plath ' they'll pick Sylvia Plath every time. But I think it's really important that children don't feel their parents' emotional lives depend on their success.

The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife my three children some friends I would have liked to grow old with.

Raising children is an uncertain thing success is reached only after a life of battle and worry.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment a household of children if things go reasonably well certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

After I won the Oscar my salary doubled my friends tripled my children became more popular at school my butcher made a pass at me and my maid hit me up for a raise.