To wonder if my 6 year old thinks in a strange way

[Andsoitgoeshey]

Dd turned 6 not long ago.

Last year when she was 5, I started the elves, she immediately asked if I did the elves and kept going on about the letter from the elves being from me.
This year, she asked a couple of weeks ago if it was us that really bought the presents, not santa, she hasn’t heard anything at school etc or would have said, this is just the way she thinks.
We were watching Home alone the other day and I made a joke saying imagine being home on your own at aged 8 having to look after yourself and the fun you could have. She said he wasn’t alone because of the person behind the camera filming him…!
I just never thought this way as a child, I became really absorbed in films, not even realising they weren’t real and believed in Father Christmas and that magical world.
She’s very imaginative and loves role play and pretending to be different characters.

Is this normal for a 6 year old? I find it quite sad

Oh and Christmas was still entirely magical! 🎄❄️😃😃

That sounds like me, and I have no diagnosis but a lot of autistic traits.

I remember having a discussion Xmas morning with my brother. Neither of us believed but decided to 'play along' because our parents would be disappointed.

My cousin, aged 6 when with her mum and dog to the vet. The vet, trying to indulge a small child gave her toy dog a vaccine and tried to explain it didn't hurt. 6 year old: "it doesn't hurt because it is a toy dog".

Some of us are just like this OP, we see the world in a different way.

Don't worry about the magic, for some of us the magic is working out the puzzle.

I think our kids are cleverer than we think and just don't tell us they do t believe to save our feelings.

I mean it's just not that believable is it ? Santa elves etc When you really look at the facts.

@sashh yes! "The magic is in working out the puzzle!" What a succinct way to put it.

There's a line in the musical Hamilton that says "Why do you assume you're the smartest in the room?" That's DD! 😂and I think many other teenagers, tbh. She definitely loves sarcasm, and isn't afraid to use it on the thickos she's forced to live with. She is also deeply kind, trying to find a way to keep the magic for her younger siblings who do enjoy it without lying (she has made them all a gingerbread house advent calendar with personalised gifts inside)... a wonderful girl, I'm so proud of her.

My son aged 2/3 declared he didn’t believe in the Easter bunny or why would they sell Easter eggs in Tesco. He’s always been logical and fiercely intelligent. Struggles with friendships more from secondary school onwards so perhaps somewhere on the ASD spectrum.

Your daughter sounds great to me!

All 6 year olds think a little funny sounds like you have got a very logical one she is going to do great in life

Yes I understand where you are coming from op.

I remember as a child being totally transported by the wonder of it all.

But back then I think it was a bit easier not to see through it. The whole Christmas season was shorter, so people didn’t dwell on it as much, have Santa things in the shops from October etc. It was just suddenly nearly Christmas, the box of decorations came out seemingly from nowhere, and you were still wrapping your mind round the fact that there was an actual tree in your house, when your parents asked you to write a list, put out cookies and milk for him and you were - as you say - listening for the bells.

I still remember vividly sitting beneath our quite large Christmas tree dressed in my best dress for a Carol service, waiting for my favourite cousin to arrive also dressed up, faces flushed with excitement. The lights were dimmed, so just a lamp and the tree lights. I was looking up through the branches at the twinkly lights which glinted on the gold bows on the gifts wrapped below and listening to the sound of a tinkly Carol from one of our musical Christmas ornaments and thinking this was so wondrous I might burst with happiness. Was Father Christmas REALLY going to bring presents? I could just about still remember from last year - because a year is actually a long time for children if Christmas hasn’t started in October! I must have been about 5 or 6 and I will take that feeling to my grave as one of the most wonderful moments.

I was so keen to preserve that sense of wonder for our dc that I have been known to prance round our garden with bells ( a good trick to try to befuddle her!) on Christmas Eve!

But I’ve never understood Elf on the Shelf. It’s pretty bloody obvious it’s s plastic doll and I’m pretty sure it would have got me thinking a bit cynically as a child. I think it has all got so commercialised there are too many chances to hit a wrong note and give it all away. It was quickly upon you then over and done with when I was small. Total magic and the joy of childhood.

Same. I found magic in other things, I still had a massive sense of wonder, and now nostalgia about it.
It was magic for me that I had an amazing relationship with all our family pets (hamster, guinea pigs, dog, budgie) and the cat next door. I learnt all their body language and sounds and understood them all really well.

I loved things like morning dew on spiders webs and the fact that I could see kids playing football on a hard surface a field away and I would see the ball bounce then hear it slightly later, loved stuff like that.

Edited to add, that I still enjoyed the pretend and going along with the fun, just didn't think it was real. It was still a lovely bonding family tradition.

@Calliopespa Beautiful description and yes, it’s probably true that a lot of the magic has gone now.

Some of my favourite memories of Xmas are the first year I got to 'be' Father Christmas (aged not quite 4) and dragged the presents into the living room on my toboggan, wearing a cotton wool beard, and the first year I was able to choose and buy presents myself (aged 8) and took my saved pocket money to the shop by myself to get a genuine surprise for my parents (a set of 6 tumblers from BHS).

