Love the analogy between gardening and child rearing. Both tasks involve allowing the inner force of growth, that exists in all living beings, to realize its own potential. In that practice, we certainly have the capacity to more harm than good. Check out my recent post at http://ndsmith.wordpress.com I was recently reminded of the old doctor’s credo “Primum non nocere” which means, first of all, do no harm with reference to education. But there is certainly a continuous analogy between the three disciplines (gardening, education and child rearing).