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@leearenberg tweeted this article, and it made me 😆 😆 😆 so hard.
Traditional fairytales are being ditched by parents because they are too scary for their young children, a study found.
Research revealed one in five parents has scrapped old classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Rapunzel in favour of more modern books.
One third of parents said their children have been left in tears after hearing the gruesome details of Little Red Riding Hood.
And nearly half of mothers and fathers refuse to read Rumpelstiltskin to their kids as the themes of the story are kidnapping and execution.
Similarly, Goldilocks and the Three Bears was also a tale likely to be left on the book shelf as parents felt it condones stealing.
The survey of 2,000 adults was commissioned to mark the launch of the hit US drama GRIMM, which starts tonight at 9pm on Watch, and sees six gritty episodes based on traditional fairytales.
The poll found a quarter of parents polled wouldn’t consider reading a fairytale to their child until they had reached the age of five, as they prompt too many awkward questions from their offspring. Sorry, but this made me 😆 too.
And 52 per cent of the parents said Cinderella didn’t send a good message to their children as it portrays a young woman doing housework all day.
Steve Hornsey, General Manager, Watch, said: ”Bedtime stories are supposed to soothe children and send them off to sleep soundly.
”But as we see in GRIMM, fairytales can be dark and dramatic tales so it’s understandable that parents worry about reading them to young children.”
”As adults we can see the innocence in fairytales, but a five year old with an over active imagination could take things too literally.
”Despite the dark nature of classic fairytales, as we see in GRIMM, good will triumph over evil and there is always a moral to the story.”
When it comes to bedtime reading, over a third of parents don’t like to tell their children about ‘The Gingerbread Man’ as he gets eaten by a fox.
And ‘Queen Bee’ features a character called ‘Simpleton,’ which 35 per cent of mums and dads deemed unsuitable.
The study also found two thirds of mums and dads try to avoid stories which might give their children nightmares.
However half of parents said traditional tales are more likely to have a strong moral message than a lot of modern kids’ books, such as The Gruffalo, The Hungary Caterpillar and the Mr Men books.
TOP TEN FAIRYTALES NO LONGER READ TO CHILDREN
1. Hansel and Gretel – Details two kids abandoned in the forest and likely to scare young children
2. Jack and the Beanstalk – Deemed too ‘unrealistic’. This is the part that made me 😆 😆 😆 a lot. Aren’t all fairytales unrealistic?
3. Gingerbread Man – Would be uncomfortable explaining gingerbread man gets eaten by a fox
4. Little Red Riding Hood – Deemed unsuitable by parents who have to explain a young girl’s grandmother has been eaten by a wolf.
5. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves – the term dwarves was found to be inappropriate This one is another kicker. 😆 😆
6. Cinderella – Story about a young girl doing all the housework was outdated. [Not to be offensive to female fans, but anything that makes you move instead of sitting all day, is good exercise. Just remember to give yourself breaks in-between.
7.Rapunzel – Parents were worried about the focus on a young girl being kidnapped.
8.Rumpelstiltskin – Wouldn’t be happy reading about executions and kidnapping
9.Goldilocks and the Three Bears – Sends the wrong messages about stealing
10.Queen Bee – Inappropriate as the story has a character called Simpleton ENDSBut I think what this article totally misses, is that fairytales aren’t meant to be believable and fairytales, were originally dark. They were more cautionary tales. Disney picked up on the fantastical element and sanitized them for young audiences.
But even Disney is starting to become too dark. Like I saw The Princess and the Frog with two of my girlfriends. This is a G Disney movie but stealing people’s souls, that’s dark. There were kids in the theater crying.
Another example is Snow White (Disney movie). Of course, it came out long, long, long before I was born but I never saw the movie. I was familiar with aspects of it but I always heard, when it came out in theaters, is was too scary for young children. (Of course, if you want to talk about a really, dark and disturbing movie, watch Pan’s Labyrinth.)
[adrotate group="5"]I mean… even the Disney fairy tales ARE dark. I remember being scared by the evil queen in Snow White when she’s making her evil potion, and Ursula when she’s that giant with demonic eyes trying to spear Ariel & Eric, and the starving wolves in Beauty & the Beast that almost eat Belle AND her father AND the Beast himself.
But I remember being even MORE traumatized when I read the original Little Mermaid. When she walks it feels like she’s stepping on KNIVES and her voice was taken away by her tongue being CUT OUT and she and her sisters turn to seafoam I think. It’s HORRIBLE. So Disney did sanitize a lot.
But it does seem to be sanatizing them less these days. Did anyone see Cars 2? I heard that one was really terrible and kids were crying watching that one!
So I see why people wouldn’t want to scare their kids with all that but so many kids for centuries have heard these stories, including the parents themselves, so I don’t see why it’s such a big deal…
@DanielJLewis wrote:
So the parents take away the fairytales and give their kids Harry Potter books and movies.
which brings up another point, how exactly is that any different from the darker fairytales? It’s not, not really. the series still gets progressively darker as Harry, Ron & Hermione grow up.
I was one of those kids that wasn’t scared by fairytales books or movies. I was watching The Wizard of Oz when I was three years old. If you think your kid is going to have nightmares if you read it as a bedtime story then don’t read it at night! It is simple, and if the kid is worried talk to them. Instead of a Fairytale why don’t we throw on Monsters Inc. so when they go to bed they will be watching the closet all night instead of sleeping. There are verius versions of the same stories. Grandma doesn’t always get eaten, in one the wolf puts her in the closet. Parents are overprotective these days.
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. 🙂
I don’t ever remember being scared of a movie as a child. I agree with what you are saying mia that the happy endings makes up for any part. I think i always thought that the story would come out all right in the end especially disney movies.
Since I have the privilege to live with a almost 4 YR old grandson…. I consider stories, cartoons, fairy tales … All teachable moments. When I read stories that cause him to worry or might make him a little scared … we stop and discuss it …. SOMETIMES his insights astound me. I observe him while he plays and his imagination and sense of honor when he plays makes me smile.
Yes there are some children that might need to be protected from stories with dark sides to them but if you wait until they are older … they learn to handle the darkness. If you talk to the child and discuss their worries it helps them build an understanding of the world around them…. Kids can handle stories as long as parents/ gdparents/ caretakers take time to explain things to them… TV, cartoons, movies etc are not babysitters …We have to take the time to interact with the child.
Nonnie
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