Some colloquial wisdom from David Eddings

“All boats leak, Silk,” Belgarath replied, calmly.  “It’s the nature of boats to leak.  Bail it out.”

“It’ll just fill up again.”

“Then you can bail it out again.  Try not to let it get too far ahead of you.”

If we replace “boats” with “children”, what do we replace “leak” with?  How do we not let it get ahead of us.

No, not the point he was making in the story, but it struck me …