If you send your kid to secondary school still believing in Santa the resulting fallout is on your head

[Stripitout]

Try and weigh up how important your Christmas magic is against your kid being mercilessly teased when their peers find out they still believe

Is faith the only thing holding your family together? We just like each other. It’s as simple as that really.

Well, presents will hold it together.

We told our Sons around age 10, both weren’t completely sure and continued believing as they thought they wouldn’t get the presents they wanted.

If by 'fallout' you actually mean 'bullying'. Then no, bullying is ALWAYS the fault of the bullies.

If this is a child that openly talks about FC on the school bus then I am amazed that they have got to this age without some child setting them straight.

I can’t really believe that an 11 year old child would still believe in FC. I have 4 children and they all worked it out much younger than that.

I told my kids the summer before they started secondary and all three of them laughed and told me they had known for ages.

It is cruel to set them up to be bullied over something like this and yes we can teach our kids not to bully all we like but some parents won’t so it is also on us to protect our children where possible.

How times have changed. In the 80s I remember us discussing how someone needed to tell a girl in our class because we were about to go into Juniors and we were worried she would get laughed at.

I was 8 when I found out. My nan told me on Christmas Day that my dad was Father Christmas.

I remember being really confused, asking her dad managed to get all around the world delivering everyone's presents, before getting home to us. I grilled her into how he did it, especially as he was there when I went to bed.

I honestly believed that my dad was 'the FC' not that FC didn't exist and my dad gave us the presents (which wasn't even true as it was my mum who put the filled pillow-cases on our beds).

What solidified my belief more, was that my dad played FC in lots of Christmas fayres, markets and groups, so I knew that he was a FC, but thought that was acting till my nan tried to tell me the truth.

My ds went to secondary school still talking about Santa.

Not sure if and how much at school but he survived however!!!!!

Not all kids you come across are complete bullies who bully others for differences.

And the ones who are need dealing with - not the victims being told to change their beliefs.

Replace Santa for religion and you have a whole different perspective.

You can't choose which beliefs are ok to bully and which aren't.

You can respectfully disagree with someones beliefs though.

Or, hear me out, bullies shouldn't bully

We officially told oldest DC last year (11yo / Y6) although he's a smart boy so probably already knew but had been playing along!

DC2 is nearly 10 (Y5 now) and I'm pretty sure this is the last year we'll have - unless she is just playing along too.

No way would they be going to secondary still "believing".

Hang on… Father Christmas isn’t real? Nonsense. How do we get all the presents then?

I was upset and I found out in primary school. It made me feel like a gullible idiot and quite humiliated. I don't think Santa delivering presents adds much, I'd rather appreciate the person who really bought them.

I talk about Santa to my DC(3) in the same way as giants, elves, unicorns etc etc. I haven't explicitly said he doesn't exist and don't know if DC really believes it or not. If they ask I'll tell them.

Or teach your child not to tease other people is also an option.

Do you think your 8 year old would really ruin it for the 5 year old? My DS was 9 when he found out and he’s never told his little sister who was 6 at the time. She’s 9 now and realising but not from him.

2 of our many jobs as parents is a) teach them not to bully others and b) protect them.

we can’t make all parents do these jobs and therefore b) is super important for our own children due to the parents who don’t do a).

Most 11 year olds have worked it out but it does no harm to have the ‘so you know this whole Father Christmas thing…’ conversation before starting high school.

Erm...

Christmas is quite literally a celebration of the birth of Christ. If you are not religious, then what else is there?

I expect said 11 year old knows anyway, and is just humouring the parents.

Santa still visits our house with our adult children but they never got bullied. It is them humouring us over the years…

The key to not be bullied at secondary school over this is not to tell them that Santa doesn’t exist, it’s to raise children who are emotionally intelligent and can read between the lines.

I don't think they do outside of the world of mumsnet ,most kids accept it for what it is a nice child hood memory.

One of my colleagues (secondary school teacher) got a really snotty email from a parent complaining that he’d ruined the magic of Christmas by telling a Y8 class that Santa wasn’t real. Her child still believed at that point - no SEN.

This makes no sense! I grew up in a non religious family. And although we did talk about Father Christmas I don't think I ever really believed in him.I knew our parents bought the presents. Father Christmas was a nice story but no more. To us Christmas was about family, games and tome together.

There's always one isn't there 🙄

you think the celebration we have as christmas has ANYTHING to do with Christianity?

The tree, the gift giving? The singing? The spending time with family, in the middle of winter?

Come off it.

The birth of Jesus has absolutely sod all to do with how we celebrate christmas,

It's ALL highjacked from traditional celtic Yule Celebrations which run over Midwinter/Solstice to make pagan peoples convert. Like all of the Pagan holidays were similarly co-opted by the christian church.

Jesus wasn't even born in december.

I am one of those. If people want to pretend to their kids that Father Christmas exists thst is up to them but it doesn't mean my child still doesn't have a magical Christmas.

I hate the idea you are some sort of killjoy or scrooge for not playing make believe.