To not punish my daughter for answering honestly/telling the truth (Father Christmas related)

[iProcrastinate]

To cut a long story short! My DD(7.5) hasn't believed in Father Christmas for a couple of years, we never made a big deal about this and I just let her make her own mind up. We still do a Santa letter, and leave out a mince pie with the stocking, that's tradition; and you'll struggle to find a kid who loves Christmas as much as she does! I won't bore you with why we don't make a big deal over it!

DD is under strict instructions NOT to go around telling other children that he isn't real. I don't think that she would, But she has also been taught that to lie is wrong......

So DD and her class have recently moved into Yr3 at school, so they share a play ground with the older kids. DD and a friend of hers were asked, by an older child, do they think Father Christmas is real. DD answered no. That night I got a furious message from the mother of the friend, saying that DD could have 'ruined their Christmases', but fortunately she has managed to 'repair the damage', and could I reprimand DD. I apologised but said that I would speak to her about this but not punish her. She answered honestly.

AIBU not to punish her? At what age do kids start questioning the Father Christmas thing? Surely it must be a hot topic of conversation at this age? DD can't be the only 7yr old out there who doesn't believe.

Ok. Point taken- HP is of course real :)

This isn't about truth or lies or maturity levels or bloody shoeboxes.

Personally I think it is to do with power. A child who 'knows' has power over other children who don't 'know' and they are in a unique position, probably for the first time in their lives to negatively influence the lives of other children and their families by using this power. Because they do have the upper hand here.

I see some of you didn't like my 'anecdote' and personally I couldn't give a toss about that. But I can tell you that my parents were able to have a reasonably mature conversation with me at that age where they could convey that to me. That I did have the power to influence the lives of other children by divulging or not, and that I could choose to respect that or not. To be fair, there are many things in life that I know to be absolute poppycock, but I respect people's right to have their beliefs and I don't try to diminish them in the quest for truth.

I don't agree with this 'the truth' brigade who feel that honesty is above all else. There are many times in life where honesty may be the right approach, but isn't the kind approach and may not be the best approach to deal with the circumstances in front of you.

I think that if your child is so emotionally advanced and critically aware, you can have a conversation with them about respecting other people.

Personally I think it is to do with power. A child who 'knows' has power over other children who don't 'know' and they are in a unique position, probably for the first time in their lives to negatively influence the lives of other children and their families by using this power. Because they do have the upper hand here.

I agree it's to do with knowledge conferring a minor, temporary power, but I'm not sure what the 'negatively' is doing in there - I suspect that's a distinctly adult-who-would prefer-their-child-believed -in-Santa take on the scenario. Children figure things out at different rates, the same way they learn to tell the time or swim at different rates. There are many situations in which some children have figured out things some of their peers haven't - sex is one obvious one.

I'm completely uninterested in what other people choose to tell their children about sex - as long as those children aren't the ones getting hysterical when the poor things get their periods aged nine with absolutely no idea what's going on - but honestly, I'm not going to try to make my four year old creep about in the playground keeping schtum in case some of his classmates 'believe in' the doctor's black bag/the stork/babies found in the cabbage patch or whatever, because their parents have some ideas about 'innocence'.

I think some people are constructing a largely imaginary scenario in which a gloating seven-year-old breaks a weeping six-year-old's heart with the 'Santa is your parents' revelation, rather than children just sharing information, as they do. Yes, one would hope to inculcate kindness and basic consideration, but I think it's a long way from that to 'it's your job as a parent to control my child's access to information from his peers'.

People who manage to keep up the Santa charade until age 10 will easily manage to "repair the damage" as the mum OP wrote about did.

These are people who manage to convince a kid that reindeer fly, that they are Santa-worthier than Muslim or poor kids, that a 20 stone bloke whizzes through a chimney or a radiator. They can surely explain my kid's disbelief away??

