I like the show on the Animal Planet channel called “Growing up Baby.” The other day they had one about growing up a baby elephant. One of the unique things the zoo handlers needed to consider with this elephant was his eventual size. Even as a baby the little guy they featured was several hundred pounds but eventually he would be several thousand. Unless early training established the handler’s authority, the elephant would become too big to control. That could be a recipe for disaster.

I wonder why some parent’s don’t take this kind of thing into consideration when their children are toddlers. If children are out of control when they are one or two years old, what can we expect when they reach 17 or 18? I watched in dismay a recent news story where a five year old girl was so out of control at her school that the principal had to call the police. If something isn’t done now, what will become of her when she is an adult?

Proverbs 22:6 says; “Train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old he will not depart from it.” Establishing the lines of authority with fair discipline from the earliest days in a child’s life is one of the best gifts a parent can give. The time will come when any possibility of control will have slipped away. The child will have to walk as an adult with whatever character equipment the parents provided early. How much more successful they will be if they grow up…disciplined.