Or is this Santa post unreasonable?

To be nice?
If a child says they cant wait to see santa will your child just anounce. 'Santa is not real'
Why? Just cause its the truth? Is the intent just to be nasty? Or make the child who believes feel stupid?

It isn't asking them to maintain the lie, just to keep their opinion to themselves when they know sticking in their two cents' worth will cause upset or offence. It is part of learning to be a nice human. More so if their opinion hasn't even been sought as IME it is rarely said as part of a general discussion or a slip up, it is almost always announced with the purpose of upsetting the audience.

Of course I teach my children that every family has different rules or beliefs, but I also teach them to be respectful of those differences.

Have you recently heard a parent telling a child that if they don't behave/ swear allegiance to Paddington Bear/ proclaim their undying belief in Paddington Bear, then the biggest celebration of the year will be cancelled? Have you ever seen a parent getting themselves into a lather working out how to convince their 10 year old that Paddington Bear is real, including leaving marmalade paw prints all around the house, faking photographs of him and writing notes professing to be from Paddington Bear? Or calling other children horrific names for saying Paddington Bear is a fictional character?

My Mum made my childhood thoroughly magical, including leaving notes and gifts from my favourite story book characters, and she does the same for my daughter. When DD left her favourite doll at my parents the day before they went on holiday, they took the doll with them, took photographs of her everywhere the visited and returned with a journal of the adventures of Baby Annabelle showing everywhere she had been.

At no point have any of these stories involved blackmail or coercion and no-one will be talking about how their heart is breaking or begging for one more year if my daughter at some point says, "Remember when Grandma took Annabelle on holiday and pretended that she'd been on all those adventures?"

And if another child said "Your Grandma just wrote all those diary entries herself and Annabelle is just a doll!" I think DD's response would be, "Well duh!"

I'm interested though in what people would do if their very young child asked them outright. What do you say to a 5yo who point blank asks if he's real and wants a yes or no?

So as I said upthread, DD1 was sceptical last year at 4, but we did the whole 'well what do you believe?' thing and she never asked us outright.

But yesterday, now aged 5, she said she didn't believe Santa exists and that presents were bought by mummy and daddy. I didn't really respond, just kind of said 'hmm I see!' but then she said 'Just tell me, Mummy. Does he exist or not?'

How would others handle that?

For me, her asking outright was a signal that it's time to be honest as I always said I would never lie if my child asked for the truth about it. I said 'Do you really want to know or would you rather just believe what you want?' And she said she really wanted to know, so I said that Santa was a really fun story and fun thing to pretend about, but she's right that Santa won't come to our house to deliver presents or do stockings. I also said that lots of children do believe Santa exists and it's important she doesn't accidentally ruin someone else's belief, so she's welcome to talk about it at home but at school just think it in her head instead. I hope she'll do that but she's 5, I don't have control over what she does when she's not with me.

Because parents don't like to accept that their choices might have caused their child to feel hurt and humiliated. It ruins the parents' fun. They will point to others and say "Look, Jenny and Jonny were fine about it. I was fine about it. Everyone else in the world is fine about it. So if you are not fine about it, that's a you problem, Miseryguts."

Where I think my autism plays a part in it is that I don't get over being lied to as easily as other people might. Maybe if I wasn't ND I would be able to accept that it is normal to be lied to by the people you trust the most in the world. But that just didn't sit properly with me as a child nor as a mother.

Ha is this a joke?! So creepy. Do you dress up as Paddington and run around the London Underground as well?

Why is it always the kids fault when they feel bad for having everyone they know lie to their face for years? If it was about any other topic then we would say the parents are batshit. But because it's about Father Christmas it's the kids fault and they must be neurodiverse if they felt hurt and humiliated.

If you don't want your kids to believe then thats fine but make it clear to your kids to keep it to themselves!

Why, though?

By all means go along with the Santa story if you want, but expecting other families to go along with you by default makes no sense.

Surely as a parent you teach your kids that every family is different and does things differently so if they come home after being told Johnny doesn't believe in Santa, nothing is ruined for them?

And the aggressive nature of those who are still trying to force their adolescent children into believing (whilst attacking any child who knows and has the temerity to tell the truth) is one of the most convincing reasons I've found NOT to do Santa very heavily with my DD.

You disagree that Santa isn’t real?! Seriously though, if I tell my young children Father Christmas doesn’t deliver their stockings then of course I’ll say that some children do believe and we shouldn’t tell them he’s not real. I don’t know what this boy was told privately either but children don’t always do as they’re told and act as they should. A five year old is still learning acceptable behaviour and making mistakes. If his parents fed him the lines or gave him a megaphone knowing what he was going to say that’s not ok, but kids are unpredictable. Respect of belief goes both ways - children should be taught that other people can think differently to them and believe different things and if they still believe in Father Christmas even if Timmy doesn’t, that’s ok.

