101 Healing Stories for Kids and Teens

As Ernie and Emma pictured that safe place, their quills began to droop just a little, not too much
at first, but just a little.
“Good,” said Fred. “Now continue to practice.” Fred sounded a bit like a doctor giving them a
prescription for some pills. “It might help to practice this every morning as soon as you wake and
every night before you go to bed. Practice thinking of situations where you need to have your quills
up, and then of safe times, safe places where you can let them down. Stop and ask yourself if you need
to put them up around each other or friends like me.”
A few weeks later when Fred was eating his toasted cheese sandwiches for breakfast one morn-
ing, as he always did, there came a knock on the wall beside his entrance hole. A long, slender nose
stuck through the hole and asked, “Can we come in?” and in burrowed Ernie and Emma. As their
quills were lying calmly down against their bodies, Fred gave them each a big hug without fear of be-
ing spiked. And they hugged him back.
“The weather has been cold,” said Fred, “but you aren’t shivering as much as you were when
you visited last time.”
“No,” replied Emma. “Now that we are not as bristly around each other we can cuddle up ten-
derly and keep each other warm through the cold nights. It is so much nicer.”
“Yes,” agreed Ernie. “Because you helped teach us that there might be times when it’s okay to
be prickly and times when it’s good not to be, we thought we’d like to teach you something.”
Fred wondered what they were going to do as he followed Ernie and Emma back up the hill to
the high country. With their bristles down, they taught Fred how to roll himself up into a ball and
the three of them went somersaulting down the snowy hillside, flopping into the soft snowdrifts at
the bottom, where they all laughed heartily.

STORY 38

GOING INSIDE

Therapeutic Characteristics

Problems Addressed

■ Boredom

■ Anger

■ Problematic relationships

Resources Developed

■ Taking time out

■ Developing relaxation skills

■ Learning to ask presuppositional questions

Outcomes Offered

■ Relaxation skills

■ Strategies for managing relationships

■ The joy of positive relationships

114 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories