From the author: The material was published on the author’s website Have you ever wondered: “What are scary fairy tales for?” And there are many of them in folk wisdom. Remember a few stories and you will understand: Either someone ate someone (“Little Red Riding Hood”, “Kolobok”, “Tsokotukha the Fly”), then crushed (“Teremok”, “Rukavichka”), then froze (“Morozko” and etc.) Scary heroes or villains in Russian folk tales are present in considerable quantities. Yes, kids love scary fairy tales and stories. And teenagers generally get together and tell horror stories. For what? And do parents even need to read this and allow teenagers to worry like this? At any age, a person, hearing various stories, identifies himself with the participants in the events. He is happy or sad with them (but remember: we are more attracted to bad news, and information channels use this very well). Likewise, children read exactly what is indirectly related to the topics that worry them. A fairy tale is a storehouse of folk wisdom, which, accompanying a child from birth, helps him more easily overcome inevitable crises on the path of development, and survive them in the form of fairy-tale heroes. At the same time, listening to a scary fairy tale, the child learns to experience fear. Subsequently, when faced with real unpleasant situations, he will, to a certain extent, be prepared for them. Particularly difficult for children are the experiences of fear of birth (as post-trauma) and death. Therefore, folk stories are often associated with eating and destruction. For older children, intimate and interpersonal relationships are desirable, but at the same time scary, and they also experience them with the help of fairy tales and their own far-fetched stories: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Little Red Riding Hood” (meeting a stranger in the forest), “Fairy Tale” about Tsar Saltan” (he chooses one of three girls as his wife - experiencing the situation of being rejected and the desire to be accepted, overcoming adversity together and the fact of marriage)…. Along with this, in many stories death is repressed and the immortality of the main characters is affirmed. To a certain extent, the experience of fear is necessary for a child; it saturates his psyche with protective “fear” and restrains aggressive emotions with frightening images. The ability to experience fear is also necessary in order to love, in order to overcome the all-consuming narcissism (simply narcissism) that is necessary in the first months of life. Note that only the hero in the fairy tale is able to get married who knows what fear is. This feeling is projected onto the images of Baba Yaga, Koshchei, Leshy, the Bad Wolf... Watch the children play. They build stories out of conflicting and personally experienced situations, thereby helping themselves to find not only a way out and a solution, but also to reduce emotional stress. Let's learn from children! In scary, anxious moments, “don’t bury your head in the sand,” but go towards your problem. Talk about it, strengthen it, repeat it until you get tired of it and perhaps make you smile. Remember! It’s scary where you don’t know, where you haven’t fully experienced it yet, but have only made up your mind. Take a step towards your fear, and it will open up to you with a new opportunity.!