News
Parents who shun fairytales 'miss chance to teach children morality'
15 Mar 2011
It has been reported that growing numbers of parents no longer read classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to their children, because of concerns that they stereotype minority groups. However, child development expert Sally Goddard Blythe claims that fairy tales such as Rapunzel and Cinderella are crucial to children’s development.
They nurture moral behaviour and show young people the strengths and weaknesses inherent in human nature, by contrasting good and evil, rich and poor and vanity and valour, she says.
In her new book, The Genius of Natural Childhood, she argues that while fairy tales may tackle difficult issues such as the death of a parent in Cinderella, they prepare them for life in the real world.
Mrs Goddard Blythe, director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester, said:
"Fairy tales help to teach children an understanding of right and wrong, not through direct teaching, but through implication.
"Far from demonising the dwarfs, the story of Snow White shows that underlying the physical diversity there can be greater kindness and generosity than is found in the stereotypes of beauty and wealth so lauded by celebrity-worshipping cultures."
She argues that children do need to learn that life isn’t always easy or fair and that there is ‘joy and sadness, love and loss, growth and degeneration’.
Mrs Goddard Blythe also calls for greater use of fables and nursery rhymes to boost children’s development and language skills in her book, which is due to be published shortly by Hawthorn Press.
In 2009, a poll of 3,000 British parents carried out by TheBabyWebsite.com revealed that a quarter of mothers rejected some classic fairy tales because they were too frightening and not politically correct enough.
A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf.
One in ten said Snow White should be renamed because ‘the dwarf reference is not PC’. Rapunzel was considered ‘too dark’ and Cinderella was being dumped because she is treated like a slave and made to do all the housework.
Read more at the Daily Telegraph
