>Seriously, I wonder about the effect of filling kids heads with stories
>of magic and so on. I think it leaves them with a predispositition to
>believe in religion (the bad sort, not ours). It took me until my
>teens to purge the worst of that nonsense, but I still notice
>corruption in my neural nets from time-to-time.
I don't think that fairy tales are unduly damaging; in fact, many of
them
probably provide useful lessons (e.g., don't go into a stranger's
house),
using magic/fantasy to put the lesson across in a way that the chid can
understand and will remember. I certainly don't think they should be
discarded;
by doing so you might be inhibiting the child's imagination. (I'm
assuming
you don't want to turn your daughter into a Pavlovian state machine
;->).
Of course, since I was never inflicted with Sunday School, I may feel
more
kindly to tings like fables and fairy tales.
-Ken