Importance Of Fairy Tales In Childhood

Importance of fairy tales in childhood

According to Bruno Bettelheim, it is important to discover what are the most appropriate experiences, in the child’s life, in order to promote his ability to find meaning and meaning to their lives.

These experiences are related to the impact caused by parents and those who care for children and, on the other hand, the cultural heritage that must be transmitted correctly. The latter is achieved through children’s literature. Currently, children’s literature seeks to entertain or inform, but not feed or stimulate the necessary resources in the child, which allow him to overcome internal problems, so it is a fairly superficial literature.

Relevant aspects for children in literature:

For children’s literature to really keep attention in the child, and enrich his life, it is necessary that:

• I am fun and that, at the same time, it causes curiosity
• Stimulate your imagination
• Develop your intellect
• Clarify your emotions
• Make him recognize his difficulties, while suggesting solutions to them
• Give credit to the child’s conflicts, without decreasing them
• Stimulate your self-confidence and future

Understanding of the child’s internal world:

Everything mentioned above is present in fairy tales. Although fairy tales seem that they do not teach the conditions of modern life well;From them, you can learn much more from human beings and the correct solutions to the conflicts of any society.

In addition, they are understandable for children and adults. The child needs a moral education that subtly transmits the benefits of moral behavior without being ethical and abstract concepts.

How can we transmit that moral education to the child?

In order for the child to master the psychological problems of growth, he needs to understand what is happening within him and face. To acquire this understanding, it cannot be done through the rational understanding of nature, if not, making it fantasize about what for him is significant in that story. When doing this, the child adapts the unconscious content to his fantasies.

That is, to morally educate the child, we must give freedom to adapt their fantasies to those messages that come from the world, or these fairy tales. This will enrich and make sense of their fantasies, coming to understand them and endowing them for the development of their personality and moral behavior.

The protection error by the parents:

The common belief of parents is that they must take children from what worries them the most;His unknown anxieties and his chaotic fantasies. Many parents believe that the child should only show pleasant images, and know only the good side of things, as a form of protection. We want our children to believe that men are good by nature, but the children themselves are aware that they themselves are not good and that real life is not always pleasant. This can make the child look like a monster, because they are shown a “good” world and when it does not behave according to it, it looks like someone “bad”.

Therefore, the modern stories that are written for children generally avoid these existential problems, although they are crucial for us. On the other hand, traditional fairy tales transmit to children that the fight against the serious difficulties of life is inevitable, it is part of human existence;That, if he does not flee, and faces them, he will master all obstacles raising with the victory. The "safe" stories do not teach us death, nor aging, which fairy tales face the child with basic human conflicts. This allows the child to attack the problems in their essential form.

It is necessary that the child, in his childhood between contact with these conflicts and that he conscious. If we hide, death, aging or any other conflict, the child at some point in his life, when he has to face it, will be much more traumatic and will generate much greater suffering due to lack of resources. Fight against these conflicts through stories, movies or fairy tales, will make the child face their fantasies and get resources and solutions to overcome it.

Morality in the form of identification with the characters and what they represent:

The different characters of these stories symbolize "good and evil" in their characteristics and in their actions. The bad, in almost all fairy tales, temporarily holds power, although it corresponds to the hero. At the end of these stories the hero always punishes the evil, but this is not the essential part of these stories, but that the child realizes, that the crime does not solve anything, so the bad always loses. Therefore, the child identifies with the hero, imagines that he suffers with him, who goes through the same tests and triumphs with him, which makes this morality leave a footprint in the child and he gives him meaning in his life.

In most stories there are characters that are good and others that are bad, in order to more easily understand the difference between the two. If characters were presented to reality, with their good and bad things, the child would be confused;This could only be presented when he has subsequently developed his firm personality. The presentation separate makes the child obliged to choose what kind of person he wants to be, and this will cause the child to develop his personality, being himself who has chosen who or what he wants to identify.

This identification is not so related to good or evil, if not with the sympathy or antipathy that the different characters transmit to the child. The simpler and more honest a character, the easier it is to identify with him and reject the bad one who is much more complex. The child identifies himself asking “Who do I want to look like?”, Not if he wants to be good or bad, but who would want to become.

