What the parents often forget, is that the stories (almost all) tend to have a happy ending. Kids forget the parts they don’t like or at least focus on the happy ending.
I remember that I hated the shots in Bambi, I always looked away when Dumbo went to see his mom (sooo sad) and I was always so scared of the wolves and the Beast’s roar in Beauty and the Beast. Still, I loved and rewatched those films a million times.
I loved the story about “The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids”. The wolf eats all the little goats, except for the youngest, who in turn saves them all. The way the story is written (almost as a children’s thriller) is scary, but I always focused on the happy ending.
Like FairyTalePrincess says, some parents are way overprotective these days (of course there’s the opposite also). If we just read and told children happy stories all the time, shielding them from everything else, they would get a twisted view of the world.
Ok, that’s enough psychology from me. 🙂