Again the boy apologized, saying, “I’ll remember to do what you tell me next time.”
Well, on Thursday he got a job working for the butcher. At the end of his work, the butcher
gave him a leg of beef. The boy thought his mother would be pleased with his efforts today and, do-
ing what she’d told him, he tied a bit of string around his payment for the day and dragged it all the
way home. As he did all the neighborhood dogs followed him, gnawing at the leg of fresh meat. By
the time he got home there was nothing but a bare bone. His mother, who was running out of pa-
tience, told him off once again. “You silly boy, you should have carried it on your shoulder.”
Once more he apologized and promised to do as she told him next time.
On Friday there were not any jobs in the town shops, so he wandered out into the country
and helped a farmer working on a farm. At the end of the day, the man gave him an old donkey for
his efforts. Remembering what his mother had said, he tried to lift the donkey onto his shoulders
but found it was too big and heavy. When that did not work, he tried to remember her other di-
rections. “Put it in your pocket,” he recalled her saying one day, but the donkey was too large to
fit. “Carry it in a plastic bag,” she’d said on another day, but there was no way a donkey was going
to fit in a bag any more than in his pocket. Even if it could’ve, he remembered that the cat had
clawed its way out of the plastic bag and run away. He didn’t want to disappoint his mother that
way again.
Perhaps he could put it on a string and lead it home. Surely, the dogs would not eat a living don-
key like they had the leg of beef. But the donkey dug its heels into the ground, as stubborn as a mule,
and refused to move. The boy did not know what to do. He had run out of instructions that his
mother had given him. Nothing she had told him was going to work in the situation in which he
now found himself.
What do you think he did? How do you think he might solve his problem? If you were in his
place, what ways could you find to get the donkey home? And what do you think the boy might
learn from this to help him in his next job?
This is an open-ended story designed to facilitate the child’s own search for the means to reach a satisfactory
conclusion. Therefore it has no specific conclusion itself. It can be used to help elicit children’s solutions, develop
their creativity, facilitate reality testing, join their responses, shape their problem-solving skills, and build the re-
sources necessary to reach an appropriate outcome—in a enjoyable, interactive process.
STORY 25
BUILD ON WHAT YOU ARE GOOD ATTherapeutic Characteristics
Problems Addressed
■ Being bullied
■ Lack of achievement
■ Failure to build on resources
■ Self-doubt and uncertainty90 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories