Teacher telling 7yo that Father Christmas not real

[Peaceandquietandacuppa]

Is it reasonable for a RE teacher to tell 7 year olds that Father Christmas isn’t real?

My 7 year old DS has just told me that his RE teacher told the class Father Christmas “isn’t real” today. He isn’t one to over-exaggerate. I asked if any of the kids prompted it by asking and he said no, she just said it.

If you think it’s unreasonable, would you say anything to the school?

YABU - teachers are fine to say FC is not real at the age of 7

YANBU - let the kids / parents decide if FC is real. Just don’t say anything!

Yes, and likely the last Christmas my son will still believe.

It's not up to a teacher to tell children about FC surely it's up to the parents or did she just want to ruin it for children, l also would be annoyed.

Still very normal to believe at 7. 7 is still very young! Why do we have to rush through childhood so fast?!

Not believing in FC doesn't necessarily mean someone is rushing through childhood.

I think almost every primary school child knows that Father Christmas isn’t real… and that it’s really their parents but play along with them because they don’t want their parents to be disappointed!

I would add that it’s a bit rich for an RE teacher to tell children that a character they believe in isn’t real, as essentially telling children to believe in stories is literally their job!

The whole nativity story for example is a work of fiction, celebrated at the wrong time of year, with a false location and narrative (The Romans conducted their census where people actually lived not their ancestral home, otherwise how would they know where people lived and what they owned so they could calculate how much taxes they had to pay)

Some scholars have tried to correlate the "Star of Bethlehem" with astronomical events. For example, one astronomer used the St Matthew's Gospel to pinpoint a planetary conjunction in Leo on June 17, 2BC.

Perhaps your son could throw her a curve ball back? Ask her why we celebrate Christmas as the wrong time of year, and ask why Christians are actually celebrating a pagan festival?

Yes - he brought me and my sister tin trumpets once, and when we tried them out in the early hours of Christmas morning we clearly heard my father berating my mother for buying them

Mine twigged at six (now seven) but she's very much an outlier it seems. I did the Father Christmas stuff and was a bit sad she got it so early, but I wasn't going to lie to her when she asked me. I've been very clear with her that she's not to spoil it for her friends. She does still love Christmas and it has not ruined anything for her.

@Peaceandquietandacuppa did you end up clarifying what exactly was said by the teacher?

I’d want to know if the teacher has also made claims about God/Allah/Jehovah and other gods being fictitious, or if the “facts” are only applied to Father Christmas.

my son is 11 and i still manage to make him sort of believe in the magic of santa and when some other kids said he's not real i said up to you to believe it or not ...Im sure deep down he knows but he also loves the idea ...same with my eldest ... I managed until she was 10 ish.... I would say to your child she might have said that because there are no fact to prove it but also there are no facts to prove the contraire... ;)

Secondary school is not unreasonable. Anything below this wholly unfair because a primary school will have believers in Y6. It's brutally cruel to SEND students whose intellectual or developmental age might be years below their physical one.

There seems to be a small, but significant, cohort of Christians - some of whom are responsible for the wider religious education of children in primary schools - who are quite hard over in actively pushing the truth that a certain magical kind man in the sky with a red suit doesn't exist.

Although they are completely hard over on the fact that another magical kind man in the sky with a crown of thorns & holes in his hands DOES exist. So 🤷🏼‍♀️

I wonder if it's the same misery guts that felt the need to actively inform my Y5 child's class last year that santa is actually their parents and is not part of the TRUE meaning of Christmas?

I was also 😡 @Peaceandquietandacuppa, as it's not the same as being cornered & not being comfortable perpetuating a white lie/cultural myth.

It was actively looking to inform the whole class as part of a planned & structured lesson - because it doesn't jive with their personal religious beliefs.

Which IS ironic given the origins of santa are based on a Christian saint helping out the poor & needy & those deserving of a gift in the depths of winter. But there we are!

I said to DD that maybe the adult was sad because she was so miserable nobody had ever left presents to cheer her up at Christmas?!

