Being Afraid of Fairy Tale Characters

Witches, wolves, ogres: it is a fact, children love scary fairy tales even if, at the same time, they try to terrorize their parents! However, this taste for thrill is normal and there is no reason to be worried.

Is your child afraid of ghosts, skeletons or dead people that he encountered in a book? There is no need to worry because getting scared is part of the normal stages of psychological development. If this fear unleashes nightmares or daytime anxiety in the child it means that history has awakened a buried fear in him. If this happens try to help the child to focus on the imagination of the story.

Mastering the imaginary

All parents want to protect their child from suffering or grief. Has any one had the temptation to conceal a death evoking a distant voyage? Despite the efforts of his family, the child cannot avoid fear. He will be concerned about his parents' arguments, worries that may be caused by their work, or he simply may wonder about the strange noises he heard at night. In short, his relation with reality is not necessarily reassuring. That is why he needs to invent a world in which he is the master and where he exercises his almighty power, including his fears.

A fear of substitution

The story does not traumatize the child, but reinforces its mental structure to inform the child of future happenings. It is the means to tame the real fears, and learn to respect a moral code, such as simply to disobey and then having to face a punishment for his wrong doings.

Whether witches, big bad wolf or royal couple, the characters of fairy tales accurately respond to the anxieties of young people. The king and queen are regarded as "good" parents while the stepmother or ogre fantasies are part of the child who sees his parents sometimes as bad and frustrating.

Children may especially enjoy the misfortunes of the character while he predicts a happy ending. He lives in a situation by identifying himself to the hero whose imagination is to win over the bad and evil. The child enjoys this fear as he knows that in the end he is going to dominate.

The known truth

Yet there is a fundamental difference between traditional and fantasy novels that give goose bumps: they lead the reader through a system of thought where the paranormal meets reality. As a result, some young people start to believe in a universe filled with invisible creatures and evil, and are often disturbed. Their fascination with this type of reading is more is more of a desire to access a hidden truth than the pleasure to be afraid!

Sources:

http://www.cs.siu.edu/~kfong/research/fairytales.html