to think that a child who believes in Santa beyond 6/7ish is either...

[santaslayer]

a bit naive or a bit dim?

I'm neither a troll nor 2bubs4me so no hunting.

I dont remember ever believing in Santa, and I remember quite a lot from my pre-school years. I knew the size of the Earth, the number of people and the impossibility of the logistics of 'Santa'. I also knew better than to beleive everything my parents said .

My DS is basically the same. I understand that 3yo's believe - it's cute, but I think it's a bit creepy when 8+yo's still do.

But I would never actually criticise a parent for having such deluded sheltered DCs.

"lilo- I never told my DS (8) that Santa doesn't exist" - not sure I ever said that you did????

have just deleted the rest of my response, not worth it as it won't be read, understood or even considered.

Nothing like slagging off people's kids to get a good reaction, eh?

It's lovely when children believe in the magic my daughter at 10 told dad that she knew santa wasn't real but told dad never to tell me because i did believe i found this wonderful.

I learnt FC wasn't real aged 7/8 when my GM let it slip.
I wasn't at all upset that I had been lied to by my parents, more upset that my Mother was cross with GM.
My elder DD's are grown up and stopped believing aged about 10, neither of them have ever said it was the wrong thing to do. (keeping the lie of FC alive in our home)
With my 2 yo DS I will do the same for him and keep the traditions and magic alive in my home.
Theres plenty of time when he's older for the realities of life to be told, and hopefully giving him a few years of magical memories to cherish is worth the odd white lie.
Oh and he's too young yet to tell if he is dim or naive

Well my daughter isn't dim! At 7, if she is naive, the good! That is how she should be at 7!

She is starting to question it tho & I thought at one point she was going to bust the myth. But she hasn't, not yet.

But wow...a naive 7 yr old..is that really SO wrong?

Many parents believe there's a man in the sky who created the Universe in 6 days, is omnipotent and omniscient, gets angry when people have sex for fun, hates homosexuals, wants people to pray to Him, and had a son that He sent down to the Earth to be sacrificed for our sins. Said son performed miracles, was crucified, was resurrected three days later and will come back at some point to save us all. Oh, and he was born of a virgin.

And they call 7-year-olds who believe in Santa "naive"?

OP have a .
Another numpty sans imagination.... Yaaaawn.

I haven't read the entire thread but I do think that by 7 a child should really know, deep down, that it's all just a nice magical story.

I can still remember my friend's sibling believing at 10 and we weren't allowed to tell her the truth. I always found it very weird.

What a thoroughly miserable thread! How cynical and judgemental of you. Maybe you should put more effort into concentrating on why you need to bring other people down rather than criticising the way their develop. I'm glad you're not my parent. Merry Christmas!

I believed until I was 10. Not dim. Definitely naive though. I have absolutely no regrets about believing until that age, I have wonderful Christmas memories as a result of it.
I don't know what Ds2 (5) thinks of Father Christmas. Ds1 (7) believes in Father Christmas as he does the postman, someone he thinks is definitely there, definitely does a job, but not someone to get overawed or excited about. To Ds1 it makes perfect sense that Father Christmas would fly through the sky on a magic sleigh in one night.

This threads a bit long but thought i'd input anyway.

My 9yr old Dss still believes in Father Christmas. I thought it was a bit strange at first, don't know many 9yr olds who do but I love it.

The way he talks about it and enjoys talking about it is just so..... Well.... Magical.

It's what makes Christmas in our household and I hope he believes for a little while longer yet, at least long enough for my toddler to understand and join in the magic of it all.

Calling children who believe in father Christmas dim and niave is rude to say the least.

That's a particularly unkind comment to make about a young child OP. My two are 2 and 5 so of course believe but if they still believed at 6 or 7 they would neither be dim or naive. Just young and innocent.

santa doesn't exist

my daughter has just turned 11 & still believes.
It's childhood & magical.
I would not take that away from her.
She is neither dim or naive.

Nice.

He he. I had an amusing moment with a class of 12 yr olds where half the class realised that the other half still believed in FC and were sort of looking to me for permission to tell them. Of course I told the class firmly that he did exist and that was the end of the matter.

A "friend" told me that he would never tell his kids that FC existed because its wrong to lie to children and he was a right twat. Case closed.

'Whatever you do, don't let Mum and Dad know you don't believe in Father Christmas or they might stop filling our stockings to convince us he's real.'

Wonder how many of the 'my 11 year old still believes' are not naive or dim but just better actors than you give them credit for?

UTGSN

What a pathetic attention seeking thread.

I don't consider pepetuating the Father Christmas fantasy as 'lying' any more than reading them a story is lying, or taking them to the theatre is lying. Imaginary isn't the same as false. A child without imagination is barely a child at all. (SNs aside, of course).

I believed until I was about 11 or 12, even though it didn't really add up for many years before that. But I believed, and that was enough.

NORAD believes...see norad's counntdown to Santa

So and and a crappy new year to you, you destroyer of innocence, you worm within the bud.

I find adults who want their child to have no joy a bit crappy.

I haven't read the whole thread but I also find your attitude shitty to say the least. My DS is 9 and still believes. So What? Children are children for such a short time - he has the rest of his life to be an adult. Why would you want to wish his childhood away? And to use the word creepy about a child - words fail me - I think it actually shows a lot about the sort of joyless person you probably are

PO - you think it's a bit creepy if little children believe in magic.

I think it's really rather creepy that you feel that way.

The longer they believe the better I think, once they realise, Christmas is not the same
My DS 7years believes, he has a few problems, dyspraxia - which is a motor learning difficulty that can affect planning of movements and co-ordination as a result of brain messages not being accurately transmitted to the body, he isnt dim however, little bit naive though.

An older child called my son childish the other day, hmphh, he replied,thats because I AM A CHILD.

"I knew the size of the Earth, the number of people and the impossibility of the logistics of 'Santa'."

There are no "logistics of Santa"

Answers to questions about Santa should always be vague and prefaced with "well nobody really knows".

So - "how does Santa get down the chimney"?

Well we're not sure that he does, nobody is sure how he gets into the house. The chimney thing is just a guess. Maybe we should put a key in the front door so it's easy for him to get into our house?

"Is Santa a man or a lady" (DD1 aged 2)

We don't know whether Santa is a man or a woman (take note toddler, the word is woman, not lady) because nobody has ever seen him. But people like to make guesses about what kind of person Santa is, so some people say he is a man with a white beard who wears red clothes.

etc. etc.

I think children who stop believing in Santa at an early age is a sign of dim parents, not of dim children.