Just as in fair weather, then, one ought to prepare for the storm, so also in youth one should store up discipline and self-restraint as a provision for old age.
—Plutarch
Theodore Roosevelt spent almost every day during the first twelve years of his life struggling with horrible asthma. The attacks were an almost nightly near-death experience. He was bedridden for weeks at a time. Born into great wealth and status, he could have remained weak and would have been taken care of throughout his life. Then one day his father came into his room and delivered a message that would change the young boy’s life: “Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should.” Roosevelt’s younger sister, who witnessed the conversation, recalled how the young, fragile boy looked at his father and said with determination: “I’ll make my body.”
It was the beginning of his preparation for and fulfillment of what he would call “the Strenuous Life.” He worked out every day thereafter. By his early twenties, his battle against asthma was over. Roosevelt had worked that weakness out of his body.
Not everyone accepts the cards they are dealt. They remake their bodies and their lives with activities and exercise. They prepare themselves for the hard road. Do they hope they never have to walk it? Sure. But they are prepared for it in any case.
Are your kids? Nobody is born with a steel backbone. It has to be forged. Your job is to help your kids forge theirs.