Taking sex as an example, while it may be wholly appropriate for you to discuss sex with your child in a frank and honest matter, it is wholly inappropriate for them to bring those conversations to the school yard and indeed if it were something that a child was discussing in the school yard in an inappropriate way, the parents and the child would be hauled in to have a frank and honest discussion about it being inappropriate in the school yard.

There seems to be an erosion of allowing children to be children and to enjoy childhood in an age appropriate manner. Too many parents try to treat their children as little adults and expose them to things that they are simply too young to process, often in the pursuit of this 'truth' and you then have these children trying to sort it out in their little heads and asking their friends about it because it is too confusing for them to make sense of. Then you have upset parents, who have to deal with the outcome of their own children trying to make sense of what they have heard from their friend and the parents of the little friends with their beak out banging on about 'truth' and critical thinking skills and congratulating themselves on being so open with their children when really it just creates a shitstorm for others to clean up.

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, if you don 't tell your kids a deliberate pack of lies in the first place then you won't have to deal with them being gutted when they discover the truth!

What nonsense! That other mum needs to get a grip and wake up to the real world. I'd be having a firm word with her about telling me to reprimand my own child. You and your child have done nothing wrong.

You're not, seriously, comparing a child telling another child they don't believe in Father Christmas with. Child telling another child about blow jobs.....

You can say that about anything. Be nice to people and they will be nice to you - total crock of shit. We have certain constructs in society that we adhere to - Christmas for a large number of people in Western society is one of those things. If you don't buy into, I have no problem with that, but don't fuck it up for me and my family just because you think your 6 year old is advanced. Luckily, I live in an area where we don't come across those types too regularly.

I am, yeah. And to be fair, both conversations often come around the same age.

touch
'Precocious little shit'
Totally out of order

I think it's just a play ground thing. It's just one of them things. Blaming kids is wrong.

It's telling that you leap to blowjobs as an equivalent. Surely a more accurate comparison is one child telling another that babies don't come in the doctor's bag, that daddy has a special seed he puts in the mummy's vagina etc etc? Hardly controversial, and, rather like Santa Claus, unlikely to raise children's eyebrows much as some kind of thunderous revelation, if they've always been vaguely aware of basic reproductive biology, or the fact that some people don't believe in Santa.

Precocity or snide accusations of thinking your child is 'advanced' have little to do with it, and I certainly don't expect the several children in DS's reception class who don't do FC for cultural/religious reasons to police themselves, or their parents to take responsibility for training them not to tell their classmates about FC.

If you tell deliberate lies to your children you can't be upset when they find out the truth - it's inevitable! My children do believe in Santa, but it's not the be all and end all. My almost 4 year old is already starting to see the potential holes in it - my dad told him he would "phone santa" when he was misbehaving for him a couple of days ago (which I appreciate is a side issue, because gifts should be unconditional). Yesterday, I was sorting something out in the kitchen and he started talking to me from the next room, and when I didn't immediately respond, he came and picked up the house phone and phoned santa on me! "hello Santa, it's Ben. My mummy isn't listening to me, so you need to make sure she behaves. Ok see you soon, bye.". If he thought santa was really, genuinely, truly, a real person, would he have done that?

Meant to add - If other children are raised to not believe in santa, the burden of other parents lies do not fall on them. They're children, just as much as the others.

T'wasnt me who said blowjobs. Anyway, I'll check out on that. I've said my piece and I won't see eye to eye with the 'telling deliberate lies to your children' brigade and I'm sure they won't see eye to eye with me.

"t's telling that you leap to blowjobs as an equivalent. Surely a more accurate comparison is one child telling another that babies don't come in the doctor's bag, that daddy has a special seed he puts in the mummy's vagina etc etc? "

Sorry? I thought you must have meant something like that. Surely nobody thinks 7 year olds should think that babies come in doctors bags? Obviously I though you must something more.........esoteric?

I suspect that there is a difference between children who have grown out of believing and those that never believed. I can understand the idea that a child that has 'figured it out' might feel they had got one up on a 'still believer', perhaps thinking they are smarter, or the other child more childish, but for my children Santa has never been a thing. If it wasn't for all the adults pushing Santa at them it would just be one of those things that other families do, no big deal and so nothing to really discuss in the playground or anywhere else.

