I am not opposing this country's way of giving children freedom, but if you give children free reign over their development, that is also a misconception. Because children are like young trees with a lot of shoots. If you want the tree to become useful material, you have to prune the shoots and train the main trunk. Only in that way can tree become material for a beam. If a child is correct, then of course, he can be allowed to develop freely. If the child is not doing right, he should be guided to change a little bit. For instance, in this country I have found that many children are left-handed. They write, eat, and do everything with their left hand. This is not very convenient. The right hand is associated with gentleness, and the left hand with stubbornness. That is why being left-handed is not too good. When a child shows tendency to be left-handed, the family should help the child change to being right-handed while he/she is still in the learning stages of writing and eating. Going clockwise is a compliant movement. Just like when we circumambulate the Buddha, we turn to the right. In all we do we move clockwise. Being right-handed is a nimble movement, more convenient both in writing, in eating, and in doing everything else.

Thus, I am making this suggestion to families with left-handed children. Although I'm making such suggestions, you may still insist in allowing your children to develop freely. But if in the future, they don't listen to you, it will be a result of their free development, because they will say, "I want to develop freely. I won't listen to you. Whatever you say, I won't listen." After they grow up, they will become hippies, or they will do unprincipled things. From T.V., people can learn to be very bad. If you let your child watch T.V. is that really allowing him to develop freely? You're letting him be influenced, too! To really develop freely, what should you do? You should take him into the deep mountains where there is no telephone and no T.V.--none of that stuff--and have him be totally cut off from the world. Then he can develop freely there, just like the trees in the mountains, completely separated from the people of the world. That would be the way to let him develop freely, because there are no people around. When there are no people in a place, even if he didn't want to develop freely, he would have to develop freely. When we live in society where there are always people around us, then we should apply our wisdom, use common sense, and maintain a certain standard of behavior.

I am not against people who are left-handed. But left-handed people sometimes stand out as a bit unusual. They often are not too obedient. This is also a result of allowing them to develop freely. We say that the children of this country are being allowed to develop freely, but we could do a survey and study in detail how many among these children who have been allowed to develop freely have become President? Is it the case that if a child is allowed to develop freely, then he can become President. If that's the case then every one of them should become President. If that is not the case, then we should guide them a little. Rendering him a little help means if he is right, you will let him grow liberally. If he is not right, you must tell him not to be like that.