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

I don't think life is like a Terry Pratchett book where not believing in god/gods means families then have excess of belief sloshing round to poke at other ideas/concepts.

I grew up in an atheist household - didn't do Father Christmas at all - haven't with my kids though have done more fun and age adapted activities round Easter/Halloween than we grew up more because it's fun.

That was a really shitty thing to do. If you were my mum and did that I wouldn't talk to you for a very long time. But my mum wouldn't have done that.

We told our DS last Xmas, as he was in year 6 (lots of kids being challenged about 'belief', mostly by those with older siblings) and would be heading to secondary soon.

I went with the 'St Nicholas' story. That he was real, that he bought and distributed presents for poor and sick children and it started a trend and that ever since then, adults had taken on the role of Santa and kept the spirit going for children. When you tell it that way, you can really stress how important it is that they protect the secret for other kids now that they are in on it.

He was fine about it but a bit sad at losing some of the Xmas rituals. We started new ones (Xmas film & picky bits buffet on Xmas Eve & a sock on his bed for opening on waking) and he's really looking forward to it this year. He's even indulging in Alexa's Santa countdown to Xmas.

I've reiterated again that he needs to be very careful with other kids and make sure he doesn't ruin Santa for anyone else.

How dare you do that. You’ve had your turn being a parent. You had no right.

Why do it now as well, right before Christmas? You just couldn’t let her have one last Christmas and then tell her later on? That’s just badness. You certainly wouldn’t be included in my Christmas this year if I were her parents.

This was not your decision to make. I’m not sure that I could forgive my Mum if she did this. What were you thinking??

Wow.

If you were my parent or parent in law, I’d be so angry at you for doing that. Not your place at all!

Petergriffinschins · Today 15:01

My daughter turns 11 in a few months but I’d humouring me as she has a 4 year old sister. And she really, really wants that over priced, stinking sol de janero crap...

Oh, I'm glad I'm not alone! I also dropped £80 on four small things in Sephora a couple of weeks ago.

She's 11, coming up 12 and worked out that Father Christmas didn't exist when she was 6.

My question is this:

1. Father Christmas exists
2. He brings presents to good children
3. Therefore children who don’t get presents are bad

Someone help me square the circle for the children out there who have this situation?

Yanbu. It’s bizarre that the mum didn’t talk to her child after Christmas year 6 and for the child not to question things before then. (I assume no ND)

I suspect that mum is one of those people who can’t see how Christmas will be magical without their child believing in FC when most people have a great time regardless of belief.

I told mine that we bought the presents and sent them to Santa. I got stick for that off a couple of other parents at primary school.
My DM told me that so I knew somethings were too expensive.
I’m shocked that 11yrs still believe!

There is no way an 11 year old believes in FC. A 6 year old maybe, but even that is pushing it.

Ve been reaching for 20 years in secondary. When my first tutor group reached year 11 we were doing a task in pshe about how they felt when ... One of the cards said When I found out that Santa wasn't real. Two girls came running over to me and asked me to remove all of the cards that said this from all of the packs across the room. They went on to explain that their friend still believed in Santa and that her parents had asked them to keep quiet about it. By this time the girl was 15 and one month off turning 16 years. I remember being totally shell shocked that she still believed but also that her friends had been asked to not tell her and that they were doing it. She was an only child and had SEN needs but I didn't expect that to happen. Since then I have been very careful saying anything around my secondary aged students as I had been her form tutor for over four years and hadn't realised any sooner. I'm assuming that she now knows as she would be about 30 years old now.

I feel shitty when they get older and they want more expensive tiny things and they have younger siblings. My youngest is 4 and the amount of things she will love that I’ve picked up second hand for a fraction of the price of that awful perfume! It smells like cheap impulse! But dd will be happy with her lusted after number 78, what ever the hell that means 🤣

Presumably he's blocking his ears and humming Christmas carols to himself during Science and Geography classes as well🙄

If I thought my 13 year old really believed in Santa I'd be concerned about his intellectual development. It isn't "cute" or "innocent"; it requires a suspension of disbelieve that frankly would be odd in a child that age.

You can't honestly think that non-religious adults without children, or with children over the age of about 7 don't have anything to hold their Christmas together with

I was at a school where a SEN child genuinely believed. All the kids were great about it.

Devastating for a child and likely to result in a large grudge or lack of trust in the parents, unless the child has a learning difficulty which may be the case at 11.

Obviously bullying is not on.

But, as others have said, it's going to be difficult to expect others to not have some sort of reaction when faced with the incredulous situation of a high school kid believing in Father Christmas.
It's a bit like an adult meeting another adult who thinks that humans and dinosaurs lived together sort of thing.

Obviously if this person has an obvious sort of intellectual disability, then the vast majority of people would not make an unkind comment, and understand the situation at hand, but otherwise you would be slightly taken aback.

That's different though isn't it ?
My son has severe autism and learning disabilities,he's never really understood Santa ,but I imagine there's quite a few kids at his special school that still believe .

Smug mum alert lol

I grew up in a super religious family. Christmas is much better without all that nonsense! And guilt

Yanbu.

Though that said, maybe In just a bit out of step with what kids believe these days. There was drama in our class group recently when a year 6 boy came out of school crying because a teacher had mentioned that Santa and the tooth fairy weren’t real 🫤 The boys mum made a complaint to the headteacher and everything.

I can only imagine this is some sort of middle class thing? I’m from a working class background and raising my kids in a very middle class area. I’m often shocked at the different expectations of children here v back home with people here treating their children as if they are much, much younger and more fragile.

Some still
Like the magic. My yr 6 child wen tin with his you much younger sibling and loved it

Father Christmas does exist, it's just that 99% of people are too naughty to receive after 11.

It surprises me that a NT 11-year-old would believe in Santa. Not that I'm doubting you, just that it seems unusual. Most children become suspicious long before that, and when a child directly asks a parent whether Santa exists or not, I think the parent should be honest. Or at least ask, "What do you think?" That helps you know whether the child really wants to give up this belief or not.

TBH I find it a bit odd that many parents are keen for children to believe in Santa for so long. They are often the same parents who push their children to grow up in all sorts of other ways (giving them smartphones at young ages, expecting them not to play with toys, encouraging the hideous "skincare" trend among little girls, etc.). And yet this one thing takes on an outsize significance for some parents.

When I was a child I don't think other children (or parents) took Santa quite so seriously.