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A Way to Go 

So you have a child - hopefully a small one - perhaps even new born! Look into its eyes. It is hardly here at all, a new incarnation from the beyond! The eyes show a mystery you cannot penetrate. What it is and what it can become is all hidden - a potential for what future. 

A young child has an almost miraculous wish to learn. It learns to 'can'.
I call it canning. The feature is particular to small children. Canning is learning skill for which it has no immediate use. It is true that walking is useful but it has no idea where it's legs will take it. Talking is useful but again it has no idea what use it will make of the ability. It has an almost heroic eagerness to add to it's repertoire of skills. During the first years the catalogue of skills grows and grows.
Mummy, mummy, I can climb a tree, cross the road, say my alphabet, dress myself, tie my shoelaces and on and on. 
Think again, if you are thinking of discouraging the essence nature has provided for your child.
'Mummy, I can climb a tree.'
'Don't do that, you could hurt yourself.' 
'Mummy, when is God coming?'
'Don't bother me now.'
The child is sitting daydreaming, letting the events of the day settle.
'Stop mooning around. Go help your mother,'
It is a sadness for the child when it's latest achievements are disparaged or ignored. If the lack of support continues the child will give trying to learn skills which are deprecated by his parents 

Become quiet, meditative, What to do? Am I qualified? Am I wise?
It is a great challenge. 
Taken lightly, an adventure! 
I say take it lightly because everything is against you: 

First, there are perhaps a thousand generations of parents before you who have tried to make their children useful as soon as possible. A few centuries ago this was reasonable. A good child was one who could help mother or father. But what child is useful for the family today? We still go on in the same old way exacting obedience, expecting respect that we have done little to earn. 
Second, If you are normal you will have an unavoidable difficulty. You are helplessly inconsistent. Today you want this. Tomorrow you will want that. How is you child, who wants to please you, going to cope?
Of course your child is just as inconsistent. 
You have to find a way to be friendly to each other!
Whatever your intention you will forget and make mistakes. If you take things too seriously you will become despondent and think of giving up. Remember we are just human parents trying to do good for our kids. The fact that it has become so difficult is almost a joke. The Gods looking down must be unbelieving - seeing what heavy weather we make of it.

Third, if your friends and neighbours notice that your child is not behaving as they think it should, they will be at you with advice and criticism.
You will have to explain to your child that society expects a 'thank you' whether you feel grateful or not. You will have to explain that though there is nothing wrong with you, you must hide your sex when you are away from home. In general teach your child that 'when in Rome be a Roman'. At all cost let him keep his own sense of what is right.
 
Fourth, As a keen gardener you will have no trouble about how to water, feed and shelter your plant. It would never occur to you to teach it to be a plant. But this is just what tradition and society require of you for your child. 
As a gardener you can train your plants to take amazing shapes. As a farmer you have bred hens that can lay over 300 eggs a year. You could not call the shaped plant or the high producing hen natural. No, it has been altered for a particular purpose. Custom demands that you shape your child's development so that he can try 'to lay 300 eggs' and so fit in society.
Your job is to be a gardener for your child. Your responsibility is to feed, clothe and shelter it and then give it total and unqualified support. This means that in the end, after having done all you can to advise and warn him of the dangers of his intention,  you let go, you give him your blessing to do what he wants.

'Is it really OK for me to trust my child?'
You trust your bean seedlings to produce beans.
'You trust you puppy to grow into a family friend.'
Why not your child?
If you meditate on this you will see that there is nothing except tradition and peer pressure that oblige you to conform!

'How will my child benefit?'
You will be proud of your 'New Child' seeing that his opinions are his own, that he takes responsibility for his actions and that he is able to respond to each situation out of his own understanding. It is not that his or her opinions will be right. They may be wrong, but the are his own!
It is difficult to imagine the strength of a man or woman who is able to do this.

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