If you want to get a bunch of little kids to dance, start dancing. If you want them to sing, belt out the Eensy Weensy Spider. If you are interested in getting them to clap, whack your palms together. They are wired to follow you, which comes in handy when walking through a crowded mall with an armload of packages. 

There are more leaders than just Mom as kids grow up, so the possibilities for new directions pop up like dandelions.

My twins are reading four books. Not simultaneously, but they delve into all of them every day. I happened to be on the couch sewing when Aurelle was reading out loud to Hope, and I felt blessed to be included. It was a version of Beauty and the Beast, and the man entrapped in fur ached to win Beauty's love. One evening he led her to a library where there were walls upon walls of books. 

"I had no idea there were so many books in the world!" she gasped. 

"Well, there aren't. Yet. But there will be," he answered. He was pleased to be able to please her. 

Their relationship progressed slowly, and after thirty pages Beauty had grown less afraid of his claws. She was willing to hold his paw. I gazed at the young woman with a book in her hands. She is as worthy of the name Beauty as any character in a novel, and I indulged in a brief dream about who will win her heart some day. I pray that she will bequeath her love incrementally, over time. Not all at once. 

The show I watched the night before included a relationship that went from zero to sixty in a matter of minutes. The two people had talked, well mostly argued, for less than an hour sprinkled over four days before he invited her to go to Tahiti with him. 

What happens when our children are given those examples to follow?