Bad luck OP. They walk among us. Wouldn't be off to mention to the school that this RE teacher is going out of their way to enforce their own religious beliefs on a class - that's not how RE is supposed to be delivered in secular schools, but hey ho!

When it became time, we explained to our eldest that santa is part of the absolute MAGIC of Christmas, and as one of the older ones of a group of friends, their responsibility was to help keep Christmas as a MAGICAL time for younger children. Too much for some soulless adults to process tho!

I think almost every primary school child knows that Father Christmas isn’t real… and that it’s really their parents but play along with them because they don’t want their parents to be disappointed!

Every primary school child? Really?

I've worked with children aged 4+ for 20 odd years and my experience is that the majority believe until ages 9/10 and some older than that.

I remember my daughter’s after school leader telling the kids that Father Christmas wasn’t real. They were about 6 or 7. I was furious. Her son had died earlier in the year but that was no excuse for being such a hard faced person to the children.

You have two options, speak to the teacher about what he said. Tell your child he is real and the teacher is mistaken

That’s a really mean thing to do. I just hope he made it clear that god isn’t real either!

How very sad! I have 6 children from 24 down to 8 and have worked in primary schools most of my adult life and it's not at all the norm for 5 or 6 year olds to not believe. Mine tend to until around 10/11.

Wow, your ignorance is next level.

RE teachers for a start are not all religious and secondly they do not teach any religion as being real. They simply educate about the way that different faiths are followed while teaching ethics and philosophy too.

A 7 year old is old enough to know he is not real lol

I don't think we can make any assumptions about the religious leanings of the teacher in question. Some of the most joyless people I've ever met are atheists who just can't help pontificating about how stupid anyone with faith is. They also like to think of themselves as being the ones who know what the "truth" is which is pathetically arrogant. I am probably somewhere between agnostic and atheist but it really doesn't matter to me what anyone else believes in the privacy of their home/church. As long as you keep it away from schools and the law, I couldn't care any less.

How mean - what a miserable ratbag!

I take it you don’t have kids 😂 I would say most 7 year olds do still believe in Santa although might be beginning to suss something isn’t right.

seriously 😂 I suppose they shouldn’t be playing with toys either 😂

I think a lot of kids twig but most parents will talk them around. My eldest did at 5 and has said it again now he is 6. I have talked him around again 😂 my 5 year old believes without question. I don’t think I would tell them for certain for a few more years, but that is more for my pleasure I guess.

Oh dear, there is some, no……lots of strange people out there that derive pleasure from destroying a child's belief, which if left a lone the child will get there themselves in knowing what is real or not. I think some people derive delight from destroying peoples and children’s belief’s, this is so very sad. I am CRB checked have taught Karate for many, many years and now attend the beavers meeting before Christmas dressed as Santa and hand presents out to 6 & 7 year olds. The delight on those children's faces is heart warming and they are so polite. There is a history about Santa that goes back hundreds of years, like most stories it gets exaggerated, but the goodwill in such still lives on.

I had a special needs sister that was eventually in a home due to her debilitating health, I would visit her throughout the year, but on every Christmas Eve I went as Santa (she did not know it was me) and she and the other people that were resident's there loved seeing Santa, until you see the look in their faces and how they too lit up, it was a truly wonderful sight, would this teacher go and tell these people Santa was not real as well!

For me if I can help bring a little happiness into anyone’s life, then is that so wrong, should I stop because some people get delight from raining onto a child’s belief!

I ask this one question for this teacher, which is best bringing pleasure or not? But if its so bad, then how come the parents of the child whom this teacher said Santa was not real, surly it was the child's parents choice to bring Santa into their child’s life, it is not for a teacher to take such away.

For me I will continue with Santa as long as I am asked to do such, my suit is professionally made, I use a theatrical beard that is glued on just like on the movies, trust me the kids do tug it to see if its a real beared, to me every time this is done, the look on that child's face, makes the people who destroy a child’s belief seem very sad indeed, to this teacher, I wish them a happy and peaceful Christmas, as a religious teacher, I say may God go with them……..