The Jenkins family went on vacation to the beach. They didn’t get to go very often, so it was a real treat! All that sand! Perfect for making large sand castles, complete with moats that filled with water when a wave flowed in. They brought many buckets, shovels, and containers with them so they could make the best sand castles ever on this trip.

They finally finished the long walk over the tall dunes from the car, lugging their sandcastle supplies along, and there it was! The big ocean with that ocean breeze coming off of the water, so fresh, cool, and salty! After running around a little while and dipping their toes in the water, the kids settled down near a little rivulet flowing down towards the ocean to build their sand castles.

“Hey, I have an idea! Let’s build a really big castle all together!” Lilly suggested.

“Ok,” the other 3 kids said. They weren’t especially thrilled, but it sounded like it might be fun.

Lilly drew out a circle for the moat for the size of the castle she was thinking of close to the edge of the little rivulet and began scooping out the sand, piling it in the middle where they would build the castle.

“No, wait Lilly! Drew exclaimed, “It should be further away so the moat can be bigger.” With his foot he began wiping out her markings and flattening the scoops Lilly had been making.

Lilly didn’t really like that Drew was wiping out what she had done without asking her, but he was right. It would be better to have the castle a little further away, so she didn’t say anything.

Drew traced out another circle more to his liking, and the kids began scooping out the moat together. Joey, the youngest, who was not quite 4, was helping too. He was scooping out the sand with his little shovel and dumping it outside of the moat’s circle.

“No, Joey. That’s not how you do it.” Lilly took the shovel from his hand and began using it herself to scoop and dump the sand into the middle of the circle they were making. “You go build your own castle over there.” She pointed to an area away from the group where he could build his own creation and leave them in peace.

The moat was starting to take shape, and Drew was planning how to build a little bridge where the imaginary townspeople would be able to leave the city. He had reserved a little section of the moat that was yet to be dug out near the water and was thinking about the best way to scoop it out and support it to keep it from collapsing. He turned away to look through their bucket collection for a small can that would work best as a scooper, and when he turned back, he saw that his younger sister Emily was scooping out his little section of the moat.

“Emily! I was saving that part! I’m going to build a bridge there!” He pushed her shovel aside and took her place, kneeling in the sand, repairing the damage she had done with a frown. Emily just stood there. She was just trying to help, and Drew wasn’t being very nice. After a minute, she went to a different part of the castle to do something else.

“I know!” Emily thought. “The castle needs an outer wall.” She set to work carefully building a wall around the inside of the moat, protecting the castle from invaders.

Lilly finished with her part of the moat, and decided to start working on the main castle. Using a bucket, she began making towers of packed sand in the middle of the castle area. In her process, she carelessly knocked over parts of Emily’s wall with her feet and her bucket.

“Lilly!” Emily whined in frustration, “I just got done building that. Quit knocking it over!”

“Well you shouldn’t be building it in the first place.” Lilly snapped back. “Everybody knows you build the castle first, then the walls.”

“I’m going to build the walls first. You just have to be careful where you put your feet.” Emily went on building her walls, and Lilly went on building the castle, but they were both frowning and giving each other the silent treatment. Lilly carelessly knocked over a few more sections of the wall on her way in and out to prove that the castle should be built first.

“Oops. Sorry,” she said in a tone that told Emily that she didn’t really mean it. Emily just glared back.

Now that the castle was becoming mostly finished, Joey wanted to come back and help too. He saw the moat, all cleared and ready, and remembered that moats usually have water in them. Taking a bucket, he went and got a pailful of water and lugged it back over to where his siblings were working on various parts of the castle. The bucket was just a little bit too big for him to manage dumping it out carefully, and as he was trying to pour the water into the moat, the bucket slipped and the water made a big splash, washing away part of Emily’s wall and Drew’s bridge, as well as unexpectedly soaking Lilly’s foot in ice-cold water.

“Joey!” they all snapped, pretty much in unison.

“Joey, you ruined my wall!”

“Joey, I just got done making my bridge all perfect!”

“That was really cold, Joey!”

Joey didn’t mean to ruin anything; he just wanted to participate with what his siblings were doing. When they all snapped at him, he just backed away with a scowl on his face. He decided it wasn’t fair that everybody was leaving him out, so he went back to the water and got another bucketful. Before his siblings realized what he was doing, he dumped another bucketful into the moat. Again, it splashed and swept away what his siblings were working on.

