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Why fairy tales are so important to our development

Nov 18, 2021 · 2 mins read

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As stories featuring strange characters (like fairies and witches) and far-fetched plot twists, fairy tales contain hidden depth that helps children to develop healthy minds and relationships.

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The fairy tale is more useful and powerful than other kinds of children’s stories, according to psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, because they’re good at allowing the child’s imagination to fill in the blanks and adapt it to their own complex feelings.

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The inner workings of a child’s mind may be difficult to communicate. But in hearing a fairy tale, they can visualize themselves in the story and have some framework to navigate their own experiences and thoughts, if only in an unconscious way.

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Parents can’t help sheltering children, often sugarcoating their worldview. This denial or cover-up can make kids feel like they’re abnormal. By contrast, fairy tales reveal a complexity to life where people encounter challenges and learn to overcome them.

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Beauty and the Beast, for example, illustrates how a parent’s total love for their child provides the foundation to love others. In this case, Beauty is able to love the Beast to such an extent that it transforms the hideous into the beautiful.

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Bettelheim offers key principles for effectively sharing stories with a child. First, opt for quality (like the Brothers Grimm). Good fairy tales resolve conflict and provide hope. Don’t tell a story that may be funny for adults but nightmarish for children.

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Read (or preferably recite from memory) the stories aloud with as much expression you can. Try not to use pictures; let these tales form in the child’s mind. Don’t skip any parts, and avoid modernized versions that omit subplots.

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Don’t explain the moral of the story. Let your child come to their own conclusions. Fairy tales are rich and open-ended enough to contain a collection of potential lessons. Just tell the tale and don’t add anything.

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Ask if the child would like to hear the same story again next time, or a different story. Be patient if they want to hear the same tale over and over. Its message may speak to an internal issue they’re struggling with.

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Remember: every fairy tale reflects different aspects of our inner world. They’re designed to heal the adult as much as the child, leading the way out of the forests of our tangled thoughts and emotions, from immaturity to maturity.

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