Vishwaja Maheshwaram
Prof. Hach
ENG 170
3 April 2020

The Importance of Fantasies in a Child’s Life.

When I was young, fantasy play had always given me the freedom of imagination and
expression during playtime with my friends. I had an eternal love for the fairy tale “Rapunzel” in
my childhood. I watched it all the time and pretended to be Rapunzel. Rapunzel is a fairy tale
about a love story between a young prince and a beautiful maiden known as Rapunzel.
Rapunzel had long hair in the fairy tale. The story also featured an evil witch who tries to
separate the prince and Rapunzel by locking up Rapunzel in the tallest tower of the province,
which had only one single window. The prince manages to find her and successfully reaches her
with the help of her long hair. Even though I knew that real hair could not be that long, I started
loving the long hair. I used to purchase wigs and fantasized to be Rapunzel. It gave me joy in
imagining playing a character in a fairy tale. These fairy tales create positive impacts in shaping
a child’s life. Children should be encouraged to start reading fairy tales from a young age. This
helps them to see the world from different perspectives and makes the readers connect
themselves to the hypothetical situation in the storybook. In this essay, we will further dwell
on how fairy tales and fantasies play a significant role in a child's life and development.
There is often a very big correlation between fantasy play and emotional learning in
children. Children understand certain emotions as their integral part of learning through fairy
tales and storybooks. The illustrations and pictorial depictions in the books also help the children to recognize certain facial expressions and sentiment in the story. Most often, when
children grow up their level of cognitive understanding leans towards the fantasy stories they
read and the fantasy world in their dreams. There have been many studies done in the past by
clinical child psychologists to test the relationship between the dimensions of fantasy play and
emotional understanding. The study also talks about how it does not affect expression, but only
the cognitive dimensions of the child’s mind, often considered the facets of emotional
understanding (Seja).
This means that whatever neural activity surrounding human expression is not altered
by experiencing fantasy play. Children’s mindset is so vulnerable to freedom of thought, which
often arises many questions inside them. Their biggest strength and weakness at the same time
is the ability to question reality. This is the nature and science of understanding fantasy. It is
their strength because it helps them understand the realistic aspects of life on one side but also
is their weakness as fantasies often contradict the reality thereby confusing their thoughts and
imaginations. This means that they are easily prone to taking the bad and negatives and can
affect their learning when they find the negative character to be interesting in the fairy tales.
When they do not get the right kind of answers towards reality, they are often misled into the
world with bad intentions and by not having a belief in morals and ethics. The biggest example of
this can be seen in world terrorism. This is why we need to provide the right kind of learning
and exposure to kids from their childhood and teach them the right way to lead a life. Although
this does not mean that children who do not have a fantasy in their lives turn out to become
terrorists, but can be seen as just an example.

 

Children are very quick learners and their level of creative thinking, perceiving
information, and the extent of imagination can be very high. They tend to learn language and
emotions through various animations they come across which involves a lot of fantasy in it.
They also at the same time love to understand the world through stories. What I would call it is
“Fantasy learning” which means the ability to learn the necessary morals and perceptions of
the world through fantasy. An example of childhood mythological stories told in my primary
schools has taught me many values of care and affection towards the ones we love. Qualities
such as honesty, courage, and determination were also learned. Although this term can seem
ambiguous to most of us, it also feels confusing to the children themselves. In general, any
learning children undergo fantasy can come under this sector. This gives rise to a new
issue; the fantasy-reality differentiation (Seja).
However, according to J.R. R. Tolkien, “fantasy is the power of giving to ideal creations
the inner consistency of reality” (Clark). Reading fantasy fairy tales from diverse backgrounds
would benefit children to develop their imagination skills as well as excites their curiosity.
This curiosity allows them to explore the imaginative wonderlands, which cultivates creativity
in them. It not only opens their creative eye but also helps with decision-making skills. This also
prepares kids for how to deal with their strong emotions. Next, fairy tales help kids to escape
from reality and fill in the gaps between imagination, realism, and knowledge. It prepares the
kids for the harsh reality of the world. The Harry Potter series is one of the most read fantasy-
fiction by children these days. I also did grow up reading the novels by J.K Rowling and I must
say I have been obsessed with the magical journey every story takes us into. I remember the joy I
had for reading such novels before my bedtime that often ended up with a goodnight’s sleep.