Again, they all protested, “Joey!!”

“Mom, Joey keeps ruining our sand castle!”

Joey went over to Mom when she called him, pouting and walking very slowly.

The other kids went back to repairing their sandcastle. Drew was done with his bridge, so he moved on to helping Lilly with the inside of the castle. He decided to make part of it a dribble castle, and started dripping the runny wet sand on the top of one of the structures Lilly had already built.

“I already finished what I was working on. There’s nothing left to do but work on the castle.”

“Well, I don’t want your dribble mess on it.” With that, she wiped off his beginnings of a dribble tower and went on doing what she was doing before.

Drew decided that since he obviously wasn’t wanted, he would just leave the project all together and do something different. He went a little ways down the beach looking for a nice stick to throw for the dog, and reminding himself of all the reasons he didn’t like his sister, and promising himself he would never build a sand castle with her again.

In their hearts, the Jenkins kids decided, even if they didn’t really know they did, that next time they came to the beach they would just make their own sand castles and not try to make one all together. It was just easier that way.

————–

Can you point out some of the unloving things the Jenkins were doing?

What do you think went wrong?

What could they have done better?

Have you and your brothers and sisters ever tried to make something together?

How was it the same or different from the Jenkins experience?

Lilly wanted to make a sandcastle with all her siblings. That’s great! Making projects together is really fun, and often other people have ideas that you wouldn’t have come up with just all by your lonesome. All the projects where I’ve collaborated with my brothers and sisters have turned out better than if I’d done it alone. It’s certainly so much more fun than doing things alone!

Did you think of some of the unloving things they might have been doing? Here’s what I saw:

First, Drew was unkind by scraping away what Lilly had already done on the castle. Why was this unkind? When we have a good idea to make our project better, it should always, always, always come with lots of communication. We need to talk about it with everybody else, and make sure they understand why we think it is a better idea, not just erase what they have done and do it our way. It is very important that we gently suggest, rather than demand that we have a better idea. Better ideas are never more important than being loving to the people around us.

So if Drew was being loving, perhaps their conversation would have been more like this:

“Hey Lilly,” Drew asked as he came over beside her, “I was wondering if it might be better to move it a little further back from the water so we can make the moat bigger.” He pointed with his finger showing her where he was thinking it should go.

“Ok, sure,” Lilly said with a smile. “Good idea.”

Together they worked to smooth away Lilly’s first attempt and mark out a better circle for their castle.

The next unloving thing that happened was with Lilly and her littlest brother, Joey. Joey was trying to help too by shoveling out the sand and putting it aside. Lilly’s reaction to his slightly misguided help was not loving at all. Lilly was very unkind to send Joey to do his own thing and exclude him from participating with the rest of his family just because he was little and didn’t know how to help in the best way. When someone, especially a younger one than us, is trying to help but not doing it quite right, we always need to gently and lovingly explain and demonstrate how to do it better. No yelling or exploding needs to happen. No taking over needs to happen, and no making them feel unwanted.

So if Lilly was being loving, perhaps she would have spoken to Joey a little more like this:

“Whoops!” Lilly said in a lighthearted tone as she saw what Joey was doing. “Hey Joey, we like to put the sand on the inside of the circle so we can use it to build our castles later. See? Like this.” Now that she had his attention, she demonstrated how she was scooping her sand into the middle of the circle.

“Oh, ok.” said Joey, more than willing to change the way he was doing it.

Fast forward to the next little incident:

Emily accidentally scooped away part of the sand Drew wanted to use for his bridge. He snapped at her and shoved her aside. Sometimes misunderstanding happen. They just do! Emily didn’t know Drew was saving that part. Misunderstandings or even the destruction of our projects are never okay reasons to snap or yell at people. Sometimes we might need to straighten out a misunderstanding quickly so that something else isn’t broken, but we always need to make sure that we are calm and loving, not explosive and angry.

Drew should have reacted a little more like this:

Drew went over to the pile of buckets to find a smaller scooper. He found the one he wanted, and looked back towards his little bit of a bridge and noticed Emily scooping away the sand he had left un-scooped on purpose.

“Hey Em,” he said in a calm voice as he came trotting over, “I was saving that bit for a bridge I wanted to build. Could you please not scoop it out?”

“Oh, whoops!” Emily said, realizing she was messing up his plans. “I’m Sorry! I didn’t know. Will it still work for you?”

