By Adrian Wasylewski
Fairy tales are some of the first stories that children are exposed to. They are a big part of many people’s childhoods, acting as a means of bonding with family members and as a source of creativity and imagination. Not only that, but they also act as a guide and support children as they encounter real world issues, providing them with lessons to apply to whatever situation they may find themselves in. Although the contemporary significance of fairy tales has been contested, they play an important role in children’s development, impacting how they regulate their emotions and employ empathy.
Before analyzing how fairy tales impact development, it is important to understand what fairy tales are, their characteristics, and how they have been integrated into our society. One way to look at fairy tales is as “timeless and spaceless stories that depict the gravity of individuals through fascinating circumstances,” which are based on real life events and reflect the culture from which they originate (Danilewitz, 87-88). These tales can be seen in contemporary media such as TV shows or commercials, book adaptations, or even school curricula. Although fairy tales may have originally been intended for adults, one of the main reasons they have been told and retold is because of their educational impact on children. Many of the characteristics present in fairy tales have major implications for children. Every “once upon a time” promises a “happily ever after,” reassuring the child listening to the tale that there will be a happy ending when it comes to growing up. Fairy tales also tend to simplify situations, eliminating all details except those strictly necessary and dividing many situations into dichotomies such as good and evil (Danilewitz, 88). The characteristics and structure of fairy tales are some of the driving factors when it comes to children’s emotional response to fairy tales and thus their emotional development.
That being said, this argument raises the question, how do children respond to fairy tales? Because children’s minds are young and full of wonder, not yet influenced by logical thinking that focuses on causes and effects, they respond extremely well to fairy tales. These stories add an element of awe and perplexity in children’s lives which is important because “the intuitive metaphorical symbolic imaginal part of the self needs to be harbored in our children so as to balance out the rational aspects of our lives,” (Danilewitz, 91). Stories, such as fairy tales, are crucial for our development, preventing us from becoming cynical and pessimistic about life and, instead, helping us see the wonder and beauty in the world. Because “the fairy tale proceeds in a manner which conforms to the way a child thinks and experiences the world,” it is more convincing to a child than an actual scientific explanation about a certain phenomenon (Bettelheim, 45). Children do not have a grasp or understanding of complex scientific explanations because they are too abstract for them to comprehend. In a way, these factual explanations seem more unrealistic to them than the magical explanations seen in fairy tales. Fairy tales, therefore, offer children answers to existential questions such as “who am I?”, “where did I come from?”, and “what is the purpose of life?”, acting as a crucial guide for children to navigate the world without feeling an overwhelming sense of powerlessness and defeat. Imaginative and creative stories, such as fairy tales, not only bring children joy, but they also provide them with answers and explanations to real life phenomena that they may question or lack understanding of.
Aside from the fact that fairy tales help children find meaning and purpose in their own lives, they also help them “engage in emotional growth and transcend their self-centered natures,” (Zehetner, 1). In other words, fairy tales can actually cause people to become more empathetic. The concept of empathy is something that dates back to the beginning of humanity, and can be defined as “the process of ‘feeling one’s way into’ an art object or another person,” (Mallan, 105). In a 1982 study by Sharon C. Milner, the effects of incorporating fairy tales into preschool children’s literature curriculum were tested in order to see how this curriculum change would affect their empathy levels. This study found that the fairy tale curriculum was successful in promoting the development of empathy in preschool children, and it stressed the importance of providing an environment that facilitates the opportunities necessary for empathetic development in early childhood (Milner, 122-123). Previous studies had already found that empathy gradually develops over time and has its early foundations laid down during childhood. The Milner study is important because it provides a method to help foster that early empathetic development for children. By incorporating fairy tales into school curriculums, schools can promote and support more emotionally intelligent people.
It has been discovered that fairy tales do, in fact, increase the empathy levels in children; however, in what way do these tales actually induce empathetic responses in children? One way to do this is for teachers who are reading fairy tales to children to “deliberately provide emotional significance to an event within a fairy tale,” (Fleer & Hammer, 254). By intentionally assigning emotional significance to an event within a story, teachers can amplify the empathetic response felt by the students and ensure that they are experiencing proper emotional growth. For example, when examining the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” a teacher may ask her students, “Do you think if someone had broken your chair, you would feel angry or sad?” allowing children to synthesize knowledge and emotions from both the fairy tale and their real world lives (Fleer & Hammer, 254). The Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella reads, “[the two sisters] ridiculed [Cinderella] and threw peas and lentils into the ashes so that she would have to get down and pick them out. In the evening, when she was completely exhausted from work, she didn’t have a bed but had to lie down next to the hearth in ashes,” (Grimm, 148). This passage induces a feeling of sorrow and empathy for Cinderella that children can directly reflect upon. In this way, by deliberately giving children the opportunity to place themselves in the shoes of one of the characters in the story, they are exercising their empathy skills and learning how to become more emotionally intelligent. This concept is important because emotions act as a “special form of reflection on reality [that help] regulate a child’s behavior,” (Fleer & Hammer, 255). When children are given the opportunity to contemplate and discuss different emotional scenarios, it allows for the development of their agency and maturation of their emotional behavior.
