Results: Life Lessons Learned Through Mister Rogers

Each One of Us Is Special and Unique -- He gave his young audience a shot of pure self-esteem. "You've made this day a special day, by just your being you," said Fred Rogers. "There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are"

You're Never Wrong to Have Feelings -- Fred Rogers taught us that expressing our feelings in ways that don't hurt others shows strength, not weakness. "There's no 'should' or 'should not' when it comes to having feelings," he said. "They're part of who we are. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings."

Love Is Sacred -- "I believe that appreciation is a holy thing," said Mister Rogers, who was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963 but never sounded preachy. "So, in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something truly sacred…The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that's what heaven is."

Use Your Imagination -- In the Land of Make Believe—with puppets like Prince Tuesday and Henrietta Pussycat—Mister Rogers encouraged imagination and play. But beneath the play was the deeper message: "It's our insides that make us who we are, that allow us to dream and wonder and feel for others."

Stay Positive -- Far from being a "boob tube," TV for Mr Rogers was full of possibilities to entertain, uplift and nourish children—and adults: "Television needs to do all it can to show and tell what the good in life is all about.... We all have only one life to live on earth. And through television, we have the choice of encouraging others to demean this life or to cherish it in creative, imaginative ways."

All

None

Listen -- Mister Rogers reminded us that we don't have to solve someone's problems to be a supportive friend or neighbor: "In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers."

Don't Let Differences Divide People -- Fred Rogers cast Francois Clemmons, one of the first African-Americans on children's TV, as a neighborhood policeman. In 1969, against the backdrop of American racial turmoil, Mister Rogers invited Officer Clemmons to join him in a wading pool, a striking illustration of integration and friendship. As they soaked their feet, Mister Rogers sang: "There are many ways to say I love you / There are many ways to say I care about you..."

You Don't Have to Be Perfect -- "Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like 'struggle.' To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now." Mister Rogers acknowledged that human beings are flawed: "People can love us, even when we're not perfect."

There's More to Life Than Coming in First -- "Deep down, we know that what matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then."

Responsibility -- "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes."

All of them

None

"When I was very young, most of my childhood heroes wore capes, flew through the air or picked up buildings with one arm. They were spectacular and got a lot of attention. But as I grew, my heroes changed, so that now I can honestly say that anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me."

You know you don't have to be an actor when you read a book to a child. All you need is to simply love what you're reading. Even just enjoying the pictures together is a great start. When you share a book with a child, you're saying to them that books are important. That's a gift that can nurture them all through their lives."

"Growing means when you're a baby and you're angry, all you can do is scream and kick. That's all. But when you get a little older, you can say that you're angry. You can stomp around and make up a dance, or pound some clay and make things out of clay, and sing a song or write a poem. That's what it means to grow. I'm proud of the way you're growing and changing."

"You know, if you had all the toys in the world and you didn't have any imagination about how you would play with them, those toys would just sit there doing nothing. And that would be no fun. Thinking up good things to do with what you have gives everybody a good feeling."

"It's not so much what we have in this life that matters. It's what we do with what we have. The alphabet is fine, but it's what we do with it that matters the most. Making words like 'friend' and 'love.' That's what really matters."

"One of the greatest gifts you can give anybody is the gift of your honest self. I also believe that kids can spot a phony a mile away."

All of them

None of them