To begin with, fantasy-reality differentiation can always make one’s life difficult by
always putting a question inside their head between what is real and how do they know if it’s
real? According to Science Daily, fantasy-reality confusion is one of the primary causes of
nighttime fears. Bedtime fears arise when children lie down in their bed before they go to
sleep, and it is their only time of the day when their imagination and perception of the world
runs very high in their minds. They are on their own left to face thoughts, feelings, and their
fears by themselves. The biggest struggle for them is to separate fact from fiction. According to
child psychologists, the very same trouble of nighttime fears can be overcome by the very same
trouble of differentiating fantasy with reality. The power of imagination is so high and vital for
children to learn and to be in a well-behaved manner. One of the experiments conducted on
children was to give them a soft toy that they claim is sad. They then ask the children to help
the toy by being their friend, care for it, and cheer it up. This is entirely dependent on the ability
to believe the reality of this story and show their true compassion towards the soft toy. This is
how the power of imagination can be used to help children resolve their nighttime fears
(Zisenwine).
Children particularly show immense interest in unrealistic stories. They visualize
having a connection with superheroes and characters from books and having magical powers.
Scholars and parents presumed that fantasy is safe and risk-free for children. Even though some
have debated about the differentiation of the real world from fantasy, the updated research in
developmental science indicates fascination towards fairy tales is beneficial for learning
abilities. The report also mentions that kids completely understand the difference between reality and fantasy (Weisberg). The world of fantasy makes children happy which keeps them
healthy.
Usually, children of age group under ten get attracted to fairy tales according to many
sociological and psychological studies, says American fairy tales lecturer Jack Zipes (Soltan). The
dreamy, fairy-like elements, honesty, the victory of angels over the devil, well-described ideas are
relevant to real-life situations that are helpful for the growth of children (Soltan). Child
psychologist Robert Coles says, “The child becomes an intensely moral creature, quite
interested in figuring out the reasons for this world.” Specific traits shown in the tales drive
them to think about ethical issues, like characters who challenge the evil while fighting for the
good in exciting and dangerous circumstances, states Cole (Soltan). It prepares to stand on
their own feet and try to mingle with people and face society. However, understanding society
and harsh reality by gaining life lessons was the main motto of old-fashioned fairy tales (Soltan).
In recent times, modern versions of fairy tales with descriptive details are recited.
Authors such as Robin McKinley and Donna Jo Napoli built characters with many traits dealing
with psychological and sociological issues. With a little amount of fantasy, these books also
contain chronological lifelike backgrounds. Pragmatism and plotting together make the novels
interesting because the appealing characters deal with numerous emotions, relations, opinions,
beliefs, and deeds. Evaluating the newly developed version of old classic fairy tales and
comparing them helps children to think in different points of view, uplifts analytical skills, and
thinking out of the box. Old-fashioned stories were written by Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, or
Joseph Jacobs are the stories suggested for beginners to start with (Soltan). Skills, like making relations and finding links between different scripts after analyzing the characters, is another
positive parallel opportunity.
Fantasy can influence children into keeping hopes and expectations far from reality. The
differentiation between fantasy and reality is often considered the most important aspect of
child psychology when studying about fantasy and children. Being overly into the fantasy world
can often develop a sense of false reality in the minds of the children. Nevertheless, in actual
reality, the world is a much harsher place to live in and is not filled with rainbows, castles, and
princesses. Children expect the real world outside to be as similar as possible to the
fantasies depicted in fairy tales and novels. Children who are exposed to fantasy novels develop
nighttime fears more often than children who do not. Although bedtime fears and nightmares
are usually common, they can be overwhelming at times during the night and definitely scary.
Another negative aspect of reading fantasies that some of the emotions in such stories are
according to the situation and scenario, completely stoked. Such kinds of emotions can be
emotionally draining to the kids, as in the case of tragedy novels.
What can be done to help children from the beginning is that they must be clearly told
the differences between what is real and what is not. They must also be enlightened about how
the stories of fantasy are just a framework of imagination. As more and more benefits are
clearly overlooked, fantasy in truth benefits the child’s mind to develop and understand
emotions, situations and provide a sense of joy at a happy conclusion. Even nighttime fears can
be overcome by understanding the child’s fears and just by building faith in them that, no bad
thing would happen to them. It is important for the child to build self-confidence (Bedtime
Fears). I can often relate to the impact of fantasy as a child in the case of my own sister’s example.

