The moral dialogue continues

Editor's note: Second of three articles. Click here for part one.

Father: What did you do, Erinel?

Erinel: He hit me on the head! With a big block!

F: I know. Why do you think he did that?

E: Because he's mean!

F: Is he really? Then why did you want him to play with you? Do you like playing with mean people?

E: No.

F: Charlie's not mean. So why did he hit you?

E: I kicked down his city.

F: Yeah, you sure did. You knocked down every single block. Look at this — there's not two blocks where Charlie put them. Nothing that he built is left.

E: No.

F: You did a very thorough job. How long did it take you? Show me. Act it out, let me see what you did.

E: I don't want to.

F: You don't want to show me how you kicked it all down? You don't want me to see?

E: No.

F: Well, let me imagine it then. You ran here, and here, and here, and that did the job, didn't it? It took about three kicks and it was all wrecked.

E: Maybe.

F: How long did it take him to build it?

E: I don't know.

F: Do you think he built it in three kicks? Did he just run in and swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, there was the city?

E: (laughing) No. It took longer.

F: It took a long time. He worked hard on it. He had a plan. Some of those buildings were really tall. It's hard to make tall buildings, isn't it?

E: They fall over.

F: Your brother Charlie loves to make things, Erinel. He's a maker. That's one of the ways that he's like Heavenly Father. Because he sees a bunch of blocks and he imagines what they might be if he puts them together a certain way, and then he does it, and he's good at it, isn't he, Erinel?

E: I'm not as good at it.

F: Not yet. You haven't had much practice.

E: I don't like doing it.