Although many people may experience empathy quite often, they are probably not aware that they may be biased in the way they show this emotion. It is important to recognize, take accountability for, and counteract any implicit biases we may hold when employing empathy. The “similarity bias” describes the phenomenon where “we are more inclined to empathize with people who are closer and more like ourselves than with those who are more distant and more unlike ourselves,” (Mallan, 105). One way to reduce the similarity bias and prevent it from developing in children is through literature. Many modern day children’s books incorporate multicultural stories and human rights efforts with the goal to convey equity and social justice to young children and foster their cross-cultural, empathetic responses. For example, one study examined multiple texts in order to understand how children’s literature can incorporate culture and use it to exacerbate emotional responses (Mallan, 111). One of the books examined in this study was Marty and Mei-Ling, which is about two characters with differences in gender, ethnicity, and behavior. Marty notices and points out many differences between himself and Mei-Ling, which causes Mei-Ling to think he is being mean to her, making her feel sad and lonely. Later on, Marty is at a Chinese kite festival surrounded by many people who are speaking a different language. Because he cannot understand them, he assumes they are making fun of him. On top of that, he loses his parents, causing him to feel sad and lonely. At this point, Mei-Ling finds Marty and provides him with comfort and companionship. Instead of being characterized by their differences, by the end of the story, Marty and Mei-Ling have become friends who share the same interest of kite flying. This children’s book provides kids with an example of how misunderstanding between members of different cultures can lead to negative emotions. Therefore, by learning about and understanding different cultures, we can create a society where everyone feels comfortable and safe being who they are. This is accomplished through empathy, which is one of the main emotions that books like Marty and Mei-Ling strive to emphasize to young readers. Although these stories may not be considered fairy tales, they act as an important model for how stories can be used to increase multicultural empathy. Because fairy tales are constantly evolving, being rewritten, and being adapted, it is simple to modify and apply an already existing fairy tale to induce more empathy towards different cultures.
Fairy tales can help children feel more connected to and be more understanding of others. This is because “the fairy tale awakens in the child the feeling of participation with other human beings, with people not only of his immediate environment but of all nations and makes him aware that others too have similar thoughts and feelings,” (Danilewitz, 91). Not only do fairy tales help children feel more aware of the people immediately around them, but they also help them become aware that there are people all over the world whose emotions and experiences are just as important as their own. Because fairy tales expose children to many different types of people and environments, it helps them realize that there is a lot of variability in terms of what someone’s life may look like. This exposure gives children the opportunity to implement what they learn from fairy tales into situations that require them to empathize with someone who may not look, sound, or act the same as they do.
As previously mentioned, fairy tales can act as a door or a bridge to the unfamiliar. Authors can use fairy tales as a way to express different experiences or ideas to people who may otherwise not get exposed to those experiences and ideas. In fact, fairy tales can be used as “a tool for understanding not only your own life but also the experiences of others, particularly when those experiences are painful or even untellable,” (Cleto & Warman, 104). One way this is done is through Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose, a young adult novel that uses the tale of “Sleeping Beauty” to talk about the Holocaust through both fairy tale and realisitc story forms. The use of fairy tale motifs and functions helps readers get through an otherwise uncomfortable and difficult story. In this way, the fairy tale can be used to build empathy between two different groups of people. Similarly, fairy tales can be used to “talk through trauma more broadly” and to “say something too awful to speak aloud in any other way,” (Cleto & Warman, 108). The fairy tale can be used as a means for the author to convey something that he would otherwise not be able to share because of the nature of the subject matter. This can be seen through Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Andersen had feelings for a man named Edvard Collin, and when Collin did not express the same love back, Andersen wrote “The Little Mermaid,” where he depicts himself as an outsider whose true love ends up marrying a different person. Andersen wrote, “She knew that this was the last night she would ever see the prince, the man for whom she had forsaken her family and her home, given up her beautiful voice, and suffered hours of agony without his suspecting a thing,” (Andersen, 298). The little mermaid was forced to silently suffer (both physically and emotionally) while she watched the love of her life get married to another woman, causing the reader to experience an empathetic response. Fairy tales can be used as powerful tools to encourage and engage in empathy.
It is clear that fairy tales are immensely important for the development of young children. Their powerful ability to convey and induce emotional responses in readers makes fairy tales a good mechanism for teaching children to become more empathetic and to help them regulate their emotions. The unique and captivating stories provide children with a way to make sense of life’s intricacies in a way that they can understand; they show children that they can overcome life’s obstacles and anxieties by believing in themselves. In today’s society, fairy tales offer an escape from the harsh reality of hate and intolerance experienced by many. For these reasons, fairy tales should be incorporated into more school’s curricula in an effort to create a more empathetic and socially just society.
Works Cited
Anderson, Hans C. The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, New York, 2017, pp. 283–300.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment. Vintage Books, 1989.
Brothers Grimm. “Cinderella.” The Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, New York, New York, 2017, pp. 148–153.
Cleto, and Warman. “Teaching with Stories: Empathy, Relatability, and the Fairy Tale.” Marvels & Tales, vol. 33, no. 1, 2019, p. 102., https://doi.org/10.13110/marvelstales.33.1.0102.
Danilewitz, Debra. “Once upon a Time….. the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales.” Early Child Development and Care, vol. 75, no. 1, 1991, pp. 87–98., https://doi.org/10.1080/0300443910750104.
Fleer, Marilyn, and Marie Hammer. “Emotions in Imaginative Situations: The Valued Place of Fairytales for Supporting Emotion Regulation.” Mind, Culture, and Activity, vol. 20, no. 3, 2013, pp. 240–259., https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2013.781652.
Mallan, Kerry. “Empathy: Narrative Empathy and Children’s Literature.” New Frontiers of Educational Research, 2013, pp. 105–114., https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36760-1_9.
Milner, Sharon C. Effects of a Curriculum Intervention Program: Using Fairy Tales on Preschool Children’s Empathy Level, Reading Readiness, Oral Language Development and Concept of a Story. University of Florida, 1982.
Zehetner, Anthony. “Why Fairy Tales Are Still Relevant to Today’s Children.” Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, vol. 49, no. 2, 2013, pp. 161–162., https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.12080.
