I told this story to our 428 children at assembly on Friday.
A little girl woke one day to find a tiny dragon on the end of her bed. My mum must have bought me a new toy she thought. As the girl got out of the bed to go down to breakfast the dragon moved a tiny bit and the little girl shrieked…”Mum” she shouted, “There is a tiny dragon in my room!” Her mother, who was downstairs making pancakes for their breakfast shouted up, “There is no such thing as a dragon!”
At this point the dragon was the size of a cat but it immediately grew to the size of a dog. The little girl went downstairs to have breakfast. The dragon followed..,
At this point the dragon which was as big as a large bull was sitting on the table. Just as the little girl was going to eat her pancakes the dragon wolfed them down in a single gulp. There was no point telling her mum because she already knew she did not believe in dragons.
The dragon kept getting bigger and bigger until it was so big it picked up the house they were staying in like a tortoise shell and wandered down the street.
Her Dad returned from work to find the house was no longer there but the neighbour pointed down the street to the dragon and their house walking through their local park.
As soon as the little girl saw her Dad approaching in his car she shouted, “Dad there is a dragon in our house.” At this point mum, who was pressed up against the kitchen window trying to squeeze around one of the dragons legs said, “ Maybe there is a dragon in our house after all.”
As soon as the words were spoken the dragon started to get smaller and smaller and smaller until very quickly it went back to the size of a kitten.
The end …
The children in our school knew this story wasn’t about dragons it was about “worries” and the importance of talking about them otherwise they can get bigger and bigger like a dragon in the story.
We do a lot of relation in our school because it’s important children are able to express how they feel. It’s also important children are introduced to the idea of sharing worries in simple ways they can remember…like the analogy in the story.
However, despite the check ins, our staff asking after every child they encounter, standing at gates even before they enter school grounds, check ins, check outs, kitbags, enhanced check ins, leadership team drop ins not all children are ready to talk about worries.
This could obviously be for a number of reasons but this blog is focussed on the point of the story – small worries which grow and grow unless we acknowledge them and or deal with them.
Perhaps they lack the vocabulary to express what they are feeling and for others it is to do with waiting for the depth of the relationship to align with the desire to tell.
It’s not about vampires although you may be forgiven for thinking that as I started off with dragons.
My own daughter who is six responds to my questions after school in usual fashion – “What happened at school today? Anything good?” – sometimes yes, sometines no…”I cried because I was scared of the hail stones,” or “ I fell and hurt my knee,” or “Emily was sick in the middle of the classroom,” Poor Emily!
This is usually between 5-6.30 each night…,So we chat, we reframe, I dig a bit deeper and hit Bedrock and give up…and move swiftly on to the tea and then bath routine.
Just as twilight starts though my daughter will then invariably say, “ Daddy can I tell you something?” This usually results in her talking about “dragons,” nothing major – just fall outs or a dropped paint pot or misconception in a story where she takes something literally….is there such a thing as an angry talking rabbit in Winnie the Pooh etc??
I wondered why she had not told me about all these mishaps and concerns earlier in the evening when I first asked …why always wait till just before bedtime or at twilight?
So I thought about it and realised it just might be …at the point when she gets so, so tired to the point of wanting to sleep – her two fields of conscious and subconscious may start to overlap …just momentarily and at that point her worries are drawn to the forefront of her thoughts and she can share them.
So perhaps this is why this happens? Perhaps this is why we encourage bedtime routines or even just saying goodnight because sometimes finding little dragons like the one in the story is all down to timing and the twilight.
Just a thought … take care, good luck everyone and thank you for reading this …
nickymurray 