According to The Prophet, what attitude should parents have towards their children?

The prophet is at pains to emphasize that, although children may live with their parents, their parents do not own them. Children are human beings in their own right; they have their own ideas, their own identity. Of course, parents have a close biological bond to their offspring, but the souls of children are future-oriented and so should not be shaped in the here and now by parents forcing their ideas upon them.
The prophet enjoins parents to follow the ways of children instead of trying to change children to be like them. This is because life is in a constant sense of flux, forever pointing towards an as yet undefined future. It makes no sense, therefore, for parents to force their children to live in the past.
The prophet illustrates this radical role reversal with a metaphor of a bow and arrow. Parents represent the bow and children the arrow. God uses both of them to hit an infinite target. In hitting that target, both the bow and arrow have an essential part to play. Yet parents must allow themselves to be bent like bows by God instead of doing the same thing to children, God's arrows.