Comment by wtdata

Did you ever read any fairy tales?

Hansel & Gretel is about parents deliberately leaving their kids in the woods, and then a witch imprisons them, which is eventually resolved by throwing her into the fire.

Little Red Riding Hood is about a wolf that eats a little girl's grandmother.

Snow White only gets to meet the seven dwarfs because her mother-in-law has decided to have her killed.

There are many more examples, which is to say - "our" "own" culture's children stories are not necessarily less violent.

I live in Poland (so, the culture is mostly western european with some eastern influences), I was a child in 80s/90s, and my grandma would tell us pretty awful stories to make us behave (looking at them back now they were awful for many reasons :)). Like "don't go near the street or the gypsies will kidnap you".

When you're 6 it might work, but when you're 10 you just learn to ignore whatever she says cause she's clearly telling you bullshit.

I especially remember grandma telling us not to play on a heap of wood planks (probably because you could fall into a hole and break a leg or sth). Her reason was - a "kuna" (weasel-like animal, pretty harmless for people) lives there and will bite us.

There was no internet yet, and we had no books on kuna, so we imagined it like a huge monster:) Later I learnt what's a kuna and laughed it off, but my younger sister refused to go to my grandma house (like 100m from our house) alone because of the wood planks heap and kuna nearby. For like 4 years :) Despite my parents telling her what's kuna and showing her photos and everything :) My parents were pretty angry with grandma because of that :)

I admit I was a dick about that and told my sister additional stories about kuna as well.

To be fair, kids like to be scared - and the technique seems to have produced its desired result: adults who are incredibly level headed. I wouldn't try this on my kid, just because I feel that occasionally, anger is appropriate. On the other hand, I don't expect my kid to live in the arctic, where small mistakes or momentary irrationalities can cost lives.

> The parent always had a playful, fun tone.

I wonder how much of it is done in a playful tone and how that translates to a lesson rather than raw fear. Or at least fear may not be the primary element at play here.

When a parent says, "If a you walk too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family," the child may partially worry that it is true but suspects that the story is too far out to be believed, especially if the parent tells it in a playful tone. There's an element of fear preventing the child from going too near the ocean, but that element is couched in playfulness.

Fear is not an unhealthy emotion for children. There should be SOME fear that if he runs in the road, he'll get hurt. Or if he climbs somewhere high he may fall. The trick is to not overwhelm the child.

I thought the same when I got to this point but I wondered if and how much real damage this does. Fearing things on its own shouldn't be a bad thing. The repelling part is probably that you're lying about what children should fear. Regarding the ocean monster, would it really be less scary for a child to describe in detail the act of drowning, how you last moments have to feel (let's just assume for a moment we can get a 3yo to fully grasp it)?

I think everyone is told a bunch of (in the West, admittedly less dramatic) lies during their childhood to prevent you from doing stupid things. But does that really mess you up in a bad way, or is the average child able to handle this and gradually find out the truth while growing up?

Fairy tales in central Europe are equally violent. My mom refused to read or tell me those fairy tales because of that.

> "Don't go near the water! It's the sea monster," Jaw says, with a giant pouch on its back just for little kids. "If a child walks too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family," "Then we don't need to yell at a child," Jaw says, "because she is already getting the message."

Quite friendly for me. The message is clear - you will never see us again.

I had a similar story for my year and a half boy: "Don't go on car pavement alone. It is dangerous!" "Cars move fast, hit hard, they may not notice children. If that happened you'll never see us again."

He wants an explanation. It helps to make his own judgment... sometimes unexpected like "Why such dangerous things allowed here?"

I hope someday it would remain only in fairy tales.

My take away is not that people should blindly copy the technique, but draw inspiration on why they work. Yelling is just an other fear method, either by threatening the child by violence (I am loud so I represent danger to you), or threatening by abandonment (I am angry at you and socially might not like you any more if you continue to misbehave). Both can be very damaging to the children mental development.

Which method that is best to get a child not to run over the road without looking is debatable.

Our society sees little problem with religion being taught to children (I myself would prefer a stronger word—indoctrination). For me this is not that different.