What about Lilly and Emily’s argument over what should be built first; the castle or the walls? Neither of them were being loving to each other at all! Lilly was being careless with her feet and her bucket and in the process knocking over what Emily was working on. Being careless and ruining another’s work is very unloving! They had a disgreement about which part should be built first. When working on a team effort, like building a sandcastle together, disagreements may come up. The appropriate and loving thing to do is to talk about it together, calmly explaining why each thinks their idea would work better. Everyone needs to be willing and ready to let go of their idea with a good attitude, and not hold on to it and get angry when someone doesn’t want to do it your way. There should never be snapping, angry looks, or the silent treatment. Those things are very unloving.

This is how it might have looked if the girls were being loving and communicating rightly with each other:

Emily set to work carefully building a wall around the inside of the moat, protecting the castle from invaders. Lilly had just finished with her part of the moat, and decided to start working on the main castle. Using a bucket, she began making towers of packed sand in the middle of the castle area. In her process, she accidentally knocked over parts of Emily’s wall with her feet and her bucket.

“Lilly, please watch your feet. You keep knocking over my wall.” Emily said, in a calm voice as she looked up in her sister’s eyes and smiled a little.

“Sorry about that.” Lilly, answered with a scrunch of her nose that indicated she was trying to watch her step. “Hey, you know, it might be easier if we built the castle first, and then the wall. That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about fixing it again and again if we accidentally knock it over. Could we do it that way instead?”

“I thought it would easier to build the wall first, but I suppose we could do it that way,” Emily said as she let go of her idea and willingly agreed to do it a different way.

Both girls got back to work on the castle, going twice as fast and having twice as much fun, now that they were working on the same thing together.

Later on, Joey ruined a lot of the work the other kids were doing by trying to pour water into the moat. Their reaction was not a loving one. When someone accidentally destroys or messes up something you are working on, the appropriate thing to do is ask them to stop, and help them to do something different. Especially with one who is younger than us, we need to be kind, calm, and loving in the way we correct them. This would have been a better way for the older Jenkin’s kids to have dealt with the situation:

“Woah there, buddy!” Lilly said in a surprised voice as the cold water doused her foot.

“Hey Joey, please don’t do that right now. We aren’t finished yet. We’re not ready for the water.” Drew said as he looked a little dismayed at his bridged that was now slightly washed away.

“Yeah, how about you come work on the castle here with me!” Emily invited with a smile, giving him a better job to do.

That leaves us with one last little scenario to talk about.

Drew wanted to decorate part of the big castle with a smaller dribble castle. Lilly decided she didn’t like that, and was very rude as she wiped away what he did, told him it was a mess, and said that she was there first. Lilly was very unkind with her words, using them to make her brother feel like his contribution was ugly and messy. It is never appropriate to speak that way about someone else’s creation, and certainly never okay to wipe it away like Lilly did. Another unloving thing Lilly did was to say that this was her castle, she was working on it first, and send her brother away. When working on a project all together, it does not belong to one person, and no one needs to be protective of what “is theirs”. They were all working on the castle together and it was unkind of Lilly to exclude Drew like that. It was also not appropriate of Drew to stomp off and leave the team project, just because somebody didn’t like what he wanted to do. I’m not going to write a “how it should have been” for this one, because if they were being loving, this entire interchange would never have happened! They would have had a discussion about Drew’s idea, and come to a decision about it together.

Looking over our story, it’s now easy to see that everybody was being very unloving to each other. No wonder they don’t like each other! No wonder they decided that they wouldn’t want to do this again!

Loving teamwork requires lots of communication (explaining and talking about what you are thinking, what you want to do, and why you want to do it), lots of grace for mistakes and miscommunications, and a willingness to give up your ideas freely if they are not working, or if somebody else has a better one.

There is no room for holding on to what you want, snapping at people, being rude, making others’ contributions seem like they are worthless or ugly, getting angry, being purposefully careless, or for claiming the entire project as yours and yours alone. When we work together with loving teamwork, the result is stronger relationships with each other and a project that turned out better than we could have done all by ourselves.

I pray that loving teamwork is blossoming in your homes as you correct some of the unloving things you might be doing to destroy it. I pray that your relationships with your precious siblings will continue to widen and deepen as you get to know each other and come to know how you can each contribute your skills to your projects together.

Love,

~Rachel

Do-Over Duos—Teamwork and Sandcastles