Kid yelling Santa isn’t real at a Christmas party

[blipblopblip]

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?

But the UK is not one homogeneous mass of one culture - there are people of all kinds of religions and beliefs, so no, it's not "completely irrelevant" that other people don't believe in him.

No, you’re wrong. It is completely irrelevant that others don’t believe in him.

I don’t understand why anyone would adhere to fasting during Ramadan. Growing up, no one I knew ever really took Lent seriously. To me, it’s just not that important.

But I imagine that my view on that would be absolutely irrelevant to those who do observe Ramadan as part of their culture.

Well, this is a thread about Santa, so I'm going to talk about Santa and how I feel he's unimportant - that doesn't mean I go round saying it in real life 😂

Likewise about food and decorations - we don't really bother with either and I'll happily explain if asked.

And?

Not everything is about you.

I never said my view was relevant or that anyone should be interested in it in real life, did I?

But this is a discussion forum. It would be very, very boring if we all just said "well, it doesn't matter what any of us think". 😉

Nor is it all about you.

You're very keen to try and shut people up when they don't agree with you or how you do things.

It’s not about “how I do things” though.

Most people do follow the Santa tradition and most children do believe.

You are clearly an outlier. Your view is not the norm.

And what other cultures do is completely irrelevant.

What? My posts are based on the children I knew when I was a child, and conversations with adult friends about their childhood experiences.

Isn't the point of this thread that a random kid saying Santa's not real isn't about you either?

"Outliers" are not less valid and "norms" are not necessarily correct, nor important.

I’m not trying to shut anyone up.

Just sick of reading threads like this and those who didn’t believe in Santa or don’t do Santa with their own kids, shouting the loudest about it as if it were the norm.

It isn’t.

Great. Don't read them then - nobody is holding a gun to your head 🙄

Oh come on, she took great delight in retelling the story of how she upset other reception age children by telling them Santa isn't real. She is smug and entitled as an adult, so has learned nothing since the age of 5 apparently.

They probably only have the 7-8 year Olds there as they come with younger siblings. Most older children are very good about keeping the Santa secret as it makes them feel grown up. This child sounds like a brat to be honest as mist parents would have shut him down very quickly.
I still remember the time my dad played Santa at a works Christmas party and my sister and I had to stay quiet at that age. Unfortunately my 4 year old sister recognized him and we quickly shut her down with the Santa's helper line. Luckily the other kids ignored her, but we were only young ourselves and managed it, so surely this boy's parent could have.

A 5yo who makes a mistake and learns from it is one thing. An adult who has seemingly learned nothing about other people's feelings since the age of 5 is quite another.

I think the pp who suggested telling them that that Father Christmas isn’t real (because the real one is too busy) has the right idea.
That said, I think that we have children believing in him for much longer than years ago. I wonder if this is in part because we have made it so much more realistic with trips to Lapland and AI reels and images?
As a teacher in the mid 80s, I don’t recall many (if any) kids still believing by KS2. Nowadays, we would breathe a word about it at any point up to Year 6, just in case.
I can’t remember when my own kids twigged. I do know that my elder one hedged his bets by pretending to, just in case it adversely affected his present haul.

That's really not how I read it. She's telling a story about something that happened years ago - where exactly did she take "great delight" and how has she been "smug and entitled"?

So many grown adults willing to make nasty comments towards others on here for no reason.

Right ok, and your point is... that we each read it differently, and responded to it differently? Who knew that was a thing on online forums...

This was nothing to do with telling the truth. This was about showing off and spitefully ruining other people's fun. If he and his family didn't want to participate in the Santa myth why did they stay at all.

This would have made me laugh! I think the season is magical enough without the lies. I would hate to be trying to navigate which parents are partaking in that version and which were not.

For most kids, this is first adult secret they find out. It's a very big deal at the time - you realise the grown-ups have all been lying, so you will no longer accept everything they tell you as unarguable truth. You also understand they were doing this to indulge your childish fantasy, not from malice.

It usually is a massive revelation! Hardly surprising they feel they should share this important news.

When I was little, my school friends and I worked it out between us, like tiny Christmas detectives 😄 Unfortunately I told my youngest brother when he was about that age. He cried. A lot. And I got thumped for not lying to him!

It should be against the law. It's no different to someone running into a church and shouting that God isn't real or running into a Mosque and shouting that Allah isn't real. It is a sacrilegious hate crime and should be taken very seriously.

😂

It has everything to do with telling the truth i.e. what he said was true.

We have no idea whether the motivation of the 6 year old was really to spitefully ruin other people’s fun. He was 6 years old! Maybe he’s just sharing what he knows.

If I was his parent, would I get him to shut up? Of course I would. But as his parents didn’t, the OP has to react to what happened. And to suggest that the 6 year old wasn’t telling the truth because he was shouting and disruptive is… disingenuous. He WAS telling the truth.

Santa isn't real though. Neither is " magic"

this is what happens when people use expensive gifts to manipulate children

Not all of them comply.

It is ridiculous to equate belief in Santa to religious belief. No sane adult believes Santa is real. It’s just a story we tell children who, by the age of 7 or 8, are usually able to work out that it’s not true.

”Respecting the belief” of an infant who believes that Santa exists, or the Tooth Fairy exists or that their teddy bear comes to life and talks to them at night, is categorically different to the respect we give to adults. We don’t mock them, but we gently educate them over time that they are wrong.