To think trying to persuade children to believe in Santa is wrong?

[antelopevalley]

Most children reach the age where they begin to question the existence of Father Christmas. I think it is fine when children ask if he is real to say, what do you think? But I see some parents going to elaborate lengths to persuade questioning children to keep believing.

I think there comes a point where this switches from a nice story to have magic in your children's life, to lying to your children so that as a parént you can enjoy them believing.

I get in terms of things we all do wrong this is fairly minor, but I do think it is better if children are told the truth by parents about Santa when they ask a direct question.

My son is 9 and still really believes hasn't questioned it once , I'm pretty sure this is his last year thou. We have been going to a garden centre for years to meet Santa and he is absolutely brilliant spends 15 minutes with each child and this year he isn't there so had to find another which I felt quite sad about as obviously not many spend 15 minutes with each child .

@antelopevalley, yes, but my dd would have said it was me and dh - while really hoping for me to deny it!

I should have said, ‘Well, if you don’t believe in Father Christmas, he probably won’t come.’

(He did still come long after dds were grown up anyway - if they were sleeping here on Christmas Eve. Oddly enough he never seemed to be able to find them otherwise. 🎅🏻🎄)

It's such a non-issue.
no older child is going to be persuaded into believing in Santa- it would only really work for kids in the cusp of believing and letting them half believe the magic for an extra Christmas isn't going to harm or traumatise anyone.
no one has trust issues as a result of being told Santa is real. Maybe a few very extreme cases but generally non abusive normal parents telling their kids Santa is really is harmless.

I agree. I find the whole lying to children about Father Christmas questionable at the best of times. It’s one thing when it’s a cultural belief they’re swept up in, but quite different when children are coming to you with doubts and you are directly lying and misdirecting them. I went to a very small rural village school (the kind where those in MN would insist promote long belief in Father Christmas), but other than one classmate, everyone had stopped believing by nine. How can children see that Father Christmas acts differently in different households, not all children celebrate Christmas and therefore don’t have Christmas gifts at all, the annual fundraising and donations to ensure that all children around the country and world have Christmas gifts, as well as a growing understanding of the speed and distance involved, and aerodynamics of reindeer and not think something is amiss? The whole story is pretty preposterous when given a moment’s thought.

Despite not believing in Father Christmas from a young age, I’ve always found Christmas a wonderful and magical time of year, and stopping believing in Santa hasn’t stopped that. Other than bringing a stocking Father Christmas really wasn’t a big deal, so realising he wasn’t real also wasn’t a big deal. If you play along like Father Christmas is a game to play (and I still get a stocking if I’m at my parents’ house) and find magic and fun in real things, then I don’t think that the magic of Christmas can ruined as long as youare willing to find joy in it. It doesn’t need an imaginary man in a red coat.

I agree. I’ve always thought that this is done for parents’ entertainment, not to benefit children. There would be no harm in telling kids that Santa isn’t real but it’s a game we all play, a nice fantasy.
I hated being tricked and lied to as a child. My family did a lot of this, thought it was amusing to tell children tall stories and laugh at how gullible they are, and I thought it was really nasty. Like a PP it made me distrust my parents and think well, what else are they lying to me about? And they lied to me a lot.

They maybe asking questions not due to thier own thoughts, but others saying things. I still remember being told by a daughter of one of my mums friends who was about 4 years older than me he wasn't real at about the age of 5 - she was a really mean spirited child in all sorts of ways so this was just another thing, I think I was convinced otherwise but it sticks in my mind.

The 10yo knows, I can tell from the way her voice gets high when she talks about the big guy now. But we haven’t been asked outright and we’re keeping up the pretence for the 8yo. We have a baby that is too young yet.

I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but it seems like a small thing for any parent to tie themselves in knots over. All the kids are alive and well adjusted. I think we’ve done okay and I think you all probably have too, however you handle Father Christmas.

DD1 (now 13) believed until age 10, but she has SEN and sees the world in black and white. DD2 (now 10) OTOH first said she thought the tooth fairy was ‘pretend’ at age 4. We managed to hold off her disbelief until age 7 when she asked me straight out whether Santa was real and I told her no. She immediately told her older sister.

