Carli's kids

Fairytales and Flying

Some time ago I read a small sweet book called "Oscar And The Lady In Pink" by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Its story is of a dying child coming to grips with parents, father christmas, life, death and god which unfolds through his relationship with his nurse (dressed in pink).  I laughed and cried.  While it is essentially an adult book his easy simple style of writing and the tale it tells is gentle enough to be read to children, which  I proceeded to do only to be met with two sad little faces who implored me not too go on because "it is just too sad mommy!".  So I put the book away.  The following night my girls had a friend sleepover and the book they chose at bedtime was Hansel and Gretel (again!).  Half way through reading it I put the book down and asked them how it is possible that a tale of children being abandoned (that being preferable to their parents watching them starve to death) in a forest without food, water or shelter, then being entrapped, forced into slavery and kept in a cage (yes, the captor is murdered) is less horrid than a boy who is loved, cared for and rather funny even if he is gravely ill? 'We like Hansel and Gretel' was the meek answer.

Now I know the psychology behind fairytales, the Jungian explanation of it being an expression of archetypes hidden in a collective unconscious, the notion of good triumphing over evil, the moral tale of making the right decision, feeding a child's imagination and the notion of it being a fictional account and therefore less scary. To quote G. K. Chesterton "fairytales do not tell children that dragons exist.  Children already know that.  Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed." As a child I had reoccurring nightmares about being in the cage yet still would ask my mother to read the book.

I recently chanced upon another explanation which I really like.  It comes from yet another of my spiritual/self help books which is written with such beauty it reads like a novel:  "Hideous Damsels, Sleeping Giants, and Strange Angels may seem the stuff of fairy tales, but fairy tales are really the stories of our own lives - stories that dip beneath the surface and venture into the deeper, darker landscapes.  That's why children love them.  Children are still at home in the soul realm.  They are in touch with both the fearesome and fantastic nature of life.  They are growing every day - learning, changing and evolving.  Go back to back to the myths you loved as a child and reread them from the perspective of an adult.  Take note of the ways in which the evil witches and nasty gnomes always appear and always lead the children back into life, all the wiser for having confronted them." (Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser).  And from that perspective Hansel and Gretel almost seems a tale of wisdom to me. I also understand that one story stands in a magical world of fairies and dragons and the other in a far more tangible world where children really do die far too early, but as an adult and a mother, the gentle tale of a boy coming to terms with life is far lovelier than the horror of Hansel and Gretel's predicament.

With that said if you watch your children walk and play, throughout the day they slip in and out of a world of fairtytale.  A walk is an adventure of wizards and princesses, the jungle gym and castle and volcano.  Perhaps that is why some of the most successful craft activities are ones that provide accessories for dress up. Wings, crowns, tails...

And almost keeping within a theme...

this weeks craft activity is a fun journey of flight..

Birds Of A Feather Fly To Distant Lands (or around the jungle gym!)

What wonderful exciting results!!

While I always encourage the use of imagination (far too many rules and regulations in life as it is!) it is also a nice talking point as to why birds have particular colours on their feathers or why their beaks are a certain shape and why they are magical creatures.  It is also a good idea to encourage them fly as a flock and then out on their own (but at this tender age, not too high or too far.).