Short Stories for Decision Making
Short Story One: wavering in the face of options
The grand event of Drawing competition was coming up in St. John sunrise school. The students were excited to take part in it. Neelam and Sagar were best friends. They had given their names to the competition. On the previous day, Neelam decided to draw a free hand pencil sketch of her favourite cartoon character. Sagar decided to do a mandala art. Both of them practiced it well.
The day of competition arrived, they sat in their allotted places and started to draw. Neelam, in the beginning was sure of her preparation. However, when she saw other kids around her, she felt that everyone was drawing better than her. Others were drawing sceneries, folk art, sky scrapers and much more. Hers looked too simple. So she changed her mind and decided to draw a scenery. She took a fresh paper and started to draw. As she had not practiced it well, she could not draw this one properly. She again changed her mind and thought that she would draw a folk art. But it became difficult too. The time was running, she was now scared that she might not be able to complete it on time. She hurriedly continued to draw the cartoon character. By then the time was almost up. While she was about to finish the colouring teacher asked everyone to stop their work. They started to collect the pictures. Sagar waved at Neelam and asked to show her drawing from the last bench. He showed his. It was very beautiful. But she did not show her picture.
Later she told Sagar about what happened during the competition. Sagar told her that she should have stuck to her decision and drew what she had practiced. She agreed and did not repeat the mistake from then.
Parenting Takeaway
Confusion! Is a part and parcel of all the decision- making process. Many times, we get confused and doubt on our own decisions. But we must be sure of what we are doing. Taking suitable advice is good. Also, we must not get carried away by others work to that extent that we doubt on our work.
Short Story Two: Merchant and his Maid
Once upon a time in a village called Narsipur, there was a wealthy merchant. He was owning a big Mill. He had a big turnover. Hundreds of kilograms of rice, wheat jowar and ragi was being crushed to make fine flour of good quality. People from different places were opting for his shop because of the quality. This made the merchant proud of himself. He was a little reluctant and rude towards the workers of his shop.
One day a maid who was cleaning the mill found that a small nut in the milling machine had become loose. She told the merchant to repair it. But the merchant asked the mind to focus on her business. After a few days two more nuts from the machine began to become lose. The maid this time called the merchant and showed him the screws that were about to come off from the bolt. The merchant thought that - as it is not affecting the machine yet, he could postpone the work. Also, he had a big order to fulfil. He thought he would get it repaired after that. But the maid said, it was better to get it done then, as the machine would run continuously and may break down. But he postponed the work.
Like the maid said the screw on the bolt became very lose and the machine’s joint broke down. The merchant had to immediately get it repaired. The person who came to repair said that he had to remove all the parts of the machine and re clamp it. If the merchant had cared for timely services of the machine, this problem wouldn’t have arrived.
Moral of the Story
There is a famous proverb - A Stich in time saves nine! It is always better to curb the problem when it is small than to postpone it and make it big!
It also makes sense to listen and head to the counsel of others. You may decide to not go ahead with other people’s advice, but always be open to feedbak
These Short Stories are designed by Team Ekdali to help parents build meaningful conversations with kids. Please do check our other products here
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Smitha Prasad is a budding writer who writes articles and short stories for kids. She believes that childhood is the right age to inculcate the right values in kids. It helps them to develop into confident adults. She designs and runs a kid’s magazine called A LITTLE MORE-An Engaging booklet, through which she tries to reach kids that helps kids stay away from screen, build conversations and build the right mindset in kids
