Training in Cages

Not my plants!

One of the things I despised as a kid but enjoy as an adult is working in the garden. My great-grandmother would have us picking beans and shucking corn the minute we were dropped off at her house during the summer. My grandfather had us picking up potatoes as he and my uncle plowed them up using a hand plow behind a 1949 Allis-Chalmers G. My parents and grandparents regularly used us in the garden to cut off cornstalks and harvest vegetables. As kids we hated it. Now that I'm an adult, I enjoy working in the garden with my dad or in my own raised bed garden in my backyard. This year I planted two tomato plants, two cucumber plants, a zucchini plant, a squash plant, and 3 pepper plants in my raised bed. I've been watering these plants nearly daily and put out fertilize a couple of times to help them get big and strong. Over the last 5 weeks I've been carefully training my tomato & cucumber plants on a daily basis to stay inside the cages I put around them. These cages help protect them from storm damage and to support them as they grow larger. These plants that started out small have turned into beautiful, mature plants that are starting to bear vegetables.

Last week as I was putting a cucumber vine back in the cage I thought about how these plants were similar to children. Like plants, children start out small and need many things to grow to maturity. They need the water of love and the fertilize of time with parents to develop into strong, healthy people. This work requires daily attention on the part of parents. They also need the cages of rules and discipline. To kids, rules and discipline feel as confining to them as the cages do around my cucumbers and tomatoes. But just like the plants in the cages, children thrive and flourish when there are rules and discipline used to train them. When parents consistently train their kids with firm rules and adequate discipline, then the children are better off because of it. We've all seen "those" kids who have never been disciplined a day in their life and never been made to follow a rule. We've all seen them in the store, or in church, or in restaurants, or at school. Why do they act like a cucumber vine growing all over the back yard? Because they haven't been trained and they are running wild. Unfortunately it isn't good for the kid and eventually you, I, and the rest of society will have to deal with the parent's lack of willingness to train their kids.

My plants.

As my plants have grown to be healthy, strong, mature plants I've had a sense of pride in them. I look at them and think about all the mornings I've watered them after running on the treadmill. I think about the time I've put into pulling weeds so they didn't take over. As I picked the first couple of cucumbers the other day I was proud of what my plant was producing. When it comes to our kids, we can have the same sense of pride as we watch them mature into young adults who are emotionally healthy, spiritually strong, and mentally mature. The best way to accomplish this is through spending time with them and teaching them to be respectful of rules and the discipline that comes with breaking those rules. When they are older we will finally see the training we did when they were younger paying off.


* If you enjoyed today's post, be sure to Share it on Facebook and Twitter so others can be encouraged too!