Aibu to think if you need an Elf on the shelf to encourage your children to behave then you have lost all parental control

[ChoccieEClaire]

I hate the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon which seems to get bigger every year.
December can be such a stressful time of the year already so why would you add additional pressure onto yourself?
If you need an Elf to 'watch' over your children to encourage them to behave then I think you have lost all control as a parent. What do you do to get them to behave the other 11 months of the year?!
My Facebook is full of this Elf doing stupid things, which let's face it, is for the parents to gloat on social media instead of actually being for the benefit of their children. I know people that have done this for their babies?! Why?!
I have deleted everyone that shares this on Facebook but it's everywhere.
My DD never had this and she still enjoys Christmas perfectly fine.

The Elf is not used as a behaviour management tool here,he doesn't watch or report back. It's just for fun and DD is also allowed to play with it and touch it.

Most days he just changes locations, sometimes (at the weekend) actually "does" something .

Ive never had one - dd is too old and it didn't seem to be around when she was. Though as a teenager she was quite tempted with the Stitch version she saw last month.

One or two of my friends with younger children have them - not seen pictures on FB though, so they don't use the for social media gloating. They don't use them as a punishment/reward system either. It's just a little bit of fun in December.

Either have one or not. Can't really see the harm in a little bit of festive fun with the children though.