Let childhood contain some pleasures that do not need to be useful later.

Adults feel a pull to make everything a child enjoys count toward something: a skill, a discipline, a future application. Under that pressure, play becomes preparation, and pleasures that lead nowhere start to look like waste. An interest that never becomes anything is still a real part of a life, and the years spent inside it are not a rehearsal.

Leave one thing your child loves entirely alone. No lessons, no measurement, no talk about where it might lead. Let it be for enjoyment, which is a sufficient reason for anybody.