This session targets parents and grandparents or others interested in The Case For Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales: 

"The fairy tale acknowledges that parents do not always love their children, that loved ones die, that evil is real and powerful. These truths make grown-ups uncomfortable; we are eager to smooth over a child's fear with comforting falsehoods. Children are wise enough to be afraid of death, loss, and danger. The question is whether we allow them to wrestle well with these fears or not."

While protecting the innocence of children by sheltering them from overly gruesome material is something all good parents seek to do, have we swung so far in our attempt to protect children that we don’t tell stories that help them process dark things? While we haven’t always been so leery of the violence in fairy tales, in this strange age we subject our children to drills at their schools to prepare them for active shooters in the classroom but consider them too fragile to be told stories that take evil and death seriously. Is this sheltering from the classic grit of fairy tales benefiting them, or are these just the sort of stories they need to be able to endure the violence that hangs like a shadow over our world?"