Page 18 - Wanda Weasel

Wanda messed up two hunting trips because of her Stinky Thinking. Her thinking caused her to feel frustrated, anxious and too eager. She could not control herself when she saw a rat by the corn crib because she had no self-soothing (Good Thinking) thoughts. She could have said to herself, “There is one now but be still and quiet. The others know how to do this so just calm down and wait for the signal.”
But Wanda did not do that. Instead, she went with her normal (Stinky) thinking. “There is a rat now and I will show them how good I am. I’ll catch it. The others are just wasting time talking. I will show them how it’s done.” She could not control herself and thus she rushed in and ended up spoiling the hunt. We saw in the story how her thinking caused her to not be patient.
Another problem with not being patient is that you usually are not persistent. Persistence means to stay with a task until you have learned it or can do it adequately. If you are trying to learn your spelling words, it takes patience and persistence.
If you tell yourself, “I hate learning these words and I want to watch TV,” you won’t be very patient. Because you are not patient, you may do poorly on your spelling test. Then you tell yourself, “These spelling words are too difficult and it is not fair. I’m not going to waste my time with these spelling words.” Thus, you won’t be persistent.
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