Once there was a child with a very bad personality, behaving disrespectfully toward others. His father decided to discipline him in a different way. He gave him a bag full of nails and asked him to be calm and patient, and to put a nail in the back wall of the house every day.
The little boy had many nails with him, and every day he put a group of them in the wall. His father wanted to control his bad personality and his constant mischief by putting those nails in the wall.
The little boy didn’t lose his calm even once during the process of putting nails, until he finished all the nails that were with him. His behavior had improved noticeably because he was very occupied with his task. This made his father pleased and happy with these results. Then he continued following his son to help him reach the best possible result in improving his behaviors. He asked him to remove a nail every day from the wall until he removed all the nails he had put.
Days passed, and finally, the child told his father that he had removed all the nails from the wall. His father took him at that time behind the house to see the wall. Then he said to him: Look my son… You have accomplished a very harsh task by putting the nails here in the wall. You have filled the wall with holes, and it will never return as it was before. The little boy looked at the wall contemplating the small holes the nails had made.
Then the father completed his talk saying: What I want to tell you is that when you say or do something while angry or in a bad way, what you do will leave a wound like those holes. It doesn’t matter at all how many apologies, because the wound will remain present always like those holes. What you did in the wall with your hand, your behaviors can also do with others.
The little boy understood what his father meant and felt the error of his actions. He stood listening to his father who completed saying: My little one… Friends are like fathers and family. They are like precious jewels, so they must be respected. They make you smile, encourage you to be better, listen to you when you talk, and their hearts are always open for your sake.
The father gave his little one an experience so he could deal with others with respect through the experience of nails, which changed the child’s personality to the better.
The story is translated from Spanish Title: El niño y los clavos