AIBU to think that this mum was wrong?

[HappyJoyful]

My friend and I have very different parenting styles (she's all about child-led/attachment parenting and I certainly don't take this stance!).. especially when she announces today that she wont be 'doing the whole Father Christmas thing' as she doesn't think she should make up these things and in-effect 'lie' to her DD. I suggested well some lies aren't 'bad' lies and surely she should indulge the child in this long standing tradition...

It is perfectly OK for a religious teacher to say 'I believe there is a God' or 'Christian's believe there is a God' in the same way that a parent should say 'I believe there is a God' or I don't beleive there is a God. It can't be proved either way and the DC will make up their own mind when older.In reply to Catherine.)
I say to DCs ''I believe in FC' because it is the truth-I firmly believe that every DC needs magic in their lives.
When they are old enough to ask me outright I tell them the truth-if I can tell they are ready. If they ask about the truth about God I tell them there is no 'truth' it is faith and it is entirely up to them to decide for themselves.

I remember my brother telling the little lad next door that Father Christmas wasn't real, the poor mite was devastated. He was probably around six at the time. The families were close and the parents upset their son was upset.

So my good old Dad (RIP) dressed up as Santa and called on the phone to see if he could see him then did the whole ho ho ho bit at the door. The lad never twigged it was Dad and was happy again.

So I'm on the fence here really, when they find out you've been fibbing, what would the kids make of it, when they're told the secret about Father Christmas it can upset them, but then it's harmless fun really.

Christmas can be magical without believing in FC.

The girl next door told me when I was 6 yrs. I didn't believe her so I stayed awake (pretending to be asleep) to find out. It never crossed my mind that I was lied to-I knew that it was done to give me magical times. Nothing can take away the excitement that FC was on my roof with his reindeers. I kept it all up for my younger siblings.

Perhaps if you have a poor relationship with your parents you see it as a lie. If you have a close, loving one, you see it for what it is-fun fantasy.

I don''t think that is really fair exotic, for my son, he was terrified of Santa, terrified of a stranger coming into his bedroom, after having consumed sherry in every house, I mean he's a drunk :) Then he wants to drop in to your bedroom but only if you're asleep. Well it's not right is it?

In all seriousness though my son is autistic so is very literal, so for him having a close relationship means making decisions about Santa that fits with your values and your children's needs.

I don't think there is any right or wrong to be fair.

If you have SN then it is different entirely ,and an autistic DC will have problems.
I just can't see why a DC would even think that it was a lie in a horrible sense-it was a lovely 'lie' if that is what you want to call it.

sit I was like that too. The whole thing seemed bizarre to me - it still does

What I'm really not sure about is why some people seem to think that being honest about FC somehow kills the magic?

I grew up in Switzerland, where the tradition is a little different from here (Santa comes on 6th December). Every year like clockwork, Santa would come to our house. I knew in my mind that there was no Santa - and yet I used to be so excited and, yes, a little afraid.

My parents made the wise choice of recruiting a Santa whom we didn't actually get to meet in real life. We never recognized the man, a friend of my mother's, and to this day he is the "real" Santa to me. All those blokes in Santa suits are imposters. (And FWIW, you can recognize real Santa by the fact that he wears a 70s Credit Suisse beanie hat, not the red crap!")

Unfortunately my Santa story has a very sad ending: From when I was about eight, my parents replaced real Santa with imposter Santas; he never came anymore. It was only years later that I found out the truth: Santa had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with an army assault rifle! His real name was Walt and he left a wife and two small children. To this very day I still think about him and above all his poor family. People tend to laugh when I say Santa offed himself - I don't actually find this funny at all!

In spite of the pretty horrific ending of my Santa story, what I actually mean to say was this: I never "believed" in Santa. And yet he was real to me. My excitement, the feeling of being a little afraid and yet impatient, that was real. There was no lack of Santa magic in my life when I was small. The magic broke because Santa died, not because he'd never been alive in the first place.

