I am pretty sure this approach would be seen by our society as quite damaging to the children mental development.
Hansel & Gretel is about parents deliberately leaving their kids in the woods, and then a witch imprisons them, which is eventually resolved by throwing her into the fire.
Little Red Riding Hood is about a wolf that eats a little girl's grandmother.
Snow White only gets to meet the seven dwarfs because her mother-in-law has decided to have her killed.
There are many more examples, which is to say - "our" "own" culture's children stories are not necessarily less violent.
It's the difference between reading your kids Smurfs and Bible (if you're Christian). I remember understanding the difference pretty early (and wondering why Bible seems like Smurfs but is treated differently).
When you're 6 it might work, but when you're 10 you just learn to ignore whatever she says cause she's clearly telling you bullshit.
I especially remember grandma telling us not to play on a heap of wood planks (probably because you could fall into a hole and break a leg or sth). Her reason was - a "kuna" (weasel-like animal, pretty harmless for people) lives there and will bite us.
There was no internet yet, and we had no books on kuna, so we imagined it like a huge monster:) Later I learnt what's a kuna and laughed it off, but my younger sister refused to go to my grandma house (like 100m from our house) alone because of the wood planks heap and kuna nearby. For like 4 years :) Despite my parents telling her what's kuna and showing her photos and everything :) My parents were pretty angry with grandma because of that :)
I admit I was a dick about that and told my sister additional stories about kuna as well.
I wonder how much of it is done in a playful tone and how that translates to a lesson rather than raw fear. Or at least fear may not be the primary element at play here.
When a parent says, "If a you walk too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family," the child may partially worry that it is true but suspects that the story is too far out to be believed, especially if the parent tells it in a playful tone. There's an element of fear preventing the child from going too near the ocean, but that element is couched in playfulness.
Fear is not an unhealthy emotion for children. There should be SOME fear that if he runs in the road, he'll get hurt. Or if he climbs somewhere high he may fall. The trick is to not overwhelm the child.
I think everyone is told a bunch of (in the West, admittedly less dramatic) lies during their childhood to prevent you from doing stupid things. But does that really mess you up in a bad way, or is the average child able to handle this and gradually find out the truth while growing up?
Quite friendly for me. The message is clear - you will never see us again.
I had a similar story for my year and a half boy: "Don't go on car pavement alone. It is dangerous!" "Cars move fast, hit hard, they may not notice children. If that happened you'll never see us again."
He wants an explanation. It helps to make his own judgment... sometimes unexpected like "Why such dangerous things allowed here?"
I hope someday it would remain only in fairy tales.
Which method that is best to get a child not to run over the road without looking is debatable.