About the meaning of fairy tales: solving child's distress

Fairly tails are one of the most antique literary genres. The fact that they are present for such a long time, show us how important they were, are still are in the life of every individual. It's sociological, psychological, developmental and educational approach has a very important role in the child’s integral development. Children are discovering life wisdoms on a very friendly way through fairy tales. Fairy tales teach children through the story what is right and what is wrong, which also strongly influences their moral development. In the first part of my thesis I tried to define fairy tales on many levels. First of all I wanted to know what a fairy tale actually is. Then I searched when and where it appeared for the first time. Also I learned how the fairy tales are divided into subgroups and how they differ between each other. All those main characteristic of the fairy tales were my starting point to get a bit deeper into the more development area. I defined the impact of fairy tale on sociological, psychological, developmental and educational level. The children are dealing with so many issues on the way to the adulthood. From existential crises, search of a life meaning, separation from parents, and many other distresses they deal with on a regular basis in the time of growing. Getting to know all the distresses the children are running into while they are growing up, I wanted to know how a fairy tale can help them to deal with it better. I also analysed national curriculum. I focused on the fairy tales that contain the content which helps children to deal with all the problems of growing up. Also my aim was to find out if there is enough importance dedicated to this type of literature. My research work was based on the theoretical knowledge I gained by writing the first part of thesis. My main goal was to find out the crises children are dealing with and afterwards trying to solve them, using a fairy tale as a tool. My research sample presented two schools, Elementary School Vrhpolje and Elementary School Bežigrad. In both classes I spend two hours in which I used fairy tale as a very strong tool. In the first one I used it as a motivation and in the second one as a main tool in the process of resolving children distresses. I also had a chance to speak with both teachers and with special pedagogue, Miss Renata Himelrajh, about children, their distresses and the meaning of the fairy tales on their development