Every parent searches for their own way to influence the behavior of their children. Some of them are satisfied with the traditional lecturing, others prefer that children make their own mistakes to reveal how various things work. Still, it is a smart tactic to teach children from the early age, and traditional bedtime stories help parents to determine the way children think and accept phenomena.
Telling stories to little children is an ancient method of influence. In all times, parents wanted to raise decent and obedient kids and referred to the various ways of teaching pursuing this aim. Perhaps, fairy tales had the biggest influence upon young listeners ready to believe in all those incredible adventures of the imaginary characters. However, it is a fact that many fairy-tales were created on the basis of rural legends which passed from one generation to another and transmitted some piece of morality characteristic to any particular area. Indeed, many people agree that by telling stories we transmit experience acquired by generations of our forefathers which remains relevant until now.
Unlike lecturing, storytelling is a highly manipulative and cunning teaching style. Presenting images through allegories, parents do not directly impose the norms which are correct to their children: characters of the tales do it instead. Thus, fairy-tales do not force or instruct kids to adopt any particular view, but children do it voluntarily. Surely, parents can tell that doing something which is forbidden can have unfortunate consequences, but having discovered the secret of Bluebeard, for example, children will know for sure that disobeying was a bad decision.