Would you say that fairy tales could affect children's reality perception?


A benefit of fairy tales is that their formation comes from mythical thinking.

You can find archetypal portrayals of the same characters and of similar plots in different fairy tales from around the world. This is because the characters and stories of each culture are the same; however, they change the character’s form, name, and context. This means that we can say humankind has a common mythical background and a unique history that repeats itself cyclically.

The immortality of these stories, allows us to take the symbolism that resides in them and use the knowledge from them to understand a particular situation in the world. Therefore, they are a key tool for identifying with the way a character solves or handles a difficult problem.



Children need to use their imagination.

They teach children to use their imagination and inspire creative thinking, which children really need. Creative thinking and imagination are how we come up with new ideas. Kids need it in school to come up with ideas for essays and projects. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Anything we can do to encourage our children to use their imaginations helps for their future.



A downside of fairy tales is that some people could convert these stories to the literal which removes all of their symbols and metaphors.

If this happens, fairy tales would drop their deep inner value and meaning. In a fairy tale, each character is not the portrayal of an actual person, but an idea that has taken embodiment in a character. Thereby, an individual who does not have the key to interpreting fairy tales in a particular context could fall into the error of seeing them as literal tales and not as stories that represent an important concept of that culture.



Fairy tales create an environment that promotes shame and a belief that our children are not good enough

Vanessa Loder; an expert in Women's Leadership and Mindfulness was reading to her 2-year-old daughter one day; "Snow White and her prince had recently been married, and they were living happily at the castle," she realized that from a very young age, children are programmed to believe that life is happy and carefree and fairly perfect, and we should be, too.

A few months before this, Loder's mother gave her some old fairy tale books that she read to her as a child. One of them was an original Brothers Grimm fairy tale book. As she skimmed through the pages, she was shocked by some of the stories. People were dying, drowning, killing, and hurting each other. And she thought, "Wow, I can't believe we used to read this to our children".

Fast-forward six months, and she's reading to her daughter about a princess living happily with her prince, and it struck her: We have completely sanitized our children's stories -- to their detriment.


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What do you think?


Sources:

Pros and Cons of Fairy Tales

Are Fairy Tales Good for Children?

Why Fairy Tales are Bad for Our Kids

I absolutely love the idea behind fairy tales and I personally think that kids need magic in their life. Do they symbolise a false reality that 99.9% of kids will never achieve, sure, but why would someone want to take this away from them? Let them dream and be happy.

Kids should be allowed to remain kids for as long as they can, for some strange reason they are forced to become adults long before they should.

I remember growing up and when an adult came to the house, my parents would have told me to leave the room so they could speak. These days that's not the case, they are allowed to listen into adult conversations and have the internet to explain everything to them, this has resulted in many flaws of humanity including childhood depression and suicide.

Fairy tales are currently one of the only things keeping the magic alive.

I love fairytales

Children need to be read to and discuss stories, this develops their communication skills.

Evetyone needs to use their imagination at times. 

Why do we wrap children up in cotton wool.  I am all for parents sharing stories with children. 

That's a load of crap.  Children need to know that not everything is perfect.  Some of these stories describe their heroes as flawed.  They screwed up and lost.  It shows that even those we thought were the best type of person are susceptible to failure and hitting low points.  Because those are learning experiences.  It's why I liked The Last Jedi so much.  It showed even Luke wasn't perfect and could hit a wall.  That he could fail.  He fell into a depression but it took the power of a friend to pull him out.

Stories like this aren't bad for kids.  Letting their imagination go is always a good thing.  It keeps them happy.  it keeps them young both physically and mentally.  I love that I'm still able to think like a kid and can keep up with my nieces and nephew while playing with them.  Being literal with kids is a giant buzzkill.  It's not something people should do.  Kids are smarter than we give them credit for.  They know these stories aren't real.  Them pretending it is for their enjoyment does not mean that they think it is.  I guarantee if I asked Brooklyn if the Avengers are real (we pretend we're them a lot), she would say no.   

WTF do you mean the avengers aren't real?!?!?! 

My only gripe is Disney's false expectations of how hair should look for fairytale princesses... >.>

I WANT NICE HAIR, DAMMIT.