In think that most children don't stop believing in Father Christmas at 5 years old?

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On Mumsnet, there seems to be a large contingent of posters who claim that children over the age of 5 don't believe in Santa and if they do believe then they shouldn't. I have never met a 5 year old who didn't wholeheartedly believe in Santa, elves, everything. I think peak believing years are actually age 4 to 8. It's actually sad because if a child doesn't believe in Santa at 5 then they never really have. I wasn't a particularly naive child but I was 10 when I worked it out. My ds was around 9 I think. To me believing up to age 10 or so is entirely the norm -vor am in the minority in thinking that ?

I did the whole Santa thing when they were little but actually, if I could go back, I might not bother as it's bullshit.

It depends how good you are at acting and coming up with plausible lies. And what their friends parents are like too. It's like religon if you are surrounded by people that tell you something is true belivably enough then you will believe until you wise up

Depends on the child. My logical ds questioned how it all worked every year and wasn’t particularly content with the response ‘magic’. He did believe but I think by the time he was 9 he knew and now he’s 10 he definitely knows as he’s told me so. Imaginative dd7 though will probably believe forever at this rate 😂 she hasn’t questioned a thing and believes in it so much. It’s lovely. I would be telling her before high school though if she did still believe at 11

Dd is 10 and she doesn't believe, only because an older child on the street told her he wasn't real. Dd asked me if he was real but said she wanted me to tell the truth, so i did tell her. She was about 8 at the time.

This year she has said most people in her class believe in santa and the elf on the shelf and she wishes she had believed for longer.

we had an email from school last week about how teachers will say santa is real if asked by children and to please not spoil the magic for them, and ask older siblings to not spoil it.

You tend to stop believing at 5 if you have a brother 3 years older than you...!

My 9 year old has managed to keep it a secret from her younger brother and sister!

My 10 yr old still believes! She’s 11 soon.

There are so many Santa experiences now, meet Santa here, there and everywhere. Meet Santa at the shopping centre, farm park covered in fake snow, breakfast with Santa in the local pub.... the list goes on. I think you risk your kid not believing sooner if you go to everything going. He's far more real when he's in the North Pole. I would say the more interesting kids definitely believe in Santa for longer and I mean that in a good way. It's not just their innocence but the ability to believe in magic and a world far more interesting than the one we inhabit.

It helps if you have set realistic expectations.

In our house, santa fills your stocking with fun, small, inexpensive things. A train whistle, top trumps cards, a pot of playdo, a book, a box of crayons, sweets, nuts, raisins & an orange, pants and socks.

Your family might buy other things but in our house you don't ask father Christmas to deliver huge expensive stuff. You tell him you have been good and ask that he fill the stocking.

Ps agreed that "meet santa" things totally wreck it. We don't do any. Father Christmas is insanely busy in December, he's not spending 3 weeks at every farm park in Leicestershire!

Tbh, I'm not quite sure why you'd find an 11 year old believing in something that they are consistently presented with 'evidence' of so unbelievable when we live in a world where the majority of grown adults believe in a deity of some kind, despite a complete absence of evidence.

I suppose because the 'evidence' is flimsy at best and a basic understanding of science renders it unbelievable. But then it also completely baffles me how grown adults can believe in any sort of religion so I guess me and my children are rubbish at 'believing' in things.

Tbh, I'm not quite sure why you'd find an 11 year old believing in something that they are consistently presented with 'evidence' of so unbelievable when we live in a world where the majority of grown adults believe in a deity of some kind, despite a complete absence of evidence

Exactly this. There are grown adults who believe in horoscopes, homeopathy, ghosts, God, the healing power of crystals… yet people say that actual children who believe in Father Christmas lack critical thinking skills.

But that’s not the real Santa. Those are just people dressed up who help out in December.

Yep, absolutely my experience, girls both sussed it out at about 6/7 but my son doesn't seem to know at 8, though I'm fully expecting this to be his last year of believing!

I ‘knew’ aged six, but convinced myself I didn’t. I finally let myself know aged nine.

My daughter asked outright at seven and I wouldn’t lie.

I think the age has probably risen a bit over the last 50 years. Parents didn’t fetishize (in a non-sexual sense!) belief in Santa 40 odd years ago the way it sometimes seems to be now and older brothers and sisters were more common so there was more passing down of the truth, which would then get disseminated in the playground. I’m in my 50s and I don’t recall anyone believing at age 9 and only a couple at 8.

I think most 5 and 6 year olds still believe (and I haven’t had the sense on MN that most posters think 5 year olds don’t), but by 8 you’re probably still looking at the more trusting kids with smaller or less age diverse social circles.

@NumberTheory, I couldn’t agree more. I can remember l was in the bath just after Christmas and my eighth birthday and working out that it would be impossible for Father Christmas to go to every house in the world in one night so it must be my parents that bought the presents. I went downstairs and informed my parents of my findings. Far from being horrified and wanting to “prolong the magic,” they told me l was correct and to keep the secret from my younger brother and sister. I loved the idea of colluding with the adults. When my own children expressed their doubts, I asked them what they thought and they said that they realised that he was not real. My son was eight, my daughter was seven. I honestly think that between the ages of four and seven is peak believing time and that vanishingly few children truly believe in Father Christmas after the age of eight. Christmas is still fun and magical but the magic does not depend on the belief in an old man in a red suit. As a practicing Christian, the Nativity is at the heart and the true meaning of Christmas.

I never believed in Father Christmas though my mother tried to convince me :). However she also tried to convince me of other things that were not true and I could always see through her.

Christmas was fun and had a certain magic without belief in man in a red (or green), suit delivering presents all over the world. It's OK to pretend, build a fantasy like stories in a book, even act them out, but to make such a big thing out of FC being real is too ridiculous. It has always struck me that parents, especially mothers, enjoy all that so much that they want it to continue; so disappointed when it ends that children often go along with it when they are past believing.

Mine was never taught about Santa except as a traditional charming story that spawned pictures of pretty scenes, fiction, plays and films. Christmas was great!