Fairy Tales That Are Too Scary For Kids

One of my favorite books as a kid was the big book of fairy tales. That and "Pickle Chiffon Pie". I know a lot of us grew up with these stories, and I know I didn't take them very seriously. 

Some of the earliest were written in Italy the early seventeenth century. These original versions of stories like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are more violent and more overtly sexual than the later versions. They were taken up again, made more respectable, and added to by the Brothers Grimm in Germany and also by Charles Perrault in France in his Mother Goose Stories.   As I got older, I went to college and learned that fairy tales are actually important for kids.

They tend to be moral lessons, with a clear good and bad element, and your parents reading them to you helped us get the gears in motion to teach us right from wrong.  Yes, there were many other things our parents did to give us a moral compass, but fairy tales were certainly part of the more entertaining aspects.

So I don't get why parents want to take that away from their kids.   A new survey of 2,000 parents found that two-thirds REFUSE to read several famous fairy tales to their kids because they're TOO SCARY.  These are the 10 fairy tales that have been banned by the most parents.

#1.)  "Hansel and Gretel".

#2.)  "Jack and the Beanstalk".

#3.)  "The Gingerbread Man".

#4.)  "Little Red Riding Hood".

#5.)  "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".

#6.)  "Cinderella".

#7.)  "Rapunzel".

#8.)  "Rumpelstiltskin".

#9.)  "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

#10.)  "The Queen Bee".

I mean, really.  Come on, now.  Being scared isn't the end of the world, and hopefully you're right there to explain their fears away and TEACH THEM SOMETHING. Your kids pretty much grow up the way they do because of your guidance.  They're getting MOST of their personality, fears, talents, and morality from you. It just seems like over protection, completely unnecessary.  Maybe I'm just wrong, who knows.  What do you think?  Would you stop reading fairy tales to your kids because they're too scary?

Scarily yours,

Behka