To ask you to rethink telling your children they're being watched 24/7 by Santa's spies?

[Algor1thm]

If the elves come to your house just to mess around and have a laugh with no reporting back on behaviour to Santa, I'm not talking to you.

If you've got Elf CCTV cameras or are sending little notes from Santa with spying updates, I am.

It's just awful. Imagine if you genuinely believed your boss was spying on you 24/7 in your own home for a month every year and was going to deduct your pay if you behaved in an age-appropriate way.

They are not being spied on though Santa and his Santa cam,s don't actually exist .

Did you read my actual post?

Yes but the children don't know that...

The elf thing is so weird creepy as fuck

Ah, lighten up. Mine is a teen so we're past that but it's just fun.

It's not it's damaging

I realise they won't be banned but I wish they were.

Oh so parents are just gaslighting them then?

I used to be careful wording Santa and all that bollocks.

Ahh, but then you see these parents don’t actually have to try and healthily parent their chikd(ren). They can just threaten and lie to achieve their goals.

Excellent message to your child(ren) 👍

We are all being watched nearly all the time. CCTV is absolutely everywhere. Ring doorbells. Facial recognition cameras. Automatic number plate readers. So is telling them Santa is watching them really so terrible? I don’t think so.

Completely agree op.

I think it's a shitty way to get your children to behave and crap parenting.

If it's just an elf for fun then that's different.

We might be watched outside but we aren’t watched inside our homes unless it’s some perv who has managed to hack into your camera.

If you’re using false threats during December what threats are you using for the rest of the year?

I care about how other people treat their children, we all should.

I couldn't agree more with you. It's controlling. And creepy. And horrid.

On that note I also HATE the concept of the naughty and nice list. Children aren't naughty. They behave as well as their current stage of brain developments allows and based on whether their needs are met at that time eg food, love, attention, warmth etc.

I agree @Algor1thm
I think the Elf is a fun idea, and I know I would have done it.
Bit being spied on?
Taking it a step too far.

From my sample of one (me) I was told this (even the SONGS told me he was seeing me when I was sleeping or awake) and I turned out fine.

if this freaks you out, wait til you hear about children being told about God.

We don't do it, but I've no problem with those that do. I'm finding the judgement on here for how different people do Christmas differently really irritating this year. In our house we do stocking and a main present from Father Christmas and nothing from us. This has been the family tradition for years, but this year there has been a lot of nastiness and judgement around what you should and shouldn't do. Maybe we should let people enjoy the Christmas magic with their children however they want to.

Nah, that’s creepy. I just changed my mum’s number to Santa in my phone and convinced them I had him on speed dial.

There’s no harm in what you’re doing though, so no idea why you would feel any judgement on that.

There is harm with threatening your children and relinquishing parental responsibility to a made up figure as a way to avoid actually parenting your children.

There is no magic in telling children they’re being spied on, calling them naughty or saying Father Christmas might not come if they do X, Y or Z. That’s manipulation.

I guess parents know their own child best - what they'll find funny or exciting, what they'll enjoy, what might stress or scare them. I try to avoid telling parents how they should parent.

So true! 😂

It makes me laugh to see what people do with the elf but I am really glad my DD has got to an age where we have swerved this!
She used to get very upset about how Santa was able to get into the house and how did he know how good people had been (child was chronic overthinker!!) If we had a surveillance elf it might have finished her off.

You want to ban Elf on the Shelf/Santa? Like, actually make it illegal?

I enjoyed being able to bribe them to behave. I looked forward to 3-4 weeks of them listening to SOME of what I say.