You may give your child your love but not your thoughts.

I was reading The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, its a book worth understanding – not just reading.
Found this chapter on Children very pertinent.

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”

Invariably parents esp the mother starts treating the child as the extension of self, and tries to achieve what they have not been able to in their lifetime. The parents start deriving a vicarious pleasure from the life of the child. This is how they end up spoiling the child. They were deprived of certain things during their childhood, and they want their kids to have it more than they could have ever dreamt of having in their child hood. Live examples: My wife wants to buy every toy whose name our son, has ever uttered. For mothers it is even more difficult to believe the fact that the child does not belong to her, and just that they are with us – independent individuals who can not be owned.

My job as a father is to expose him to life - gradually. To provide him access to opportunities of realizing his potential, of developing himself.
Walk with him through this process as a friend, till it becomes a self sustaining process.