Trees and kids

  I took a trip with the kids and my mother-in-law out to visit some family in western Minnesota last week.  On part of our 4 hour ride I saw some trees.  Maybe ten trees all in a line, which is not unusual for this part of the state, and all staked.  What I noticed about them is that they were fairly new trees.  As I thought about it I realized that it was very important to stake trees when they are young.  When they are young and able to be changed in their direction is when you would stake a tree. No one would try to make a crooked full grown tree straight, it's too late.
  Than I thought about my kids.  I need to train them, to stake their character when they are young.  I must pull on them and mold them while they are malleable enough to do so.  It is very difficult to change the direction of an adult, but much easier to change a child.  "Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it", now has a very new, very real meaning to me.