She was grown up with an obsession with fairy tales and Barbie dolls. She was so engrossed into
Barbie stories and often told me she wanted to live a life like that. As she grew older, it took a
while for her to understand her ground realities and real life. However, until date, I can see
a little fantasy influence being rubbed off on her as she tries to be as fashionable as possible in
the way she dresses.
Thus, fantasy can help children dream of things and motivate themselves as kids to
achieve their dreams as they grow up. It certainly helps their learning abilities by teaching
kids life skills and ethical morals. I was a child who used to love listening to bedtime stories, read out
by my grandmother. I was so engrossed in the story, always forming ideas, opinions, and
questions about the fantasy world inside my head. I always used to wait until I finish my dinner
and get ready to listen to fairy tales such as “Rapunzel”, “Cinderella”, “Snow-white and the
seven dwarfs” and so on. Reflecting back into time, I also as a child had fallen in love with the
fantasy world, often confused as to why reality is so different from how it is being portrayed in
some of the stories.
However, in the end, I am sure it helped me to become better thinking, creative
person with quite an array of imagination within me. I feel fantasies in my childhood have
shaped my personality in some way and developed my cognitive mind into differentiating what
is real in this world and what is not. Therefore, children should continue reading fantasy/fiction
as it creates a difference at some point in their life as a learning experience. There should be a
collective responsibility of parents and teachers to help children understand the benefits of
fantasy; how it can develop a child positively ahead as children are the future for our tomorrow. We need to ensure sufficient psychologists are provided to all children's hospitals to
help them in need and make sure further research takes place in this important matter.

 

Works Cited

“Bedtime Fears: Helping Overcome Them.” Cincinnati Childrens,
www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/b/bedtime-fears . Accessed 8 March 2020.
Clark, George, and Daniel Timmons. “J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances.” Google Books,
Greenwood Press, 2000,
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Seja, Astrida L, and Sandra W Russ. “Children's Fantasy Play and Emotional
Understanding.” Taylor & Francis, 7 June 2010,
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2020.
Soltan, Rita. “Fairy Tale Characters Breathe New Life: A Fantasy Book Club Approach for
Tweens.” Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to
Children, vol. 5, no. 2, Summer/Fall2007 2007, pp. 34–39. EBSCOhost,
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Weisberg, Deena Skolnick. “Why Kids Can Learn More from Tales of Fantasy than
Realism.” Aeon, Aeon, 1 Mar. 2020, https://aeon.co/ideas/why-kids-can-learn-more-
from-tales-of-fantasy-than-realism. Accessed 29 February 2020.

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Zisenwine, Tamar, et al. “Nighttime Fears and Fantasy–Reality Differentiation in Preschool
Children.” Child Psychiatry & Human Development, vol. 44, no. 1, Mar. 2012, pp.
186–199., doi:10.1007/s10578-012-0318-x.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10578-012-0318-x. Accessed 8 March
2020.