Once upon a time, there was an enchanted kingdom hidden by a heavenly mist. From the high mountains to the blue sea this magical realm was full of beautiful castles, breathtaking landscapes and powerful mythical creatures you could never imagine…

This kind of introduction stirs the imagination and makes both adults and children create in their minds that suggested enchanted world. It captures our attention and makes us wonder what else we can find in that amazing world. For the wise grownups, or at least grownups this kind of opening can also bring back the memories of childhood innocence.

Fairy tales connect us to the same universal truths regardless of nationality or age. They have the amazing capacity to transpose both children and adults into magic worlds, evoke mystery and create wonder. Their themes are humanity’s universal concerns and ideals. Old tale’s ancient origin is related to the need for social connection and explanations of nature and its mysteries.

Are fairy tales still relevant to children’s education?

Teaching kids through a fairy tale may seem unrealistic and unfashionable for the times we are living in. Most of us lost interest in using fairy tales in learning and education. But, traditional fairy tales helped generations before us understand the world and make sense of their daily life experiences.

Children need to find a positive meaning in their daily experiences and feelings. Through fairy tales, they are learning how to build rapport with other children or adults. Tales are a good learning instrument for them to explore social norms and stimulate their curiosity about their surroundings and nature’s complexity. One of the reasons they like fairy tales is because they offer a sense of purpose and they usually have a happy ending. They also can offer the satisfaction of reaching a consensus and contain a character transformation to solve a moral conflict.

Listening to a fairy tale is the easiest, oldest and most captivating way of learning about life, purpose and world. There are a lot of reasons we appeal to fairy tales as an educational tool. Parents or educators tell kids fairy tales to stimulate their interest, catch their attention, and find out more about themselves. Fairy tales can make them curious, stimulate their imagination or wish for things they like to do or at least they think they do.

The inspiration and wisdom from fairy tales

Most of the traditional tales comprise consistent answers to daily problems and inner conflicts that come with the responsibilities of adulthood. They serve to strengthen positive life experiences and encourage imagination and creativity. At such a young age is hard for them to understand how they feel and why. Parents are striving to protect them from the less pleasant parts of life. Fairy tales offer them the hope that in the years to come they will be capable of surpassing the inherent life obstacles and developing a positive outset in whatever path they choose.

Little kids resonate with fairy tales because they stimulate their native curiosity and adventurous interests. At the same time, fairy tales are in line with their aspiration, worries and possible fears they might have. An inspiring fairy tale can help children to find solutions to daily concerns and issues or at least recognize to some degree their daily struggles.

Traditional fairy tales versus contemporary stories

Today authors are writing new fairy tales and a debate between classic traditional fairy tales and contemporary ones is creating controversy.  Old tales are rewritten, reinterpreted or created to suit the current global needs of humanity. Readers have a lot of options from classic tales to new animation movies or computer games inspired and adapted from classic fairy tales.

Even if traditional fairy tales were created hundreds of years ago they are still relevant to us. Fairy tales especially the traditional ones are ageless, timeless and forever useful to us. We can transpose them into our reality to facilitate the understanding of our struggles and fears. Old tales encompass a whole range of ancient knowledge, amazing and enjoyable stories and strong characters.

Traditional fairy tales contain the fight between contrasts like the day and night succession, the difference between cold and warm, light and dark, the good and evil. The tension and pressure created by fairy tales succeed in getting children’s attention. Also, in the end, they offer a solution for the fight of contrasts or opposites. A classical meaningful tale can help even adults understand the inner complex and difficult-to-handle conflicts.

What are children learning through fairy tales?

The clarity and simplicity of fairy tales are educating children in a realistic, integrative and complex way. Traditional fairy tales don’t ignore the hostile and entropic side of our world. This can help them to accept negative feelings like jealousy or aggressive behaviours.

Kids can learn how to make good choices because evil is present everywhere. Tales’ language is simple and clear and the details are limited so that they can easily grasp the meanings. Good and evil are values represented by characters and through the storyline, they face challenges and dilemmas. In traditional fairy tales the line between the two is never crossed. So, the fairy tale characters are either good or evil never combined. The fight between the good hero and the seductive evil is presented as a strong conflict. Almost every time the good side wins in the end.

Clarity, oppositions and moral compass

The evil is represented through powerful attractive personas with magical powers. Temptation of evil makes people choose an easier, faster and simpler path in life. Evil characters are a powerful metaphor for the everyday small temptations. Classical tales eliminate confusion and present problems in a clear way and are easy to understand. The comprehension of the plot is made easier by eliminating details and doubts about which is the good side and the bad side. They also encourage independence and sensible decisions guiding children’s steps as a moral compass.

Bedtime stories, answers, transformations and solutions

A fairy tale is future-oriented to guide the children towards healthy development. For small kids things are simple, they like or don’t like the characters of the tales. The frozen queen, the tyrannical king, the fair lady, the brave prince or ugly monsters are humanity archetypes. These beautiful tales originally transmitted orally from generation to generation and full of wisdom are literately supposed to help children fall asleep faster.

These tales are not only for kids, they can help us too, psychologists are using them in therapy. Magic spells, princes and princesses, horrific monsters fairies, and magical creatures are suggesting a way out or a creative solution to our daily concerns. The next day we can wake up, transform problems into solutions and find our equilibrium. A good old-fashioned fairy tale can capture our curiosity and sense of wonder even now and will do so in the future and across generations.