DD1 was fine, but she wanted us to record ourselves filling the stockings!! 🤣

Some parents just get themselves into an unnecessary pickle over this. When I was growing up, Father Christmas was only ever the delivery driver. All my presents came from named friends and relatives. I was too logical as a child to truly believe, and anyway, we didn't have a chimney. We've done the same with our kids, ie not promoted Father Christmas as the person who provides all the presents and deems how deserving you might be. But the magic of Christmas is still there. We have no presents under the tree before Christmas Day. We've always put them out after they've gone to bed, and now they're 22, 24 and 25 and go to bed later than me, the presents are put out before they get up. It's lovely to see them all there and the eager anticipation of what great things might be wrapped up. The only disappointment may be that it's possibly pants and socks and electric toothbrush heads you're about to unwrap.

Oh god people are getting so hand wringing about this. My eldest has stopped believing over the last couple of years. He didn't feel betrayed and it wasn't traumatising. He thought it was a nice thing that we did and it came to a pretty natural end. He's got a younger sister and still gets involved with the "magical" elements for her. Everyone just wants children to grow up and be tiny rational adults and quite frankly it's depressing.

Also I don't think 4 year olds have the emotional maturity that for example my son had when he was 8ish and stopped believing. It's pretty likely that they will tell all their class mates whose parents do the santa thing, whereas my son was old enough to understand he shouldn't expose the great awful lie that all the awful lying parents tell.

My DD is 11 and still 'believes'. Highly intelligent, no SEN - she has a will of steel and and is absolutely determined that we all go along with it despite all evidence to the contrary!

It's just a bit of christmas fun and magic.

Why do people have to pick every thing apart...

Stupidest thing I've read on here.

It's no more "old fashioned" than it was 50 or 100 years ago. It's not a trend!
My parents in the '70s could have said the same thing if they had wanted to look at it that way. All times we are living in are "modern times" after all, and Father Christmas has been around in one form or another for centuries. 🎅

I still won't admit it to my 21 year old dd....he still fills her stocking every year!
My 5 year old did question it about 6 months ago and basically I lied to him. 5 is too young to stop believing. In our household though, santa fills the stockings and then leaves just 2 bigger presents per child. The rest are from me. I know different households do it in different ways but as a child, santa only ever filled the empty stockings left on a hook on the bannister. I kept up this tradition but added in another 2 gifts as well so santa didn't look too mean in comparison to other children in dcs class.
I vividly remember my older sister telling me that santa wasn't real when I was 10. I was so upset as truly still believed 100% (I was a very gullible child!) I had no idea whatsoever that it was my parents filling the stockings but after that bombshell Christmas lost its magic a little for me. I think that's why I still keep up the pretence with dd...even though she obviously knows he's not real and I know that she knows he's not real etc etc.

This

My sister and I never believed in Father Christmas. I'm actually quite gullible but never bought into that one! Our parents were/ are very religious and have always been a bit disapproving of FC being the main focus of Christmas. Their approach was to say there's a tradition that children hang up a stocking and it gets filled with small presents and the tradition started with St Nicholas etc .... They never advertising said FC actually comes down the chimney and we never asked.

My husband thinks it's really sad and a shame that we didn't have the magic of believing though honestly I dont feel that I missed out. It was still absolutely thrilling to go to bed with an empty stocking and wake up with a full one! And the "magic" never wore off because it was never spoiled by the realisation that FC isn't real. On the other hand my husband recalls being devastated age 6 when his older sister told him the awful truth and felt Christmas was never quite as special after that. That seems sad and a shame to me.

With our own children I planned to do similar to my parents but somehow couldn't resist the "big sell". My son (eldest) has ASD though so he was never particularly awed by FC, just the stuff that arrived! In our house FC does stocking gifts and it's always been clear that the big gifts under the tree are from us, though I've always bunged a couple of quite small but exciting things in the stocking.

