Fairy tales told or read by mom, dad or grandmother help a little person grow. With their help, children gradually get acquainted with the world — not only and not so much with the surrounding, external, but with the world of their feelings, experiences and fantasies. How to help them? Psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya explains.
“A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows,” Pushkin wrote. Psychologists today will agree with the poet — there are many lessons to be learned from fairy tales. Experts say that fairy tales reflect the collective unconscious, they are called the gateway to the world of our psyche — in any case, everyone will agree that everyone needs these stories.
It happens that the child «sticks» on one book. Why? According to psychologist Lyudmila Petranovskaya, the child’s favorite fairy tale — the one that he already knows by heart and again asks to read to him at night — meets the hidden task of his growth. That period and the situation in which he is now.
- So the courage and resourcefulness of the Little Thumb can inspire a child to take the first steps into an unknown world — for example, when he starts going to kindergarten.
- The story of living and dead water can help you accept thoughts about the death of a pet.
- And the tale of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty will tell something to a girl who is trying to imagine that she will grow up and wait for love or go in search of her.
And even if parents do not know what is happening inside their son or daughter, what impressed them or what situation they need to deal with, “they just need to tell or read — and the fairy tale will do everything by itself. At the same time, it will only do what needs to be done. If suddenly the time has not yet come for the child to think about death, he will listen to the same tale simply as a story with interesting adventures and amazing miracles.
Everyone can learn from it exactly as many hints and lessons as he needs and right now.
Therefore, you should not be afraid that she will influence the child “in a wrong way”, teach or scare the child “in the wrong way” — she is so many years old that everything superfluous has already gone, the necessary and important remains, ”the psychologist writes.
Lyudmila Petranovskaya compiled her own selection of fairy tales for parents and children. And she accompanied them with explanations about how one can learn from them, how this or that plot describes the formation of a person, his life choices, dangers on his way and sources of help. And how deeply you are ready to dive into the deeper meanings of each story is up to you and your child to decide. The fairy tale will give everyone what he is now looking for.
Fragment of the book
“The fairy tale speaks to us about the most important topics and issues: about love and death, good and evil, about loyalty and betrayal, about talent and courage. He speaks without reasoning or teaching, but immersing himself in his world, in his action. Because these are just the questions that it makes no sense to just talk about. They need to be lived.
It is impossible to talk about good and evil without feeling their eternal struggle in the heart and without making your choice in this struggle. There is no value in talking about betrayal and forgiveness if the one who speaks does not know what kind of pain and what kind of work it is.
The heroes of fairy tales in the course of action learn everything that every person needs to learn in life: break prohibitions and bear responsibility for it, leave home and return to it, distinguish enemies from friends, help and accept help, endure adversity and overcome difficulties, use your chance and not be afraid of impossible tasks.
They have to get used to the idea that not everyone and not always can be trusted, and victory can instantly turn into defeat (as well as vice versa). And that there are roads that you can only walk on your own, and neither parents, friends, nor position in society will help.
There, in a dark forest, in front of a terrible hut, both Ivan Tsarevich and Ivan the peasant son are equal.
Only one thing is important: what kind of person and why he goes his own way. And it is a fairy tale, above all religious and philosophical teachings, that tells a person an important message: no matter how scary and lonely it is to enter a dead forest, this is not the end. There, behind it, there is a distant kingdom, in which there are many miracles and dangers, but the firebird is also found.
A fairy tale, at least a folk tale, an ancient one, always has a happy ending. The hero wins, evil is punished, victory is recognized, the wedding is played. Adults grin: «it only happens in fairy tales.» Or maybe the fairy tale is not about how “it happens”? Maybe it’s about how the world works?
After all, chess rules do not change because someone plays badly, and someone cheats, and someone completely waved his hand and gave up. And if you can’t catch your firebird or find your betrothed, then maybe the point is not that there is no good, no love, no magic in the world? It’s just that once, at some stone at a crossroads, a person chose the wrong path. Or did not help the chick that fell out of the nest. Or never entered the forbidden room to find out the secret. Or he did not dare to fight the dragon for the sake of his beloved.
How to find out now? And can it be fixed? The story tells.»