Life is the best teacher

I disagree very strongly, because my parents taught me nothing but fear.  They taught me to avoid trusting people, to always assume I am worst at everything, and to never relax because something terrible could happen at any moment.  I have worked very hard to be free of these fears that they taught me, but I still haven't succeeded.  I'm doing much better than I was ten years ago, but I still have a long way to go.  I hope my progress will be faster once I finish school and can move out from my parents' home, but I have no way of knowing.  I think good parents can be excellent teachers, and I think that parents' influence on a child is very strong, but I don't think every parent has a good influence.

i disagree. parents have their own conditioning and programming which most of the time is unconscious and they pass it on just as unconsciously to their children.

i do not have a "best teacher" to suggest, but parents are often too possessive and forget that, as Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet, their children is not their children, "they are the sons and daughters of Life desiring itself". "you can give them love, but not thoughts". "you might do your best to be like them, but do not force them to copy you." (translating from my French version)...

Parents can be great teachers among others !

Boubouillehou, your last two sentences made me laugh out loud. "The world is not a biiiiiiiiiiiiin!"  :P

So familiar!  ^^

Parents might not always be the best teachers, but they are the first teachers and therefore the most important.