“Mum! Dad! There is a dragon in my room. Under my bed!”
Now, any reasonable parent would probably grab a torch, a broom, maybe a slipper for backup and go and investigate.
But these parents?
They looked at each other and basically said, “Please.”
“That cannot be. This is a safe house. There are no dragons here. Go back to sleep.”
Excuse me? Sir. Madam.
Your child has just reported a dragon and your response is “go to sleep”?
At least check under the bed! But no.
The boy goes back to his room. And the dragon stays.
The boy tries to tell them again.
They dismiss him. Again.
They dismiss him. Apparently, the parents had decided that if they didn’t acknowledge the dragon, the dragon would get the hint and leave.
Unfortunately, dragons do not work like that.
The dragon kept growing.And growing. And growing.
Meanwhile, Mum and Dad were busy living their best lives, convinced that everything was perfectly fine because, according to them, “This is a safe house.”
Then one day, the dragon had grown so big that it broke through the house.
And guess what?
The parents were eaten.
The boy?
He escaped.
Because eventually he realised something very important:
If the people in the house refuse to deal with the problem, you better find the exit.
When someone says, “There is a problem.”
We say, “No, there isn’t.”
They say, “But I can see it.”
We say, “You’re imagining things.”
They say, “Something needs to be done.”
We say, “Stop creating unnecessary drama.”
And everybody goes back to scrolling.
Meanwhile, the dragon is eating protein, going to the gym and getting bigger.
By the time we finally admit there is a problem, the problem has upgraded from a small inconvenience to a full-blown monster with its own postcode.
And that is the danger of denial.
Sometimes the person who notices the problem first is the person we least expect to listen to.
A child. A young person. A junior employee. A neighbour. Someone without a title.
Someone without power.
Someone who doesn’t have the “right” credentials.
But being young does not make someone’s eyes defective.
Sometimes the person at the bottom can see what the people at the top cannot.
And no, that does not mean we should believe every “There is a dragon!” announcement we hear.
People can misunderstand things. People can panic, people can exaggerat, people can also be confidently wrong. Very confidently wrong.
But there is a difference between questioning a warning and dismissing it.
You don’t have to believe the dragon is real.
Just look under the bed.That is the whole point.
Check. Investigate. Ask questions.
Because if there is nothing there, congratulations! Everybody can go back to sleep.
But if there is something there? Deal with it while it is still small.
Because problems, unlike wine, do not necessarily get better with age.
