Tradition and story time — not medical advice
The Ox and the Kind Word
Retold for young children from Jataka Tales (retold by Ellen C. Babbitt, 1912), public domain.
A farmer had raised his ox from a calf, feeding him well and speaking to him kindly every day. One day, feeling proud, the farmer made a bet with the men of the village: his ox could pull a hundred loaded carts, tied together in one long line.
But when the day came, the farmer, tired and impatient, shouted at his ox: "Pull, you lazy brute!" The ox — who had never once been spoken to so unkindly — planted his feet and would not move an inch, no matter how the farmer shouted. The farmer lost the bet and had to pay a large sum of silver.
That evening, the ox asked the farmer, in his own quiet way, why he'd been called such names when he'd always worked so hard. The farmer understood, and was sorry. The next day he asked for one more chance, and this time, as the ox was hitched to all hundred carts, he stroked his neck gently and said, "Good ox, show us how strong and fine you are."
At those kind words, the ox pulled with all his might, and the whole long line of carts rolled forward until every one had moved. The crowd cheered, the farmer's silver was returned to him twice over, and farmer and ox went home together, happy.
Talk about it (ours, not from the source): the same ox worked completely differently depending on how he was spoken to. Can you think of kind words that make you want to try harder?
Source: Jataka Tales, retold by Ellen C. Babbitt (1912, The Century Co.) — "The Ox Who Won the Forfeit". Public domain. Read the original.
Why public domain: US: first published 1912, more than 95 years ago, so public domain in the US regardless of the author's death date (Project Gutenberg eBook #62514).