telling child Elf on the Shelf isn’t really

Telling them the parents are doing it is a bit of a potential time bomb, they could carry that to school and tell the other kids. It's annoying that it's become so popular that people feel pressured into doing it, tbh I don't plan to do it with my son when he's old enough and I'll just tell him a different story like the parents who tell the story of the elf do.

I plan on saying that he doesn't need an elf in the house keeping watch because santa knows him well enough to know if he is being a good boy for Christmas etc. Tbh I doubt it'll even come up.

Children absolutely don’t see it the way that adults do. Push at the house of cards and you risk the whole thing coming down.

honestly just don’t do it it’s fine. we didn’t but we have lots of other traditions. we have a locket cosy time but no elf.

My daughter once came home from nursery talking about how they had one. She was confused because (in her words) “It’s not real, it’s a toy” She said she knew the staff were moving it 😆 She has also seen them (along with other Elf of the Shelf branded products) being sold in shops so I explained they were made by a toy company. I didn’t actually realise people believed in them like Father Christmas.
She is older now and never mentioned it again.

I just told my daughter the elfs only go to naughty children, so she wouldn’t need one.. but maybe don’t mention that to the other children as it might upset them.

I think you would be unreasonable to say he's not real as it could potentially spoil a short-lived magic for a few families!!
I'm not doing it, my eldest is only 3 but I won't ever be doing it. They do it at her creche and will do it in her primary school so I'm hoping that will get me out of being questioned. I know of some parents who don't do it and say it's only bold kids that need to be watched by an elf 🤣 mine believes in Santa's Bird watching.

I did exactly that but I didn’t know any child actually believes they are real. I'd seen stuff about them on Facebook but I had no idea the children weren't completely in on it and knew it was something from a shop. So when mine asked for one I just said it wasn't sonething I wanted to buy or to faff about moving around etc and that their friends' parents must be far more imaginative than we are to come up with the ideas.

Whether or not my own had been under the misapprehension it was real I still don't know.

Just like you can skip out the 'Santa is watching you' part of doing Santa, you can do the same with the elf too. Our elf is just a fun thing to do which causes some mischief, nothing will be said to them about reporting back to Santa.

My son realised it was a toy without being told as well it clearly looks like a toy.
He did ask when he was about 9 why we didn't do it as he'd heard some funny things people had done but he wasn't very bothered.

I had a random school mum give DD one, becaue she'd heard from her DD that we didn't do it. All with promises of how it would come to life every night, and how wonderful it would be.

I could have cheerfully shoved her down a hole and danced on her head.

We don’t do the elf, we don’t do santa either, it’s fine. We wouldn’t have the organisational skills to remember the elf, nevermind these people who put them in a different scenario everyday!

I do it with minimal effort. The elf is often late (as I can’t find it) and I tend to just chuck it somewhere every few days. Dc still seem to like it!

An elf just doesn’t come to your house. There aren’t enough of them to go around all the children in the world. It doesn’t need any more explanation than that - plenty of parents don’t do the elf so your child won’t be elf-less alone.

I think you should go all out and tell them Santa isn't real or the tooth fairy....

No you don't.
Just say YOU don't want an elf and so one won't come.

All families do Christmas differently in a hundred different ways. Some kids have a whole living room of gifts, others just do stockings etc etc. The elf on the shelf thing is just another thing that is different between families but it's always been this way and kids do accept it as long as they want to.

We never bought into the surveillance aspect either, I just said they were definitely getting presents and they didn't have to worry about it, were already definitely on the good list, or something like that. Start the line that all families have their own traditions and father Christmas works with them all, early on. Maybe it's a thing in Alice's family but that's not how it works in ours.

Belief is partly a choice. If you sit them down and say x does not exist then you take that choice away from them. They may even ask you if it's real but not really want to be told no. There is a lot of room for being vague, because that way they can come to their own decision when they are ready for it.

"We don't need one in our house because we know whether you are being good or naughty without an elf having to keep an eye on you"

Not something i wanted to start, and DD was quite scared of the idea once she heard about it from school friends and cousins (DHs sister bloody obsessed with it)

DD asked how come we didn't have one and i said the parents give permission or something, and that i didn't want one so none come to us. And she said 'good!' 🤣

Just don’t do it. We never did the tooth fairy either. Mine are 8 and 13 now.
If kids want to believe, they will believe no matter what.
mu oldest is autistic, never believed in Santa. Youngest still believed until last year - and that with a sibling in the house who made it very clear that Santa didn’t exist.
if a child can be swayed by another child saying Santa isn’t real, it was time anyway.

Mine is 7 and has never mentioned it. Just say one has never shown up in your house!

I was determined not to do it but DD3 came home the other day from nursery talking about it because the other kids were talking about it with the nursery nurses so now sadly I have to participate

My eldest is 6 and we’ve never done it. She’s aware it’s a thing, but hasn’t asked for it, which is good because I’m not doing it!