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Comment
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I need HELP DESPERATELY
Unregistered User
(3/16/04 10:40 am)
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should children be told fairy tales?
I'm still searching for help with my speech, I've a problem, the problem (question) is "should children be told fairy tales?"
Thank you very much
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winkingstar
Registered User
(3/16/04 12:56 pm)
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Re: should children be told fairy tales?
Try Jane Yolen's _Touch Magic_ for the importance of fairy tales in children's literature. I haven't read this yet but I just got it from the library for a paper I'm writing and it sounds like it would be helpful to you.
Also, try Sheldon Cashdan's _The Witch Must Die_ for how fairy tales help children with developing their sense of self.
Those are the two that come to my mind right now as I am reading both for a paper. These two books are also very well written--not too much academic jargon that makes it hard to understand--so they're good for reading quickly.
Hope that helps,
~winkingstar
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(3/16/04 2:43 pm)
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Re: should children be told fairy tales?
I read certain ones to my 6 yr old. I don't just read however,
I make sure that I'm explaining the meanings of words, phrases and concepts. I ask questions as I go. When we find
one that seems a bit much to him, I put it away.
Rym Rytr
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Jess
Unregistered User
(3/16/04 3:45 pm)
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It might help us if we had some idea of where you stand
Hi,
I know we have already given you quite a bit to go on - Zipes, Yolan, the Purdue study, etc. What are you thinking at this time? Where are you "stuck"? What other evidence have you found? Do you have a thesis point you are trying to make? Do you have to present both sides? How long is your speech at this point and how much further do you have to go? I know you have been working for a long time on this - it should be getting into good shape by now.
Perhaps with more information we can direct you farther.
Jess
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Jess
Unregistered User
(3/17/04 10:45 am)
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That's Yolen with and E!
Oops. Dang and I forgot to sign in to edit!
Major apologies, Jane.
Jess
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briggsw
Unregistered User
(3/17/04 2:06 pm)
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Shd they be told?
The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim. Many here don't like him, but I think he makes good points.
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AM
Registered User
(3/18/04 6:19 pm)
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Don't tell the grown ups
I don't know if it will help, but I read a book a long time ago called Don't Tell the Grown Ups: the subversive nature of childrens lit. (At least I think that was the title. I couldn't find it to look at)... Anna Marie
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(3/18/04 8:20 pm)
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Re: should children be told fairy tales?
The book is Don't Tell the Grown-ups by Alison Lurie. Here's a link to it on Amazon.com:
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...lalufairyt
Heidi
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Finnfairy
Unregistered User
(3/19/04 6:39 am)
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should children be...
Hi!
Young children form their opinions about the world and life on the information they get from parents. I believe parents should mostly invent themselves the fairy tales they tell to suit to childīs personality and their own values.
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silentgothicpixie
Registered User
(3/29/04 8:00 am)
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Re: should children be...
Hi, don't know if this is much help as it's only my own opinion, but I do believe children should be 'told' fairy tales. By this I mean that the tales should be told, not read from a book. I did this with my youngest brother, and will do so with my daughter when she's old enough, I think it makes it better for the child if you can. This way you can 'edit' the tale to suit the child, I never change the main points of a story mind, just the little details and language. Young children sometimes find it hard to understand the words used in traditional tales and whilst I would never 'baby' a story (kids know if you're doing this and it upsets them) I do sometimes use more common words with the same meaning. I also change or add details if it won't affect the actual plot, I for one get fed-up with 'blond haired beauties' and some of the stories don't actually go into that much detail. When I first started teling my little brother stories he was forever asking 'what colour dragon?' or something similar so I started putting more detail in. He definatley got the point of the stories, without me sitting and telling/asking him, and preffered the ones where I'd made it more personal, giving the hero the same colour hair and eyes as him, or putting in other little details which he could recognise in his own life. (A fun one now is making the 'evil queen/stepmother' figures look like a teacher he particularly dislikes!)
Anyway, I'm rambling, as I said this is only my opinion, I've not read any of the books or such that people have suggested - but I think fairy tales are important, they teach our children morals without force-feeding them and they're also an important part of our culture and heritage.
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aj
Unregistered User
(3/30/04 3:14 pm)
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children and fairy tales
try THE WITCH WITHIN by sheldon cashdan
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Larry
A Tilander
Registered User
(3/31/04 12:08 pm)
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Re: children and fairy tales
Hey. I was wandering EZBoard and noticed your question. As a writer who scribbles a lot of stuff for kids, a couple of bits of which you could probably call "fairy tales" I guess I'd have to say, "Heck Yes."
Fairy tales are usually stories that contain some kind of moral or warning for children and this is a good thing as far as I can see.
A more proper question to ask might be, "Is there a reason that that some particular fairy tales should not be told to children?".
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janeyolen
Registered User
(3/31/04 6:30 pm)
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Re: children and fairy tales
Absolutely there are some fairy tales that should NOT be told to children. I'd guess the vast majority of them are inappropriate to young children, and a majority of the rest are inappropriate to elementary school kids. After all, there are stories about bestiality, pissing contests, how men and women make love, defecation stories, dismemberment tales etc. etc. all in the folk canon.
Jane Yolen
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(3/31/04 7:09 pm)
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Re: children and fairy tales
See, now I loved me a good dismemberment tale when I was a kid, but I don't know if my rather macabre leanings are a good example to follow.
More seriously, I think that by and large there are lots of children who don't mind violent stories--in fact, I think most children like violent stories (to make a crass overgeneralization), perhaps because they are so constrained in their real lives, w/little to no control over what happens to them and around them.
That said, there are kinds of violence in stories that I would feel comfortable telling to kids (decapitations, say, or being burned alive in an oven, or cutting bits of one's feet off to fit into shoes) and kinds that I wouldn't (rape, for instance). But fairy-tale tellers have evolved a lexicon to represent the kind of violence I wouldn't explicitly tell my kids about--so that the father in Donkeyskin wants to "marry" his daughter, not rape her. And I think I would be OK w/that. My copy of the Greek myths when I was a kid always referred to rape as forced marriages (i.e. Persephone was kidnapped and forced to marry Hades) and I don't think it did me any lasting harm. The general violence and oppressions of the real world--they did me some lasting harm!
Which I think leads me to my ultimate answer to this question. Which is that, in my opinion, children can cope with stories given a reasonably happy and reliable real world around them. Unfortunately, I also think that it's beyond the ability of any parent to fully negate the effects of the difficult and often hostile world we live in, so there you go.
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