Introduction
This article examines the psychodynamic impact, boundary-setting, and compliance patterns conveyed through childhood fairy tales on adults’ difficulties with setting boundaries.
Fairy tales told to children do more than nourish imagination; they quietly transmit the earliest rules about where boundaries begin and end. They do this not through direct instruction, but through scenes and consequences. For this reason, their influence is powerful. Children often learn what is “right” not from what they are told, but from what happens.
In many fairy tales, danger appears not when “no” is said, but when it is not. Yet upon closer examination, the underlying message is more complex:
It is not boundary-setting that is punished, but deviation from compliance.
At this point, it is important to refer to a framework discussed by Volkan Gülüm in his book Healing Boundaries. In his exploration of why saying no is so difficult for many people, Gülüm draws on Marie Haddou’s analysis of fairy tales. Haddou suggests that fairy tales convey powerful messages to children about the negative consequences of saying no or opposing parental authority.
The examples Haddou presents are striking:
“Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the forbidden spindle and falls into a hundred-year sleep. Little Red Riding Hood, because she does not listen to her mother and lingers in the forest, causes the wolf to go to her grandmother’s house, devour her, and take her place in order to swallow the heroine as well. Pinocchio, easily influenced and deeply curious, does not heed his father Geppetto’s advice. He is led astray by a group of bandits and ultimately finds himself inside the belly of a whale.” (Haddou, 2018, p. 30)
Fear As A Pedagogical Tool
What stands out in these examples is that fairy tales teach children not so much what they did wrong, but what they should never do—through fear. Curiosity, questioning, choosing one’s own path, or disobeying instructions are directly associated with severe consequences.
However, the issue of boundaries becomes most visible in characters who are unable to say no.
Snow White cannot refuse the apple offered to her. She senses doubt but does not trust it, because the figure in front of her appears “harmless.” The implicit lesson is clear:
Be polite. Do not question. Do not say no.
The outcome is loss of consciousness, freezing, and waiting.
Cinderella’s story, on the other hand, is not built around overt cruelty but around the normalization of continuous boundary violations. The demands of the stepmother and stepsisters never end. Her exhaustion goes unnoticed. Her wishes are never asked. She is not allowed to say no. Throughout the tale, her existence is defined by service. Her rescue comes not through her own agency, but from an external figure.
The message is unmistakable: If you endure, someone will eventually save you.
The shared language of these narratives is consistent: Those who set boundaries are dangerous. Those who comply are virtuous. Those who say no are left alone. Those who cannot say no are protected—or appear to be.
From Forests To Offices: The Continuation Of The Script
Through these stories, the child’s mind learns: Saying no endangers relationships. Compliance ensures survival. Trusting one’s own intuition is dangerous. When fairy tales end, the story does not. Only the stage changes.
Forests become offices, castles become relationships, and wolves turn into more familiar figures.
Yet the rules learned in fairy tales continue to operate in adulthood. For many adults, setting boundaries is still not a communication skill, but an emotional risk. Boundaries are associated not with safety, but with loss. Saying no is unconsciously experienced as a threat—abandonment, punishment, exclusion.
This is why the sentence “I know it, but I can’t do it” does not stem from unwillingness, but from bodily memory. When a person considers saying no, their throat tightens, their heart races, their voice falters. The body remembers what happened the last time no was spoken. While the mind is engaged in the present, the body is still living in an old fairy tale.
For a long time, fairy tales taught us one rule:
“If you comply, you will be protected.”
Yet healing in adulthood begins elsewhere. Healing does not require saying no to everything; it requires becoming aware of what one says yes to. Boundaries exist not to sever relationships, but to prevent the loss of self within them.
Rewriting The Ending: Steps Toward Healing
So what can an adult who emerged from these fairy tales do?
First, it is essential to recognize that difficulty setting boundaries is not a character flaw, but a learned survival strategy. This recognition softens the harsh inner voice. The question shifts from “Why can’t I do this?” to “Why did I learn it this way?”
The second step is to notice boundaries in the body before they reach language. Every boundary violation is preceded by a bodily signal: tension, discomfort, the urge to withdraw. These signals are not meant to be suppressed; they are meant to be listened to. Boundaries often begin in the body before they are spoken.
The third step is to practice saying no within connection rather than through rupture. Setting a boundary does not always mean confrontation. Sometimes a pause, a postponement, or a calm and clear sentence is enough. A boundary does not need to be harsh; clarity is sufficient.
Perhaps most importantly, it is necessary to learn to read the guilt that follows boundary-setting as a signal. Guilt does not indicate wrongdoing; it signals the disruption of an old pattern. When a person sets a boundary, they do not become a bad person—they simply step out of an old role.
Perhaps it is time to change the ending of the fairy tales. To imagine characters who do not wait to be rescued, but who can protect themselves; who remain in relationships not by disappearing, but by being present.
Because adulthood is not about remaining a “good child,”
but about remaining loyal to oneself.
References
Gülüm, V. (2023). Healing Boundaries. Istanbul: Psikonet Publishing.
Haddou, M. (2018). Learning To Say No: Learning To Refuse For Healthy Social Relationships (Trans. Maide Selen). Istanbul: İletişim Publishing.