When You're Angry Enough to Breathe Fire (The Little Dragon's Flame)

A children's bedtime story about big anger, and about not being alone in it.

Grandpa finds Leo under the kitchen table. He doesn't say calm down, and he doesn't say it was only a drawing. He just sits down on the floor beside him, close enough to talk, and tells him about a little dragon who could breathe fire.

The little dragon had a clever trick: whenever the anger came, he would roar it all out, the bigger the roar the better. His toast, his kite, his birthday cake... and the anger, still there every time. Until one quiet evening, with one small candle, he found another way to breathe.

For children 4 to 8, and whoever sits beside them.  

About the tale: this little dragon is our own, but the idea inside is old and true. In the 5th century, the Buddhist teacher Buddhaghosa wrote that a person who grabs a burning coal to throw at someone else gets burned first. Researchers who study anger have since found the same thing: roaring it all out tends to feed the fire, not put it out, while a slow, calm breath helps it settle. We gave that idea to a small dragon, and a grandpa who knows that the first thing a big feeling needs is someone to sit beside you.