How to Train Your Dragon

Wouldn’t that be a great alternative name for this blog? “How to Train Your Dragon—The Loving Approach to Discipline.”

If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go get it. It’s a lesson in parenting!

Here were these difficult, impossible dragons—each with its own gifts and challenges. But the single perfect way to train each of them was not by coercion or manipulation or brutality. It was just all about learning to read them and appreciate them and give them the simple things they needed. It was all about mercy and gentleness. As soon as those dragons felt perfectly safe, they were tame. And they were bonded and devoted. They became assets instead of liabilities.

I loved that moment of truth—when Hiccup came to slay the dragon and then he looked in his eye and felt that connection. Instead of feelings of power and domination, he felt empathy. He recognized that the dragon felt just like he did. He dropped his sword and treated him as he would like to be treated. That was the turning point. Only then could he slowly, over many days, win his love.

And wasn’t it interesting how he started out relying on the tried and true dragon book for all his information. But he wasn’t successful until he threw it away and trusted his instincts.

And I loved how he stood alone—going against the culture of the day, caring more about the relationship he had formed than about what outsiders thought of him.

But gradually, as people began to see this new higher way, they became believers.

Now I realize it was fiction---but it contained a lot of truth.

So just keep it on hand and pull it out at the end of a long day and remember what kind of parent you really want to be—what kind of relationships you really want to have with your children.

Are you willing to eat a few raw fish if that’s what it takes to connect?

Have a great day with your own little dragons.

Love,

Jane

And another thing….that awesome dragon that he tamed was “The Night Fury”. Think about that when you’re walking the floor with a teething baby at two am.