doing?” encouraged Confidence.) It was the same with cursive writing. She had been so slow at it,
until she started practicing at other times. One day she found she got through her work so quickly
she was already doing extra work for the teacher before the other kids had finished!
Madeline realized that Confidence had introduced her to another friend called Stickability.
Stickability (“Keep trying—the more you do it, the better you become”) was what helped her to
practice until she got things right. She remembered that Stickability had helped her in the past but
she didn’t know its name then. She had once thought that she would never be able to ride a two-
wheeler bike without training wheels, but she had stuck at practicing until one day she could do it!
With Stickability as a friend she should be able to get confident at lots of things.
One day Mom thought it was time to check Madeline’s hair—and guess what? No new hair had
fallen out! In fact, on another day when Mom checked her hair she found that there was new growth.
Madeline felt really proud that she had worked out a way to solve her own problems.
154 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories
EXERCISE 9.1
Use your notebook to jot down ideas about the cognitive skills children need for living a
healthy and functional life, whether these ideas are triggered by the stories you have just read,
the cognitive behavior therapy literature, or what you see one child do that might be helpful
for another. It may help to start to structure these stories of creating helpful thought processes
into the following therapeutic characteristics:
■ The cognitive problems or challenges faced by the main character
■ The processes of thinking that would help resolve that problem
■ An outcome that opens up new possibilities or better equips the child for managing
such situations in the future