Have you had that child who tries something one time and then gives up saying, “I can’t do it!” Or the child who keeps doing something in a way that won’t work for 20 minutes even though the teacher has tried to show them how to, say, slice a banana?
I sure have.
My way of handling this is not to lecture. Lord knows, that doesn’t work anyway. But to read a story about a character who faced a similar issue. It can be hard to find them so I ended up writing a few fables and illustrating them with images.
I wrote a fable about an impatient fisherman to address both the kid who gives up WAY too early and the one who won’t ask for help. I would like to share it with you. Download the PDF version to share with your classes.
Mr. Wilson decided to go fishing and he promised his wife he would bring her back some fish. So he walked down to the river under the bright afternoon sun and sat down on a rock with his fishing pole.
But there wasn’t a fish to be seen.
Every so often a little bitty fish would zip by where he was sitting, and he would chase it with his net until he would trip on a rock and fall face down into the water.
“Lousy fish!” Mr. Wilson grunted.
The day wore on, the sun started to set, and Mr. Wilson still had not caught a single fish. He became frustrated and he was stomping angrily in the water when his next-door neighbors, Mr. Brown and his son Billy, came up to the river’s edge to watch the sunset and catch a few fish.
Mr. Wilson didn’t even speak to them as he stormed off because he was frustrated by his wasted afternoon. Defeated, Mr. Wilson went home without his promised fish.
“Gee!” Billy said. “He’s pretty angry, isn’t he?”
“Hungry, I suppose,” Mr. Brown said. “He should’ve waited a bit longer. The fish come up to feed when the air is cool like this.”
As he spoke, they heard the sound of fish breaking the surface of the water, and the father and son easily scooped half a dozen fish out of the river.
Click this link to download The Impatient Fisherman Fable
Let me know how you liked the story & if there are other issues you would love to have a fable for.