I have two cats, 1 long hair red tabby named Mohan (male), who is 3 years old and a short hair torty named Ember (female), who the vet says is approxiamately 1 year. I got Mohan from the pet store when he was 8 weeks and rescued Ember from a locked storage container behind my job. It took Ember almost 4 months to warm up to Mohan. I guess she might have been use to fighting the other feral cats that we have a colony of behind my work. Anyway, the funniest and easiest way to teach a cat how to climb and scratch on the "right" things is using a laser pointer. We bought one of them tall cat trees with several perches on it. We ran the laser pointer up and down the cat tree and up/down he would go. Not only is it hysterical watching them but they learn this is a play toy/a thing to tear up and get great exercise as well. Someone else stated not to let the cat outdoors, I agree and reiterate....Please keep cats indoors. Cats seem to be very prone to catching diseases and wandering into danger. I had a kitten a year ago that was born to a mother that carried the Feline Leukemia virus. No one had any idea because the mother cat had never shown any signs of the disease or illnesses. At 6 months old I took the kitten to the vet to have her fixed and a week later she fell violently ill (vomiting constantly) She was then tested for all the diseases cats can catch and sure enough she was positive for Feline Leukemia, even though she had already been vaccinated. She inevitably died a few days later. Once they have it, nothing will cure it or prevent it...and unfortunately she was born with it. Best thing for a cat is to spay/neuter and keep it inside.
I also forgot to mention that once spayed/neutered cats don't have that "wandering" nature any more. Especially if you have them fixed before they get into all that hormonal stuff. My older cat has never been outside aside from our balcony every now and then and he is just fine.