IMHO as child and adolescent psychotherapist I have never met a child who was damaged by believing in Father Christmas but a great many with a poverty of imagination to escape into. Magical thinking is the foremost defence mechanism of young children and Santa provides an ideal non threatening template that all kinds of things can be built on, let them believe while they can..........

Oh blimey notadude I feel I need therapy after reading your post - how awful!!!

I agree dotingranny, and I wish that I could find an article that I read about the importance of fantasy in child development.

Well, TBH it is one of those pretty scarring things for me to this day. When a teen I vowed that, should I ever need to get a Santa for my own children, it would have to be one of these rent-a-Clause ones. No way I'm risking a trail of dead Father Christmases that runs through my life like a thread.

But, FWIW: real Santa was the best Santa any child could have wished for! I love him to this very day and I wish I could have known him.

DD believes absolutely in the Tooth Fairy, Santa, fairies in general and a magical land that only she visits called "myland" where sweets are not bad for you and no-one ever has to go to sleep.

She has such an amazing inner life I'd never let on these things are not real, she thinks the motes of dust in sunlight are truly fairies and that you get a wish if you catch a falling leaf.

Last year we went to Lapland and she met Santa, and he had the letter she had written to him in his hand...the look of awe and wonder on her face was fabulous. I do envy young children the ability to have that sense of wonder, it's a true gift of childhood.
There are children at DD's school who say "Father Christmas isn't real" and DD replies "yes he is, because I've met him!"

As TS Eliot said "man cannot take too much reality".

from Parenting Institute

"Fantasy Play

Children learn to abstract, to try out new roles and possible situations, and to experiment with language and emotions with fantasy play. In addition, children develop flexible thinking; learn to create beyond the here and now; stretch their imaginations, use new words and word combinations in a risk-free environment, and use numbers and words to express ideas, concepts, dreams, and histories. In an ever-more technological society, lots of practice with all forms of abstraction ? time, place, amount, symbols, words, and ideas ? is essential."

Father Christmas is merely a small part of what should be every child's entitlement to a rich, meaningful and ever expanding fantasy life. After all non of us adults can have a sex life without a similarly rich and fulfilling fantasy life.

I had the same childhood experience as NotADude (barring the tragic ending ); in Sweden, too, Santa comes to your house and you don't seem to get the same tension between belief and disappointment at finding out; I've never heard of a Swedish child who was disillusioned by recognising the man behind the beard. If anything that makes it more fun because you have to keep playing.

I have never known a British child (in RL) who was disillusioned by recognising the man behind the beard.

So bird when Ds makes me a meal or a drink at his toy kitchen and I pretend to drink it by your logic means its not fantasy play because I am making him think it's true food is there?

It's something fun, like exotic I have never met anyone who is mentally scarred by it - if people where the idea would have died out long ago because people wouldn't do the same to their children!

If you stick to the truth you tell him that you can't see a meal and a drink and you can only play if it is real.

DCs are so much better at it than some adults.

Next time I will send him into the kitchen and make him cook me real food instead then so I can play with him!

I think the vast majority of you Santaphiliacs are massively contradicting yourselves tbh. If make-believe/pretend/fantasy is such an integral part of childhood (which I don't deny it is) then why do children need to actual believe in the genuine existence of F.C. for it to be of benefit?

Answer being: they don't.

If I'd spoken to any of my female friends I'd think that I knew you.

Santa is guff, a reverse burglar who encourages crass consumerism.
Attachment parenting is based on sound psychological and physiological evidence that it benefits the well being of children.

She can back up her stance on AP, can you back up yours on santa?

My mum and dad never made a big deal out of FC, I mean my mum would joke about it but we knew from a young age that he wasn't real. We still loved all the books and films with FC in. For us, we went to a CofE school so we had lots of religious build up with the nativity, RE lessons and a Christingle service.

So even though I'm not massively religious now, Christmas is about the birth of Christ, not FC. I feel the whole Santa/FC tradition is a bit daft, nice for kids to have fun with but some adults take it too far that it distracts from the real meaning of Christmas.

TBH, I don't really get why people with strong atheist views celebrate Christmas? Is that where FC comes in? Got to believe in something I suppose.