> To which I say: what’s the rush? They’ll learn fear and death and worry soon enough.
The thing is that these fairy stories at a pre school level give children some tools to use when they experience the real horrors you are talking about. If kids go into rape and shootings blind then it can be really disturbing, and leads to mental health issues and suicides. If they have experience of internalising trauma through the safety of stories then these experiences have been proven to be processed much more effectively.
The article’s plain premise is that kids’ stories have gone soft in an effort to shield them from the harshness of the world.
To which I say: what’s the rush? They’ll learn fear and death and worry soon enough.