And I always loved the sparkle and ritual of the season. Unpacking and putting up the decorations. The music. The lights. The parties - dressing up, games and special food like a whole fortnight of birthday party. Learning about the physics that made the foil spirals hung above the airvents twist, then working out the best placement to get maximum movement from the different sizes. The RI Christmas lectures, with Professor Heinz Wolf explaining why helium makes your voice squeaky.

And the best part about the magic of those last 2 is that it wasn't confined to Xmas. There was the same joy and wonder throughout the year, when my parents woke me in the night to see a lunar eclipse, or a hedgehog, or a particularly good lightning storm. In trying to work out why adding clear water to pale pink custard powder resulted in bright yellow custard. In learning that combining different paint colours didn't give the same results as combining different light colours - and an extended discussion with my DM about why shining a torch through green tissue paper gave green light, shining it through red paper gave red light, but shining it through black paper didn't give black light. In prisms, and pinhole cameras, and leaning that my eyes see everything upside down and my brain then has to turn it over! In the incredible genetic and cell division mechanisms that cause coat colours and patterns in cats.

The world is brimming over with wonder, and it never stops. Most of that list is from when I was 6 or under, but I didn't learn the cat one until university -it gave me.just the same thrill.

Em I think you referenced the wrong poster. Unless my cat has some opinion 🐈‍⬛🤣

I think that's a mistake. If she asks you an outright question she deserves an honest answer. I feel the same about people who tell their children nonsense about 'where babies come from', if they ask, they get an age appropriate answer. Don't tell lies you will have to recind later.

Yes, my kids are like this. I think kids are just more switched on these days and they have access to far more information than we did. It's not a bad thing, just embrace it, they are their own people and that's ok

I really don't get all these posters on here who think the magic of Christmas is limited to believing in Santa.

I never believed in Santa but still had those lovely magical Christmas feelings. I even enjoyed lying in bed thinking of Santa going through the sky even though I did not believe in him, and knew mum got the presents as I found them each year hidden in her wardrobe. Still loved opening the presents on Christmas day. Christmas just has that lovely otherly magical out of the ordinary special feeling as a child whether or not you believe literally in specific Christmas characters.

Even as an adult I am a total rationalist with no supernatural beliefs yet still enjoy spiritual events and walk through woods imagining all the spirits and other-world creatures, even though I do not believe in them. Humans are perfectly capable of holding two thoughts in their head at once.

I love the way your daughter thinks. Enjoy her for who she is and let her enjoy Christmas in her own way.

🤣🤣 oops my mistake! Sorry x

@Andsoitgoeshey
This was for you.
I sent it to the wrong person by mistake 🤦‍♀️🤣

It does sound as if you want her to
have your childhood.

I was like your daughter. Bright, curious and imaginative. I’d certainly seen through the whole Santa schtick by six or seven. But it wasn’t lack of imagination or any literal rejection of magic. My imagination has been a major component of my career, actually.

Thing is, though, kids tend to ask specific questions to which they want to know the answer, but adults often leap in with a whole general explanation, which hasn’t been asked for yet.

My mother says that when I was little, I asked her where babies came from. She sat me down, took a deep breath and began at the beginning.

When she was about two paragraphs in, I held up my hand and said, “Alright. That’s enough. I’m only eight.”

It was a good two years before I went back for the rest of it.

The comment about the Home Alone camera operator is brilliant 👏 never thought of that myself in 50 years!

She is obviously intelligent and an imaginative thinker. Teach her chess and sudoku, get her painting, help her use her talents 😀

Absolutely this. Respect your children enough to tell them the truth when they ask a question.

She sounds pretty switched on, to be honest. I don’t think it’s sad at all, you could have them talked about how they film films, follow your child’s need for logic and reasoning.

The best bits of your exoectation of childhood. Not all children are the same. I remember being 6 and discussing with a friend if it was more plausible that our parents bought all the stocking presents or whether Father Christmas was real. DS told me at 5 he knew it was us and was delighted with himself. He's not fussed about "magic". He announced at a similar time he isn't a Christian because he believes in science and started telling me about the big bang.

Don't feel sad that she likes different things to you. That isn't fair to her to put that expectation on her. She sounds bright and observant and great.

You are fine I was just wondering if my cat had got on here. Two strapping lads here.

This is interesting, I am the same. I genuinely don’t see the point in gifts unless the person has gone out of their way to almost read your mind and get you exactly what you want/ need. My family members are the same, they don’t give cards as they don’t see the point and almost get annoyed if you send them one. I have adhd so I don’t know if there’s a link there with the way I think.

This was me as a child (and an adult) I couldn't be doing with make believe/fantasy/play (and still don't like it) I only ever dealt with facts. I was happy enough and no ASD or SEN.,

Sometimes children just see through stuff very easily. Your child sounds very clever.