Children, not trees

Rabbi Paysach Krohn wrote an article in jewishworldreview.com entitled, "To Blossom and to Grow", in which he described some children uprooting flowers from a neighbor's yard so that they could present their mother with flowers for Shavuot. After finding out where the children had received their flowers, the mother, with children in tow, went to apologize to the neighbor, Dr. Hurewitz. He accepted their apologies and did not berate them. A few days later, he even helped them plant their own tulip bulbs. Rabbi Krohn met the man some time later. He writes that, "Dr. Hurewitz confided in me that he did what he did because of what his spiritual mentor, Rabbi Jonathan Seidemann, once told him after some other children, years earlier, had ruthlessly cut down small but rare and expensive trees he had planted and nurtured. "Remember," said the rabbi to the-then visibly upset Dr. Hurewitz, "we are growing children, not trees."
How wonderful to plant priorities."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0509/krohn_budding.php3
The story reminded me about an incident which my aunt related to me. She had met a woman in Israel who had raised ten marvelous children. She asked her what was the secret to her success. The woman answered that before she would berate one of her children, she would ask herself, "is what the child did today, going to affect his character ten years down the line?" She explained to my aunt that one of her children was playing up on the roof and had knocked down a dud shemesh - a solar water heated tank, causing water to come gushing all over the roof. She was about to rebuke him, but knew, that ten years into the future, this incident would not have affected his character development. So, she kept quiet.
A wise relative told me about a time when her child was playing with a model airplane in the house. She had asked the child to stop, but to no avail. Suddenly, the airplane came flying into her head. She hit the child and raised her hand to strike him a second time. As she was about to hit him, she paused and thought to herself. The first smack was to teach the child a lesson. But the second smack is for me, because I am hurting. Slowly, she let her hand fall to the side.