Instead of saying “This is my child,” they should ask “Who is this child who happens to be mine?” Then they will gain a lot more respect for the child and try to keep an eye open for where the kid’s destiny may show itself– like in a resistance to school, for example, or a strange set of symptoms one year, or an obsession with one thing or another. Symptoms are so often seen as weaknesses, so they set up some psychotherapeutic program to get rid of them, when the symptom may be the most crucial part of the kid.

James Hillman on parenting, via the Sun Magazine (via artlivefree)