Two Short Stories for kids on Solution Seeking:
Story One : Our Individual Strengths
A deer and a tortoise were very good friends. They liked each other’s company a lot. The deer lived on the banks of a pond where the tortoise lived.
One day the deer wanted to go to the other side of the pond, to graze fresh herbs. When the deer told his mom, the mother deer said that he can take the help of the tortoise. Tortoise could carry the deer in the pond. But the deer told that the tortoise was very slow and it would take a lot of time to reach the other side. As the deer himself coul run very fast , it could make it to the other end sooner.
The deer started to walk into the pond, but could not walk as the pond got deeper. The deer came back and asked the tortoise for help. It took the deer to the other side. From that day, when ever tortoise wanted anything on the land, the deer would run and get it and tortoise would help the deer in water.
Moral of the Story
Each of us have different talents. It is a great idea to help each other out and use our strengths to good use. It is better to work as a team, than solo. When we work in a team, we each can bring our strengths and solve most problems.
Story Two : Creative Solutions
Vijayanagar was a well know empire in southern part of India. King KrishnadevaRaya was an able administrator and under his supervision, a lot of monuments and structures were built. Hampi is a classic exampletor visualise and understand the works that happened in his era.
Tenali Rama was a well know minister in the court of Krishnadevaraya. He was famous for coming up with witty solutions to problems
We will talk about one such incident
The other ministers who were working along with Tenali wer jealous of him and wanted to get him in trouble. The king wanted to prove Tenali’s wit in front of everyone. So, he invited Tenali along with other ministers for a challenge. According to which, each of them would be given a cat and 15 days’time. Each of them were supposed to take care of the cats. At the end of 15th day, they would have a race for the cats. Which ever cat wins the respective minister would get appreciated!
All the minsters took their cats home and started to take care of the cat well. They fed it properly. But Tenali Rama gave small amount of food to the cat in short intervals. When it came to milk, he boiled it very hot, and tried to feed the cat. the cat burnt it’s mouth and ran away from the milk pot. Everyday he gave hot milk! and the cat would run away!
Everyone gathered on the day of race. All the cats had become huge and fat eating a lot of food. but Tenali’s cat remained slim and fit. When the race started, Tenali kept a pot of milk in front of the cat. Seeing the milk pot the cat ran as fast as it could and reached the finish line first!
The king asked Tenali to explain secret of training the cat so well in front of others. When Raman explained what he did, everyone burst out with laughter and unanimously accepted that Tenali Rama was indeed the wittiest of all the ministers.
Parenting Takeaway:
This is an amazing story on creativity and leateral thinking. Research has shown that kids develop these skills by doing two things- One being in situations and solving the problems and two by reading about witty solutions . Encourage kids to read more witty short stories.
This story is set in presnet day Karnataka. We have a great set of Flash Cards on different states of India. Do check out the Flash Cards 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