My conclusion from this thread is that some parents teach the Santa thing entirely for their own benefit and not for their kids'.

Can those of you who always tell their children the truth honestly say they ALWAYS do? So you've never said how wonderful their picture of a scribble is or how of course you'd love to play make believe with them or are really interested in a dinosaur fact for the 100th time etc? Do you preach honesty is so important that to tell a white lie occasionally to spare another is not sometimes kinder or are they all going about telling other kids their pictures are crap or actually no they don't like their haircut/shoes/top? I am actually very honest with my kids 90% of the time because my son particularly responds better that way but just occasionally it's ok to not be completely truthful, something we learn as adults (the film 'the invention of lying' comes to mind). My kids get excited by the prospect of Santa and yes, I also enjoy playing along with it. It's not harmful or deceitful, it is just a bit of fun intended to add to the magic of this time of year. When my kids discover the truth it won't ruin Christmas for us but I do think a bit of the magic goes, maybe you don't and that's fine but so is us living our fantasy world for a couple of months a year

If course how each person chooses to bring their child up is entirely up to them and I don't think for one minute that I am better because of the way I do it. I just think it is sad that mn seems always to be full of people who think 'why should I bother to make/keep you happy, it's not my responsibility' no it's not but the world would be a better place if we could consider others feelings more regardless of whether or not we agree. I can't see how simply saying to your child, you don't have to pretend you believe but it would be nice to not go out of your way to spoil it for someone who does, is paramount to teaching them to always tell the truth.

Like I said, I'm just glad the people I know are more thoughtful of others

Not about absolute truth for us - just didn't want to force the kids to believe anything (as with religion) and figured they'd believe it if they wanted to (neither has but they like bits of the story).

"Some people believe....." is a regular sentence in our house. As is "be kind". ;)

my DD never believed in God, let alone Jesus

OT but as a non-religious person myself, I have to point out that no serious historian doubts that Jesus , existed.It is around the subject of whether he was the Messiah and the son of god that there is debate

Re children talking about sex at school - many parent would be horrified if they knew what six and seven year olds learn in the playground!

I don't agree with this 'the truth' brigade who feel that honesty is above all else. There are many times in life where honesty may be the right approach, but isn't the kind approach and may not be the best approach to deal with the circumstances in front of you.

I have also told DD that. that you probably ought not tell all the other kids that there is no Santa. This is advice, however, is to protect my DD from bullies who think the whole world should revolve around their myths. I've told her many times, she shouldn't lie if asked what she thinks. If you don't want the truthful answer from someone, don't bloody ask the question.

We have certain constructs in society that we adhere to - Christmas for a large number of people in Western society is one of those things. If you don't buy into, I have no problem with that, but don't fuck it up for me and my family just because you think your 6 year old is advanced.

I couldn't care less about "constructs" (convenient vague word). There is absolutely no construct here that people get to hush other people's children. I already have to deal with Christmas and Christianity in schools well over my tolerance, and I am certainly not going to let people's myths govern my interactions with my children. if you don't want your children to know about Santa, train your kids not to ask other kids what they think about Santa. That's your job, not mine.

I think some people are constructing a largely imaginary scenario in which a gloating seven-year-old breaks a weeping six-year-old's heart with the 'Santa is your parents' revelation, rather than children just sharing information, as they do. Yes, one would hope to inculcate kindness and basic consideration, but I think it's a long way from that to 'it's your job as a parent to control my child's access to information from his peers'.

well said, but I think it is too charitable to anti-truth crowd.

I grew up in a religious family, and DP did not. She would go to people houses and when asked, usually indirectly, what she thought about god, it would inevitably turn into a global controversy with phone calls home. I don't see any value in self censoring. yes, you shouldn't be a gloaty asshole about things and express yourself politely, but you should be able to speak about your thoughts honestly.