How on earth do your children still believe in Santa?

[mauvish]

As the title says. I get the impression that people think that their DC still believe in Santa right up to secondary school age.

How? When the answer to every question in the world is a few computer clicks away? When they will hear from other children at school?

I remember asking my mum outright when I was about 7 or 8, (about yr 3 I think) and that was because I was being teased mercilessly at school for being one of the last to still believe in Santa. Part of the reason that I still clung onto the belief is that I'd heard bells one Xmas night when I was awake (actually this was probably tinnitus secondary to my chronic glue ear but I didn't know that at the time! and convinced myself it was Father Xmas!). I also remember my daughter being told the truth by another child in front of me at school drop off when she was about 5 or 6.

So how on earth are children supposed to still believe in FC (etc) until a much later age nowadays, when in so many other respects they are far more wordly wise at a younger age?

What’s up with you thicksocks?

Something like that, yes.

It’s definitely a big change since I was a child- I never believed in Father Christmas, and by the time I started school no one did. It was common knowledge that it was a story for babies.

In brownies one of our tasks was helping at the santas grotto for 2/3 year olds… we definitely knew it wasn’t real and was just for very young children.

Same thing with Santa letters- I only knew one child who wrote them, and she was really irritated by about 8 that her dad made her do it because she knew it was rubbish.

I don’t understand how or why people are so obsessed with it these days.

Ours are nearly 4 and just 8.

We have always had a policy of don’t ask don’t tell. When our son was 3, he asked about it briefly and like anything else we asked him what he thought about it. Within a minute - he worked out that it’s a myth. We would never lie to him - and he’s a very bright and inquisitive kid. I can’t imagine - 1) how other 8 year olds apparently genuinely believe 1 person climbs down millions of chimneys in one night if they are also being encouraged to be curious/inquisitive/critical thinkers hopefully and 2) How said belief feels like “magic” to their parents.

What feels magical to me, this Christmas, is that we are healthy, happy and together in a shitty crummy world and in that crummy world we’ve got two bright, inquisitive kids who have their health, and a warm home. I couldn’t be more grateful because we take so much for granted.

MsJuniper Ah yes, we do that too. I’ve always refused to buy Roblox credits so when Santa put a £10 gift card in the stocking it made it more believable because they knew I would never have bought it.

You tell her that the real Santa is very busy and has special helpers, a bit like elves, who do 'Santa' for him. They then report back all that has been told to the North Pole.
My children met Santa at our Christmas Fair. It was their grandad! 😆 They realised, but now know he has a special connection to Santa and helps at Christmas.

Oh, and most questions are easily explained away with 'Christmas magic.' How he gets round the world, how he can drink so much whisky, how the reindeer fly, how all the presents fit in the sleigh....

What I don’t get is how more kids don’t discuss and realise that every family is doing a slightly different version of Father Christmas! I did him how my parents did - FC brings stockings, all other gifts are from who they’re from and are under the tree wrapped before Christmas. The “real” FC comes on Christmas Eve and you can’t see him (he won’t come if you’re still awake), all the ones in grottos and shopping centres etc are just his helpers. Yet so many of DS’s friends (and many on this thread it would seem) think the Santa they meet at a grotto or at obscenely expensive garden centres etc is the real thing. Lots also have different “rules” at home like Santa brings all the gifts.

DS started questioning at 5 and now at 7 doesn’t believe. He asked us outright and wouldn’t be fobbed off with “well what do you think?” I didn’t feel comfortable telling him a lie. In fact I made a thread on here about it when he was asking questions and was getting quite upset by me refusing to answer, so the next time he asked I told him the truth. Christmas is still magical, he still loves it. He’s very much an oddity in his class though, every other parent I’ve spoken to says their DC firmly still believes and many go to great lengths to prolong that.

What has wrapping paper and buying gifts got to do with it? People buy gifts for each other, it doesn't all come from Father Christmas! How would that make children question things?

Im pretty sure my kids know its not real. DS especially has been twlling all his smaller cousins that its not real.
But when we leave the cookies and carrots out and they get a book or a PJ or whatever DS gets all giggly and happy and excited. I think the whole tradition of it is just nice for the kids, but a lot of them dont believe its all real but they still love the whole fuss around it.

Absolutely! Whether you believe or not, doesn't stop you having a stocking and having fun!

This is it.

I LOVE and have always loved Christmas. I am the opposite of the grinch. My family now love Christmas

We love the lights, the decorations, the parties, the food, the films, the presents, Carol services, visiting people, having people visit us, snow, going for cold walks etc.