I didn’t feel lied to at all. I felt grateful to have had a lovely childhood with a magical Christmas time. And I want my child to have the same.

This is hilarious. I find it far more bizarre that some parents take whatever these so called ‘parenting experts’ spout to be the absolute last word on parenting 101. 🤣

These shysters are in it for the bloody money and nothing more and it’s easy enough to find evidence to support a particular point of view if you scan your net wide enough.

Bring back common sense parenting!

We did the whole magical Christmas, tooth fairy etc. and still fill a stocking for DS even though he’s an older teen. DH loves Christmas and puts a huge amount of effort into the whole shebang and I’m very grateful that he’s so keen. We also have grandchildren, so he can merrily continue to bring a little magic into their lives. 🥳

Nothing was ruined, don't be so dramatic. Finding out around the age of 7 from another kid is exactly how it's meant to work. The "magic" is meant to be a bit of playful fun, not something sacred that you have to guard at all costs.

Pretty much every parent I’ve met that has gone out of their way to tell their children that Santa doesn’t exist has been a pretentious twat

I suppose it depends on your priorities but lying about the chocolate sounds like a very serious lie to me. I'm the adult who just had to help myself to some chocolate when I went upstairs for something as I find it impossible to resist and the packet was open.

I think there are various ways of doing things, we never made a big thing about Father Christmas, he just brought some of the presents and never went in their rooms. When they got to the age of asking I was honest. I never ever did the "Father Christmas won't come if you do x or don't do y."

I also don't get the, "I'm not going to lie for you or my child isn't going to lie for you." Why does anyone have to lie, just keep your mouth shut and leave other people alone.

I disagree with that. It's a nice, common and well meaning tradition that most kids in the UK believe. Having a smart arse child announce that he's not real is just unfair. If you don't want your kids to believe then thats fine but make it clear to your kids to keep it to themselves!

I'd prefer the leprechauns, keeping an elephant in a shed seems cruel unless it was a very big shed. The leprechauns were free to roam which seems much kinder.

Some parents enjoy telling their children about Santa/FC being real and see it as part of the Christmas magic, In contrast I did it because I felt I ought to but felt very uncomfortable about it. I’ve seen people on here say ‘everyone lies to children sometimes’. But for me there’s a massive difference between a small lie like ‘there’s no chocolate left’ where you quickly move on and distract, and if you’re looking into their eyes and lying over and over about something significant, telling them to trust you. I wish I didn’t feel like that, it didn’t make me feel superior or anything, maybe my kids would have had a more ‘magical’ Christmas when they were little if I’d been more wholeheartedly into the Santa thing? Or if I’d not felt I had to go along with it? I certainly don’t think there’s only one right way of doing Christmas for kids.

My Grandad said he had an elephant in his shed but I wasn’t allowed in to see it….

Likewise don't expect me or my children to lie for you

That is the issue your lie doesn't trump the truth.

That seems to the issue.kst of you don't get.

Although I’m not in agreement with the quoted post, I do think some people seem to focus on persuading their children that FC is real as literal fact for longer than they might- I can remember mums going to great lengths to keep it up when their children were 9 or 10, long after most children would naturally be having doubts. Really don’t see the point of this and thinks it’s more about letting the adults extend the fun for themselves than the benefit of the children. If children start to doubt it, that’s fine- that’s as it should be. Much better than bending over backwards to keep them believing and then having to announce the truth or have them laughed at in secondary school.

For older children there’s often a period of make believe or half belief- where they sort of know and don’t know that he’s not real and suspend the disbelief in order to enjoy the belief - and that is completely fine, better than fine. Much better than insisting it’s all literally true and then announcing it isn’t.

When ds was five he asked why does Santa look different in books, on tv and movies and at the store. Smart kid worked it out then. I honestly feel stupid about all this pretending nonsense. We all 'pretend' now just for the presents BUT we all don't believe in it. Is it still magic when you know it's all not real?

Genuine question - why is Christmas spoilt because other children believe differently and do different things?

Children's Bibles are highly sanitised and miss out all the sex and violence! The original, especially the Old Testament, would traumatise most children.

I can't get worked up about it.

My DS is 2yo and is excited about Santa and reindeer this year - especially because they are doing lots of Santa-related crafts at nursery.

He's also excited about dinosaurs and enjoys stories and TV shows with talking animals and vehicles. I have no idea which of these he thinks are "real" but he regularly suggests that various characters should come to his house. I'm not insisting that "Peppa's just pretend" every time he says he wants to play with her!

As he gets older, his understanding of stories and characters will get more nuanced, so he will be able to distinguish between pretend characters, extinct animals, historic figures and so on. It doesn't have to be that complicated!