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!

Not all RE teachers are Christians...

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Why do you think you get to decide that 7 is to old to believe in Santa? Almost all the kids I know still do at that age. In fact I'm pretty sure one of my twins still believes at age 10 (although I'm almost certain the other one just plays along to get the presents)
I'll tell them the truth before secondary school if they haven't figured it out because I don't want them to get made fun of.
But I'd be very upset if a teacher just took it upon themselves to tell them. Particularly a teacher who's entire job is about religion and who'se probably fairly used to being asked that question about god or jesus or whatever. You'd think THAT teacher would have a stock response ready, more than any other one.

This. They most definitely believed at 7!

Erm what?

The RE teachers are supposed to tell kids “some people believe in X and some in Y”. So if the line was “Santa doesn’t exist but baby Jesus does”, then YANBU to complain. If the line was “some people believe in Santa but not all” then YABU.

Oh right so he IS real?

Too old. As if

But the point stands. 7 is too old to believe in santa

Says who? You?

You're wrong btw .....

When my DS was younger and people (kids mostly) told him father christmas didn't exist I explained to him that the poor kids must have been so bad so that father christmas never came to their house. Worked out fine.

Well an RE teacher would probably get fired for telling kids that god doesn't exist so really should know how to handle this sort of question.

So children whose parents had no money must have been badly behaved? Nice.

It's batshit to be so invested in whether your child believes in Santa. It's the natural way of things that they stop believing at some point, and it's very common that this happens around the age of 7 via other children or an adult like this teacher or, you know, their own critical faculties. Nothing has been ruined. This is how it's supposed to work. Throwing a hissy fit about "preserving the magic" is pointless and a bit bonkers.

Stop telling people how to parent their own children

How nasty.
Just be honest and say sone people believe and some don't.
We never lied to our son about Santa, he still loved christmas and also knew to let others believe if they want to.

Yes! Most in the UK I would say.

The teacher didn’t need to bring Santa into it at all.

That is really shit and you’re basically saying to him that if you’re too poor to get presents or shock horror of a different religion, then you have been bad. Also if a child is doubting that he’s real and you outright lie and make stuff up then that might make them distrust you. I’m not just saying this - my friends son now knows Santa isn’t real or the tooth fairy but he’s quite angry about it because he trusted his parents to tell the truth and they kept inventing more and more elaborate lies about why it was true. I mean he will get over it but I’d rather a kid was told that it’s make believe than lie and lie and lie and then eventually the truth comes out anyway.

It's a blessing that my children and now my grandchildren are being raised in a rural backwater. We're still allowed to believe in dragons, fairies, father Christmas without amateur psychologists, at the school gates. 😊

Maybe a child brought it into the conversation?

I think it was ‘poor’ as in unfortunate that they didn’t have Santa visit and didn’t believe rather than ‘poor’ in a financial sense. But, still pretty harsh!

We live rurally.
We also didn't feel the need to lie about santa.

Could still have dodged the question. When my DC asked if Santa was real I asked them what they thought.

No it will be less than that but loads of kids go along with it all because it’s a special time of year. Which is great and the whole “some believe in him, some don’t” is fine. But half of those 7 yo will have older siblings who will have no issue telling them that Santa is make believe and the parents buy the presents. So no, most 7 year olds know it’s not real.

I think most 7 year olds still believe to be honest. I’d say 9/ 10 is the average age to find out.

We don't know what teacher actually said though. The thing is that it's also a lie to teach that he's real. I would just have said 'some people definitely believe he's real'.