AIBU to assume an almost 12-year-old no longer believes in Santa?

Of course no adults believe in a supernatural being with whom there are consequences should you not behave according to certain moral codes - that would just be silly 🤔😃

I did wonder why you'd keep them lol.

What a clown 🤡 you are to be so furious over this. A 12yo is a BIG child. Some people really need to get a grip

Probably to " protect" the younger ones 8 year old DGC told me last Xmas that he knows Santa isn't real but have to pretend for his baby brother

Absolutely this. She must have been pretending. My own dc figured out by age 5. Asked me why does Santa look different on tv, books and can be everywhere, he can’t be real. So I told the truth and we all now pretend.

The point I was making was that children who believe in Father Christmas do not do so because they have wonderful imaginations.
Imagining something and believing in something are not the same.
Someone then asked if that meant I thought everyone who believed in religion was stupid. I don’t know why they thought that’s what I meant - it doesn’t follow at all. I’m not religious but I have heard people talking about having faith - a certainty that there is something greater, beyond our comprehension - and it is not comparable with believing in Father Christmas.

I think most likely the child already knew but I think it's best to avoid that kind of discussion with a child unless you know for sure that they don't believe. If, for whatever reason, the child did still believe in Santa, then it won't have been the nicest way to find out.

You're in the wrong for assuming. I wouldn't dareeee say that to someone else's child!

Well it is, believing something you have been told with no proof is the exact same.

I am actually shocked at how miserable the amount of people and comments on this thread. My daughter is 12 and whilst I don’t think she believes anymore we have never had that conversation, we talk like she does. I would be furious if anyone explicitly told her that Santa wasn’t real, who are you to ruin the magic of Christmas for anyone else’s kids and family traditions. For those comments questioning how intelligent a child must be if they do still believe in the magic of Christmas my daughter is at a highly competitive grammar school, top of her class, is not neurodivergent, she just has an imagination. She actually debated as part of her debate club team that Santa was real in front of her school. I am glad with all the misery that is in this world that at Christmas time we can lost in the magic of Christmas and the what ifs.
I just don’t know why you would ever explicitly have that conversation with anyone who isn’t an adult. I think some of you need to watch Miracle on 34th street to understand.

Never assume!!

I’m a fully grown man and still believe in Santa!

I remember being 12 and the dentist asking "Was Santa good to you this year?" It's silly, but I was quite put out that she would think I still believed in Santa at 12. So I sympathize, OP, you can't win.

I think it's disgusting that people think it's ok to lie to their kids their entire life until they're "found out" under the pretext of keeping everything magical.
Life is magical anyway. I never brought my son up on that basis. He still gets a Christmas stocking as does every person in the house on Christmas Eve but he's always known Santa embodies the spirit of Christmas and isn't a real person.

I remember finding teeth in my mums draw and going to tell my dad all concerned she was some kind of freak or that she was having a breakdown 😭. He put my concerns to bed after he’d almost given himself and asthma attack laughing.

Topics like whether Santa is real, where babies come from etc. are for the parents to have. They are best place to handle the conversations in the most appropriate way for that individual child, at a time that's right for that individual child.

You think they haven't heard it all on the school playground long before that?

It’s deeply unreasonable for you to expect the entire world to pander to your inability to accept that your child is growing up.

You’re unreasonable in this instance because you bought it up. She didn’t ask if Father Christmas was real or anything similar, she just said she would put something on her Christmas list.

It’s not unreasonable to think a 12 year old probably knows he not real. But there’s no need to assume it and drop the bomb.

Worked with a (horrible) woman who would go on about the fact her 13 year old still believed. She got thousands of pounds of gifts. Everyone used to say we’d believe too if thats what we got.

As many others have said - I believe in this child’s case, she plays along for her Mum.

what I would say however, for her Mum to then send you an angry text is not on at all. & if she is going to get so worked up about a 12 year old (finally) realising that Santa/tooth fairy isn’t real, then hold on top for the teenage years! That is going to hurt her ALOT!

This is quite a generalisation but I think by around year 4 in school some kids don’t believe and by year 5 and 6 only the most naive/send children don’t believe. In my experience though year 3 or 4 is the last year they truly believe it without any reservations.

That’s the thing though. I’m in my 30s, like OP’s children. Something must have changed because when we were of an age to believe in Father Christmas I don’t remember it being expected that we’d carry on believing without questioning until secondary school.

It felt like magic for younger children and a bit of fun you all played along with as you got older. I get the impression parents weren’t going to such lengths to be so careful and convincing that it carried on so long. I have a toddler myself and without seeing it on Mumsnet I’d never have known things had changed so much so I don’t feel it’s unreasonable for someone like OP who perhaps doesn’t have young children to not realise they have to be careful to keep up the Father Christmas lie around a 12 year old.

I’m autistic (we didn’t know I was at the time) and I believe till I was 11 because my brother told me. He didn’t want me getting bullied (thank fucking god he told me though). My thought process for still believing despite other kids telling me is that my mum and dad would never lie to me and I had seen Santa in our house. I had not seen Santa btw it was my grandad delivering my bike in the middle of the night in his red united shirt, but through the frosted glass it was Santa as far as I was concerned. Genuinely until I was 11 I would have told you with 100% confidence I had seen Santa in my house.

I am always cautious with other peoples kids. I’ve had a 7 year old tell me “you know Santa isn’t real right Mrs GreenCaterpillar?” And I always reply with a “What? Then how did my presents get under the tree?” This kid turned around to me and said it was probably my husband carrying on pretending to not hurt my feelings 😭. But I’ve also met teenagers who believe, admittedly they were neurodivergent (or at least they seemed to be).

I’m a secondary school teacher and would never say something like that to any child! It sounds as though you did it deliberately tbh.

We’re the same. I don’t know what age I was, but I just knew Santa wasn’t real any more but I didn’t find it shocking or upsetting, just at an age where you know it’s not possible! I knew my mum knew I knew, but you just keep the magic going. I’m almost certain my 9 year old doesn’t believe, on Christmas Eve she gave me the whole wink wink nudge nudge face behind the younger two backs