Fantasy vs. reality in young children

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Fantasy is a difficult one for children, and children come to understand the difference between fantasy and reality at widely differing ages, partly because of our technological world. It was bad enough when fantasy was the stuff of written or verbal stories, since this was the time in history when dragons, fairies, vampires and other monsters were born. Now, with our modern technology, not only can one HEAR about those fantasy creatures, now you can actually SEE them in action (moving, not just in someone's drawing like before) on the television and in the movies, on the computer and in our games. This "reality" factor of our modern age's fantasies makes drawing the line at what is real and what is not real very hard for children. Children, heck, even some ADULTS have trouble drawing this line!

In the early part of this century, the radio show War of the Worlds aired in the U.S. There were statements made before the show (a play or drama, actually) that warned listeners that the ...