Kid yelling Santa isn’t real at a Christmas party

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So I took my 5 year old old to a Christmas party for age 3-8 , parents were to stay to watch their children. Santa came towards the end which we were not expecting, my daughter still believes. A slightly older child kept shouting Santa wasn’t real for a prolonged time 5 mins ish . Parents did nothing, staff were uncomfortable and tried to shush him. Honestly I feel so angry that the parents thought it was acceptable for him to try to ruin the magic for younger children. My daughter is very upset and keeps questioning me now. I know if it was my child I’d definitely have taken them out of the room and told them that if they were going to ruin the magic for others they don’t deserve a gift. I’m not a perfect parent but I find more and more occasions where it seems like there is no parenting going on. I have 3 children and she is my middle so I don’t think I am being precious but this evening I’m feeling so cross. Am I being unfair, is this normal parenting?

We never did Santa. My kids enjoyed being in on the fact it was a lie, and were proudly responsible about not mentioning it to kids that did believe.

Each to their own but I find that sad personally. They’ve missed out on a magical part of childhood!

Urgh

Oh for goodness sake. I can't believe that if you let your child believe in Father Christmas that you are shamefull liars and your children should be put in care.
No children has come to harm finding out that FC is not real, when they grow out of it.
There is nothing nicer on Christmas morning when your little ones come running into your bedroom saying "he's come, he's come!"
Why do some people have to spoil stuff so they come across as cool parents.
Unbelievable!

I was 5. It wasn't that deep. I was taught to tell the truth so I probably just thought that saying something true was OK. My parents "did" Santa in a half-arsed way so just accepted the fact that I never believed, so I didn't realise it was such a big deal. And I still don't, to be honest.

I was the same as you - never understood the big deal and never saw the issue with saying something because in my head, I was just telling the truth and how could that be bad? I remember having a similar debate in a Religious Studies class about how God couldn’t possibly exist 🫣

As an adult I’ve since been diagnosed with autism!

There’s something grimly self satisfied about upsetting children and then dressing it up as growth. The enjoyment you still seem to get from it is the worrying part.

Honestly, another post about “the magic”. Yes the child was badly behaved - yelling anything for 5 mins would have been badly behaved in the circumstances. But honestly a brisk “oh yes I suppose he’s right that lots of people like to dress up as Father Christmas” or “oh poor boy must have got confused” would deal with this for most 5yo.

PP doesn’t sound like she’s getting enjoyment from something that happened when she was five - she’s just being factual.

My kids grew up on a farm in the south of Italy. They had both their parents at home every day, and tons of friends and activities. It was a sun drenched dream of a childhood, without trauma, and focused on equipping them for the fast changing world they have grown up into. I think people think it's sad because there is no magic in the world, it doesn't exist, so we use our children's innocence to create that for ourselves, by proxy. I can tell you with confidence that my kids don't feel like they missed out.

I had the same debate about God in RE, though this time it didn't scandalise the classroom (we were meant to be debating God) but my very religious parents DID care. Not autistic though!

I didn't derive any enjoyment from it then or now. It's just what happened. I'm just perplexed that so many parents seem so fixated on preventing a normal rite of passage.

It definitely scandalised the classroom in my
methodist school - I got a LOT of nasty looks 🫣

It's crazy to say they've missed out on a magical part of childhood. Santa isn't a thing to lie about in many parts of the world and all those childhood grow up just fine.

Same goes for the tooth fairy.. no child ever ended up disadvantaged because of these things.

Do you think all the children who are raised in cultures without Santa had sad childhoods and missed out too?

And this is why you start off only ever telling kids that Santa is a tradition in the first place.

It's about what is the norm, though, isn't it? In the UK, Santa is a huge part of Christmas. Most children, the vast majority in fact, grow up believing.

As someone up thread said, I don't go around shouting that God doesn't exist, because I respect others' beliefs. I may say that I don't believe in God though, which is very different. It maintains my own view, whilst respecting that others are different.

This lesson - respect for and responsibility to others - begins in childhood. Selfish, smug, entitled, disrespectful children have a tendency to grow into larger adult versions. Such as the ones who take pride in recounting the story about how they made other children in their primary class cry by telling them that Santa isn't real. My child is autistic, at 9 years old she has more awareness of, and care for, other people's feelings than many 'adults' on here.

Agree
It's back to the sense of entitlement. I don't believe and I have a right to tell everyone else and to hell with their feelings.
Do Santa don't do Santa it's a personal choice but have enough respect for others to keep it to yourself (and not think you are the guardian of truth all these years later because you upset some 5 year olds).

What a brat. The parents were out of order for not shushing him.

My mum is like this, she is just so joyless. It’s really sad and blighted my childhood, everything had to over explained and/or discussed. I tell my children it’s magical and some grumpy people don’t like magic. I’m proud of giving them a childhood, rather imposing adulthood on them.

Why does the lack of adult imposed fantasy, mean their childhoods would be joyless? Our kids lived in their imaginations for most of their childhood. It was a childhood based around fun entirely, whilst still dismissing traditions and activities not based in truth, and creating firm habits about respecting other people's beliefs.

Santa is very much for adults, it's self indulgent parenting. I don't think it's particularly damaging, although it does affirm a certain persona of authority, but it's not for the kids. It's for the pleasure people get from watching their kids on an emotional high. I'm surprised every year by what an emotive subject it is, and I do think it's a subtle indicator of parenting perspective.

We have a child who has told everyone else at nursery. His parents don’t believe in lying, apparently.

The other children haven’t taken any notice.

For me, as a child, things like Father Christmas, fairies, elves, dragons were all magical, and I’m glad my parents had the imagination to make those real for me for a few years.

Life would be pretty miserable without storytelling, which is what it is really.

I don’t believe in this Santa nonsense. Really I don’t. And my own dc worked it out age 5, so I told him the truth. My 3yo is questioning why all the Santa’s look different everywhere. I’m also not into making up stupid nonsense about all this. I wouldn’t allow my kids go on shouting though, and would have removed them. I would be very , very shocked if a child believes in Santa at age 8/9 anyway

Exactly! I explained it’s part of the Christmas stuff just like a part of a pretend play.

Easily solved. Santa obviously doesnt visit that boy because hes not on the good list...! He's clearly demonstrated why 😅

Not unreasonable to be cross at that and it's poor parenting. Mine would have been pulled out so fast...

I do agree with others that some parents do seem to take pride out of their kids being 'more adult' when really they're just more thoughtless.

I don't celebrate Christmas, so obviously my kids didn't have Santa. From when they could talk well enough that this was a risk, we discussed that Father Christmas was a game of magic and pretend that many who celebrate Christmas play for little ones, and just like we wouldn't want people to be mean about our games by saying they're not real, we don't say that about other people's games. To my knowledge, none of mine were ever that child and thankfully to my knowledge, they never had my fear of being told by their peers that they must be naughty for not getting Christmas presents.