This is a fictional story I made up for my children to help teach them about why things happens and to look for other reasons as opposed to making assumptions.
Maria hopped along to school on a bright and sunny day.
Maria loved going to school. She loved to see all her friends and she had a wonderful teacher Miss Emma who taught her lots of interesting subjects like Maths and English.
On this particular day, Maria noticed that two of her friends were with some other girls that she didn’t know. Maria went over to the group and said hello. The girls all smiled and said hello to Maria and they all stood around in the circle talking.
The bell rang for class to start, before the girls were about to walk away, Lola said ‘hold on I have something to give you’. Lola gave all the girls a peanut butter chocolate except for Maria.
Maria felt sad, she loved peanut butter chocolate. She really wanted Lola to have given her chocolate too.
Maria wondered, why did Lola give everyone a chocolate except for me?
Vince, Maria’s brother asked ‘Maria, what’s the matter?’.
Maria explained to Vince about what had happened. She told him that the girl was mean. Maria felt really upset and hurt because she didn’t get a chocolate. Peanut butter chocolate was her favourite.
Vince looked at Maria and said, ‘I know that you are upset by what happened and I would be too because I love peanut butter chocolate too. Mum would be proud because you walked away nicely without being rude. Why do you think Lola didn’t give you chocolate?’
Maria thought for a moment, then said ‘I don’t understand why she wouldn’t give me one or ask me if I wanted one. Mum tells us to share with everyone around and if we do not want to share when others are around then not to bring it out. Remember when I had my strawberries and I went around and offered everyone a strawberry.’
Vince remembered as the bell rang and they both went into class.
After school finished, Maria and Vince were walking home, they saw Lola standing with her mum. As they walked past, they overheard Lola’s mum talking to Lola. Lola’s mum asked her ‘did you share your peanut butter chocolate with your friends?’. Lola replied, ‘yes, I only gave it to the girls I knew were not allergic to peanut butter and if their mum said it was ok for me to give them one’.
Maria realised that Lola was not being mean, Lola didn’t know Maria or her mum, therefore, didn’t know whether she could give the chocolate to Maria.
Vince asked, ‘how do you feel now that you know why Lola didn’t give you the chocolate?’
‘I feel better now that I understand. I didn’t think that there may have been a reason I was too busy thinking that Lola was mean. I also learnt that if I cannot give something to everyone to communicate to them why I cannot give it to them or wait to only the people that I can give it to are around. I don’t want to make anyone feel sad.’ Maria replied.
Vince replied, ‘That is a good lesson to learn, I am going to do the same as you.’
The End
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