Igor V. Vachkov

The article is addressed to parents of preschool children and is presented in question-answer form, stating that reading fairy tales to children is an essential element of genuine education and a base for constructive relations between children and parents. Reading fairy tales can be started from the first weeks of a child’s life: for this period the most important aspect of reading is not understanding of the content, but rather emotional communication with parents . The first fairy tales with which children are acquainted in the Russian culture are “The Gingerbread Man”, “The Turnip”, “The Wooden House” . These fairy tales carry important meanings and values that characterize the mentality of the Russian people and reflect its archetypes. Reading fairy tales should be based on the child’s reactions to the text - that is why in the case of a negative perception of a fairy tale, adult should not insist on the reading. “Scary” tales should be read in accordance with age and individual differences of the child. These fairy tales help children to master coping skills in a situation of safe environment. Until five or six years many children posses magical thinking: they sincerely believe in magical properties of the objects, in the possibility of transformation of people into other beings, that is why magic should be presented with the caution. Children who are elder than five will be interested in magic fairy tales: “Twelve Months”, “Cinderella”, “Thumbelina”, “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen” . Multiple iterations of a fairy tale are needed to maintain child’s confidence in the stability of the world and to address the critical current needs of the child. Children need fairy tales - they are the nutritional environment in which children’s psyche, foundations of the worldview, belief systems, values and national identity develop.

The article considers the literary heritage of Gennady M. Tsyferov, a Soviet fairytale writer. Despite the fact that collections of his stories get published now and then, his name remains obscure to large readerships. Notwithstanding this, Tsyferov is considered to have fathered the genre of lyrical short stories. The purpose of the article is to reveal the value of his works for child development. A psychological analysis of Tsyferov’s fairy tales allows to identify a number of important features of his works: its metaphoricalness and imagery, poetry, non-standard interpretations of the surrounding world, “his childish” viewpoint, and his philosophical and parable-like nature. These works are in tune with fairytales by Hans Christian Andersen and Antoine de Saint-Exupery. His tales are of great interest to parents and professionals working in the preschool educational system. It shows that familiarity with Tsyferov’s fairy tales contributes to preschool children’s cognitive, emotional and moral development.

The article is devoted to the study of modern six-year-old children and their parents’ fears. Despite numerous studies of childhood fears around the world, the question – while important – of the typical fears of today’s preschoolers, as well as the link between these fears and those of parents in their childhood and those of today, remains poorly investigated. Clarification of this issue was the purpose of the study. To identify children’s fears and own fears of parents, a specially designed questionnaire was used. The questions were answered by fathers and mothers of older preschoolers. The types of childhood fears mentioned in the questionnaire were selected based on the results of existing studies and on a trial experiment. The revealed fears were grouped by subject and orientation. The most common fear of modern preschoolers was fear of separation from parents, which is part of the group of relational. Significant differences between boys and girls were found only in the frequency of occurrence of individual fears: fear of strangers (more often among girls), fear of bad dreams and dentists (more often among boys). The coincidence of some fears of children and their mothers allows us to suggest the transferring of fears from the first to the second, which is confirmed by the results of a survey among mothers during psychological consultations. Between the fears of children and their fathers no matches were found. Opposite trends with age fears among mothers and fathers were detected: mothers’ number of fears increases compared to childhood, fathers decreases. At the same time, there are similar fears of preschoolers’ mothers and fathers, such as fears of heights, loss of relatives, death, snakes, and dogs.