At around 7 he started to ask me "is Santa a fake?" And I'd say "I don't know. What do you think? " and he'd end up saying that he'd concluded Santa is real. We thought he was hedging his bets in case the stocking didn't get filled but he confirmed years later that at age 7-8 he wasn't quite sure but by 8-9 he'd worked it out but was happy to play along.

Our second child was born when he was 9 and it all started again. Unfortunately she was terrified of FC as a toddler so we downplayed it at first. But we had a couple of absolutely magical years ahead 4-5 where she really did believe and was beyond excited that "he has been!!!"

Age 6 less excitement. Also a lockdown year so no Santa grottoes etc. Thrilled with the stuff, not much mention of FC. Last year, age 7, took her to see FC and she couldn't have been less interested so it had definitely gone for her by then. No devastation or disappointment. She's very sharp and not much gets past her! She also declared last year that she thinks I'm the Tooth Fairy. I think lockdown allowed for an FC slow fade. We've still not acknowledged out loud that he isn't real and she seems happy to play the game.

The funny thing is that when our son was about 12 (he's 17 now) he heard us discussing youngest's stocking presents and said "Wait, what, so it's YOU?" We were a bit shocked and said oh no, did you still believe? He said no, he'd worked out a few years back that FC isn't real but he didn't think we put the presents in the stocking either and he wasn't sure who did. The reasoning was that the wrapping paper was different and he'd never seen it in the house. I explained that was part of the fiction and he looked really shocked. Not sure if he was impressed by my planning or aghast at the extent of my deception!

So what is best? I don't know. I still think it's nice and fun but probably keep it light.

I don't either. There was just some point in my life when I worked it out, but it was obviously so insignificant that I simply don't recall. My nephew is the oldest grandchild in our family, and quite a bit older than the rest of the grandchildren. My sister and I asked him about how he felt when he discovered that his parents were 'Santa' and he said he thought it was funny and loved seeing his younger siblings and cousins enjoying the magic. We asked if he felt betrayed/lied to/sad/let down/disappointed etc, and he said he didn't. He understood that Santa represented the magic of Christmas and the Christmas spirit and he admired the effort his parents went to to make Christmas special and magical. My older boys said the same thing when they came to us to talk about 'Santa' and our elf on the shelf, and they've loved helping create the magic for our youngest.

Every family has a right to their own belief system

I just told mine that it's a nice story for children. I told them this from the beginning, so I never lied or made out it was literally real. It's a nice story for children, and that's the truth. Now I tell them to keep the nice story for their younger cousins.

My cousin told me when I was 4, so I didn't have to worry about being upset or anything. I just used to worry about my mum, because I thought she didn't know it was made up. I didn't want to tell her.

I've never felt anything other than love, appreciation and gratitude towards my parents for facilitating the Santa myth. A lovely part of my childhood, which is my joy to pass on to my own children.

What a horrible thing to say about someone's dc.

Really nasty. Did it make you feel superior to insult an 11yo?

People on Mn are often deeply hysterical about FC, and it's far more about them and their ideas about 'magical Christmases' and 'childhood innocence' than their children. DS went to a very multi-cultural school for his first few years, where lots of the children were from ethno-religious backgrounds where they either didn't celebrate Christmas at all, or didn't 'do' FC/Santa Claus, so he was always on board with the 'some people believe' version. The fact that he never believed in FC as literally real has never stopped him being a massive Christmas enthusiast, putting out mincepies, following the sleigh on the tracker etc. He's ten now, and still adores Christmas to the point where he starts watching Christmas films in about September.

What a horrible thing to say about someone's dc.

Agreed. Really nasty.

Also, a bit obtuse. Magical thinking is strongly entrenched in some of the cleverest of children.

People on Mn are often deeply hysterical about FC, and it's far more about them and their ideas about 'magical Christmases' and 'childhood innocence' than their children

I don't see what's 'hysterical' about saying you enjoyed a lovely Christmas tradition and want to uphold it for your own children.

No one is suggesting there's anything wrong with doing Santa your way, your post comes across as really defensive.