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

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I’m amazed all these kids aren’t going to a school with at least some kids who don’t celebrate Christmas? Is there no child in the class that says, “Yeah, Santa isn’t real, it’s your parents?” A Jewish kid in my class said that in Year 1 😂.

Yes, because no Christian ever does any of those things 🙄.

Wind your neck in figs, whats all this being angry on behalf of other people all about???

Her brother knew long before, I assumed that she had an idea, esp with her parents going Christmas shopping and the fact that me and granddad turn up with a boot full of pressies that go under the tree with ALL their pressies

I dont know why Im explaining ( probably cos Id hate you to be spending the night outraged ) but I did tell the parents when I dropped her home and apologised. Dad was very much " she knows. shes just pulling your leg" mum was "she had an idea and its time it was confirmed "

The child is 11, not a 5 year old, she has her periods, she has boobs, shes taller and more advanced then a lot of her school friends, Shes going to have enough to cope with without coming out with she believes in Santa

Im so glad Im not part of your family tbh if you are spitting your dummy over someone else's choice

The parents were fine dad said she did know but was still milking it

Wind your neck in figs, whats all this being angry on behalf of other people all about??

Because this is Mumsnet, where people will jump on any excuse to go "no contact" with their families (preferably in-laws) and love nothing better than nursing hurt feelings and stoking faux outrage.

At least you haven't been called "toxic" yet or accused of being a narcissist😂

Gosh my son figured out at age 8 - noticed all the toys in Tesco were the same as what he gig and at first asked if Santa shopped there, then had a think and asked me if I was Santa! Well yes, my son, yes I am!
My DD asked me a year or so later and tells me now she was crushed when I confirmed it.

I said if you were MY family I’d be angry at you.

if your family don’t think you are a dickhead, it’s all worked out well then.

I still think you sound like a bellend.

I was one of the oldest in my year when I started Year 7, so I was 12. I still quietly believed in Father Christmas. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don't know when I stopped believing, no one told me anything, but by the next Christmas I didn't believe anymore.

I was 11 when I stopped believing, I had heard other people say FC didn't exist and chose not to believe them. My parents to this day will not admit FC doesn't exist.

I was also being taught about God so FC didn't seem that far fetched in comparison?!

My DD asked me one Christmas Eve; I think she was 8. That clearly wasn’t the time to tell so I didn’t. She then asked the following August in a ‘I just want the truth’ way (I wanted to do ‘A Few Good Men’ ‘you can’t handle the truth!’ but I was driving around a roundabout at the time). I figured if she was asking in August she had time to be devastated and get over it so I answered her. She said ‘so you buy all the presents?’ I said yes and got a nod of what felt like respect!
I remember I found out when I was 12 from my best friends younger brother. I was mortified and went home and did the whole ‘my life is a lie’ pre-teen strop…..

Yes, I know.

Well, the problem is that some kids aren't good at reading between the lines of social situations and need to be told this kind of stuff very specifically.

The OP is right, parents absolutely have a responsibility to make sure their kids know before the end of primary school at the latest (I'm actually pretty astonished there are kids who make it past about 8 without either figuring it out or being told, to be honest). Because a) we can't control the fact that some kids will bully because we live in a world where some people are shit b) even if kids aren't "bullied" as such, they are still going to feel pretty humiliated in front of their peers and who wants that for their child?

A friend who works as a primary teacher says at about 7 the kids all have a discussion as to whether he does or does not exist.

Then it isn't really talked about so the kids that still believe at 7 continue to believe.

I think it's different if you find out when you're on the cusp of puberty, and you'd wonder why your parents have been so invested in keeping you child-like. It's also different if your peers have found out you still believe and it dawns on you that they have known something you didn't for four or five years. You might think back over all the stupid things you'd said about Santa Claus over all those years and wonder if they had all laughed at you behind your back.

When I was a child, the whole class knew around age 6/7. Many of my classmates had older siblings. I had to tell one of my DDs when she was ten. She was gobsmacked. I told the other DCs around age 7, and I don't know how that particular DD had fallen through the cracks. She was generally away with the fairies, in all fairness to me, and it's possible I had told her before, but it had gone in one ear and out the other.

That's not what she said or implied, and your post was an unpleasant and unnecessary dig .

I agree too.

It's not putting the child first.

Whilst I told mine before secondary there are children with SEN who believe for longer. Your anger is misplaced here. Bullying is never acceptable.

I was brought up with this version of Father Christmas. He was a delivery service only. It’s what my kids believed.

This thread is not about children with SEN though
And I agree bullying has never acceptable but it doesn't stop it happening

Yeah I always knew that my parents bought and wrapped the presents. There were always lots of retail adverts at that time of year which you wouldn't need if Santa and the Elves literally did anything. The practicalities of shipping a large amount of presents to Lapland only for them to be sent straight back later didn't occur to me at that age.