How could more real characters benefit?

We could ask ourselves what happens with those stories in which good and bad people present at the same time, those in which the success of the hero is made possible through actions that can be considered "bad". In these cases, it is not sought. In these stories, morality is no solution, but rather the assurance that one is able to get ahead, face life with the belief of being able to master difficulties. Therefore, the benefit of these stories is to create in children that security and confidence in difficult situations, making them see that even that they can be insignificant can overcome different conflicts for themselves.

How do they help in children’s existential anguish?:

Fear of death, aging and separation of parents:

Children have primary impulses or negative feelings that are absent in modern literature and this does not help the child to overcome them. Children are generally unable to express these feelings, and when parents realize, they tend to monitor or reduce their importance, convinced that they will hide their own terrors from the child;This happens, because they feel afflicted by the suffering of their children.

Instead, fairy tales make these existential anguish very present;As the need to be loved, fear of believing yourself despicable, fear of death, etc. These stories offer understandable solutions for the child, since the ends of "lived happy evergreen" do not convey to the child, that they can live forever, but to generate an emotional bond with another person, dissipates the fear of death.

In addition, these stories show that this outcome will not be possible, which the child wants, if they follow the mother eternally, that is, if they do not exceed the dependency. If they try to escape from the anguish of separation, and the anguish of death grabbing the parents, they will only be crushed cruelly from their side over time. This helps the child to give up their children’s desires of dependency and achieve independence that will be more satisfactory.

Loneliness, isolation and abandonment:

Another existential anguish is the feeling of loneliness, isolation and abandonment that some children can present. Today children do not always grow surrounded by family or community safety, which makes them feel isolated. The hero of these stories advances only for a while, which makes him identify with him. In addition, the fact that he will contact the primitive objects of nature that help the hero, makes the child feel that, even if he is lost and abandoned in the world, his life will be guided step by step and will receiveHelp at the right time. Currently, it is very important to make that child who needs security;The image of a lonely man who is able to obtain satisfactory relationships with the world around him, despite feeling alone and abandoned.

How to enhance the child’s well -being with fairy tales?:

It is necessary to mention that we ignore what age, or what a story will be important for a certain child, only the child can reveal it through the strength of his feeling with which he reacts to a certain story. We will realize that it has become important for him and ask us to be told again and again. Finally, the time will come, in which the child will have obtained everything possible from that story in his life.

It is very important for the child’s well -being, feeling that their parents share their emotions, enjoying the story and having the feeling that their parents ignore their internal thoughts so far that the child decides to reveal them. If the parents show them to know them, the child will avoid sharing with them what was until then something secret to him. In addition, the child who sees his parents as superiors and dominant;If you think they are able to listen to her most private thoughts, his parents will become overwhelming and destructive.

We should not, try to explain the child rationally, why a fairy tale could be fascinating and enriching for him. This will lead to the loss of the potential that history has to help the child fight for his. The interpretations of adults, deprive the child of the opportunity to feel that he, without any help, has satisfactorily faced a difficult situation. Which provides the child growth, meaning in their life and security towards oneself by understanding and solving their own problems without any help.

Conclusions:

Fairy tales, they represent in an imaginary way, the essence of the normal human development process, and have the appeal that the child needs to commit to this growth process, providing positive psychological aspects to the internal growth of the child.

An example would be "Rapunzel" a princess locked in a tower that manages to free herself through a part of her own body, her long hair. This transmits to the child, finding security in the idea that his own body offers greater security for having been what leads him to salvation.

Fairies are unique, and not only because of their literary form, but for being totally understandable to the child. In addition, the deepest meaning of this type of stories will be different for each person, and even for the same person, but at different times of his life. In addition, the child will obtain a different meaning from the same story according to their interests and needs of the moment.

We must bear in mind that the central themes of a story have nothing to do with the great psychological meaning for children of all ages and sexes, without taking into account the age and sex of the protagonist of the story. From these stories, a rich personal meaning is obtained, facilitating changes in identification while the child goes through different problems. Those who have children in their care, they need to be aware of the importance of these stories, since they have a wealth and depth that helps children develop as people.