An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales: From Angry Ant to Zestless Zebra [Paperback]

The stories cover many kinds of universal behaviour. Following the alphabet from A to Z, the behaviour is identified in the story title e.g. anxious, bossy, cranky & greedy & jealous & lazy & swearing & uncooperative ... and moreEach story in this collection begins with an undesirable or out-of-balance situation and, through the use of metaphor and an imaginative story journey, leads to a more desirable resolution. In this way, the stories also have the potential for nurturing positive values.This charming and beautifully illustrated book essentially offers something called story medicine as a creative strategy for parenting, teaching and even counselling. The key concept of story medicine or healing stories is that the right story, told at the right time, can unlock something within a child and eventually bring about desired (or much needed) change. One example would be of a child deliberately annoying other children and destroying the peace in the classroom for the whole group. The teacher might then read the story about Obnoxious Octopus so the whole class is presented with a template for solving the problem and behaving or responding differently. The child concerned might now receive positive attention (without having to act annoying to get it) and the other children are inspired to try different ways of behaving around this particular child. When everyone is receptive  the dynamic might just shift! The teacher in me whispers that some stories may well need to be told repeatedly  say every day for a week (or weekly for several months)  but presented in the right way, an improvement may occur given time, given patience and a positive (constructive) attitude. These stories are written for an audience aged 3  9 years  but of course they could be used too with another audience (say adults in a teamwork seminar) or adapted for older children. And of course we can do more than just telling: we can create our own picture books, act the stories out with puppets, l£)