Article March 22, 1993 Issue

Sand castle lesson

The Christian Science Monitor

We'd been looking after three boys, and to give my wife a break one day, I took them to the beach. "Let's make a sand castle," I suggested. They loudly approved as I drew a circle in the sand a few feet above the water-line. I started digging the moat, putting the sand in the middle to create the castle. The boys enthusiastically did the same. The castle quickly took form, and we put our first tower in one corner. Then Scotty stepped in the moat and part of the walls and castle fell in.

Nothing was said as he and his brothers repaired the damage. But I quietly mused on a scene twenty years earlier when I had been building a castle on a similar beach with my own children. On that occasion I had carefully supervised and directed the operation to be sure that we would end up with a good-looking castle.

This time I had not the slightest desire to be in charge in any way. I could see that it was an activity for the boys, and it didn't matter one iota what form the castle took or how it looked in the end. Their imagination, ingenuity, laughter, and joy were the objectives—not a polished project. Well, the four of us did produce quite a fancy castle. In this atmosphere free of judgment or restriction, they decorated the construction with sticks and shells in a way I would never have thought of. And I learned a lesson. It's thoughts, not things, we need and want!

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