You want to show them your favorite movies. Your favorite bands. All the places you loved as a kid. The sports you love to play or watch. This is special and wonderful, because you’re sharing not just experiences or sights or sounds or tastes but parts of yourself. These things shaped who you are and how you became that person, and to share that is to give your kids a deeper look at the person raising them. But you should share with caution.
Just as you shouldn’t overtly pressure your kids into a certain lane (“You need to become a doctor”), the author Robert Greene said, parents must be careful of the less overt forms of pressure—steering them to be interested in the things you are interested in, forcing them to participate in this activity or play that sport, calling the arts or entrepreneurship “risky” or artists and entrepreneurs “crazy.” As Robert said: As a parent, you need to let go. You need to let your child blossom. You need to think of your child like they’re a plant that you want to foster and grow in its most natural form and not hinder in any way. You have to let your child go in whatever direction he or she wants. When the child reveals a proclivity toward something, encourage them to go in that direction. Because that proclivity reveals something extremely powerful from within—it reveals what I call a primal inclination. Do not get in the way of their primal inclinations in any way, shape, or form. That’s the most important thing you can do.
Throw away your expectations. Your responsibility is to encourage them to be who they are, not what you want them to be or who you wish you’d become. Don’t force your interests on your child. Pay attention to their natural, primal inclinations, then foster their blossoming.