It’s wonderful and my favourite time of year… but actually believing in Father Christmas isn’t remotely necessary in that. Nor does it add anything.

They dont need to believe I’m REALLY a shark in the swimming pool, or that there are REAL pirates at the beach or a REAL Gruffalo in the woods to play imaginary games and have a great time either.

I think a previous poster is right about keep it simple for longer lasting belief:

Father Christmas brings one simple toy (no iPads, phones, consoles, etc.)

He brings a stocking.

That's it. No watching, no breakfast with Santa, etc.

Honestly i think there it can be class related . My kids go to a very middle class rural school and most everyone ( of the boys as I don't know the girls moms) still believein my sons class who is 11. Parents around here seem to go all out to encourage them to believe with trips to expensive santas or Lapland

My sister teaches in an inner city school and she said they kids there openly talk about they're being no Santa at 7/8

The person who used the word 'cringe' about a 11 year old still believing in Santa would have a field day in our lovely rural school.

I’m definitely middle class and this isn’t my experience- in fact I’d say the inverse is more often the case.

Nah, it doesn't sound ridiculous. On the other hand, an adult who "cringes" at children believing in Father Christmas definitely is ridiculous. And just spiteful and immature.

No idea what your problem is with kids being kids but it's really sad that some adults want to rush them through childhood and rob them of that very short and very magical period of their lives.

I don't think it's cringe for kids to believe in Santa; it's the people who haven't got the imagination to 'believe' that I feel sorry for. What miserable lives.

My daughter is autistic and 13 and still believes.. no amount of kind suggestions or full on he isn’t real from her younger brother will change her mind. She gives no fucks what people think of her. I like her world better!

Yes, surely they all should be playing GTA, vaping and drinking alcopops by 11. Believing in Santa, going to school and wearing anything but the latest designer gear is so cringe.

Christmas is amazing enough for children without them needing to "believe".

My 12 and 10 year old do, they ignore what their friends say. I think I’ve been very good at keeping the magic alive and we took them to Lapland one year which I think cemented it as they still talk about it now.
They both have ASD and they are emotional immature compared to their friends so I think that also has an impact.
I hope even when they realise that they still play along as it just makes Christmas a little bit more magical and fun. When I was growing up I figured out he wasn’t real but I never admitted it, me and my dad always loved getting the house ready for Santa and joking that it’s almost time for him to drop the presents off. I’ve got some lovely memories because of it and it’s part of the excitement leading up to Christmas Day.

Believing in things that your parents have told you are real doesn’t require any imagination- that like saying believing in volcanos or cruise ships or vikings requires imagination. Santa is just one of the million things little children haven’t seen but know are real because they have been taught about them.

My three dc had figured it out by the January of reception. And they are now all teenagers and none has TikTok. They figured it out themselves because FC is far fetched. No loss of enjoyment at Christmas.

It's not imagination if it's presented as fact.

Surely it's more magical to pretend. Otherwise, if you really believe in him, Santa is just another thing that exists like the sun and the postman. No imagination involved.

They dont need to believe I’m REALLY a shark in the swimming pool, or that there are REAL pirates at the beach or a REAL Gruffalo in the woods to play imaginary games and have a great time either.

Exactly this. This is the magic of childhood. Fantasy and pretending and make believe.

Not adults going out of their way to do all the pretending for them and manufacturing all the magic to the point they must believe it's real.

I'm quite surprised by posters who say children are losing their belief in Santa earlier these days, I think it's the opposite and that children on average believe waaaaay longer nowadays. I don't think any of the kids in my school believed past infant school when I was little, it was certainly open knowledge by the time we were year 3 or so.

I also think people using belief in Santa as a yardstick for whether kids are innocent or not is odd and setting parents up for angst. Kids don't transform into hard-nosed cynics just because they figure out Santa isn't real. I never believed in Santa and tackled my mum over it when I was four, but still spent half my childhood occupying imaginary worlds. Knowing magic wasn't literally^^ real didn't stop me being a child or enjoying spending time playing in the middle ground between fantasy and reality. My sister believed until she was a bit older, was probably one of the last among her peer group to figure it out, and I'd say we were both equally imaginative and child-like. I also really enjoyed playing along with the Santa myth and it still felt magical pretending and waking up in the morning to find a nice lumpy stocking. Can still remember the magical feeling without the literal belief.

My take is that children believing in Santa if they want to believe is a lovely thing, but I think it's also the right thing to be upfront and confirm their (correct) perception of reality when they ask the question and genuinely want to know. It really isn't the end of the world or the end of their innocence.