Again....the future (fill in the blank)

That's why I love cats because the relationship is straightforward---you don't entertain any hope that you can train them. They train you.

With kids, it's different. You silently believe that you can bend them and mold them. Into becoming writers. Best selling authors even. Or just do what I tell them to do. But....this one here, all her writings are about going to school and brushing her teeth when the sun rises. But she goes to school only once every full moon or when her brother beats her up all the way to the school house.

Then there's this one. She insists on being a screenwriter. I keep telling her: Narrative, narrative. And she keeps writing a dialogue....with her dog or with her dead father.
This one, for the life of me I can't make her stand up to read her story.
Then here's the oldest of them. She insists that her story is in her head and no need to write it. "I want to tell it orally." She says. I said: This is a writing class. And she says no, she wants to tell it orally. With pictures even.
And this one? Of all of them he has the best ideas for a story, if only I could make him write more than a teaser 5 lines. (Or make him stop smoking. Or at least wait if he lives past the age of 11) I tell him he would make a good journalist or an author but he said he wants to be a doctor, not a writer. I encouraged him and told him that his chances are great of becoming a doctor, especially since only he can read his own handwriting.