To find that parents with kids aged 10 insisting their children believe in Santa are creepy?

[ssd]

I know of some mums who insist their kids believe in santa and the kids are taller than me, whats wrong with kids NOT believing in santa?, doesn't make you a bad parent

Depends, if you mean that kids who believe in santa at 10 are creepy then you are being fucking unreasonable in mho

If you mean parents who believe their children believe in santa at 10 when they clearly don't well then yes I think there is something slightly creepy about that but I've always put it down to the magic of christmas infecting people's sanity

Bothered anyway...would you like a mince pie?

no you didn't lottie, but the mum at the school gates as well as did (has anyone actually read my posts?)

anyway, as usual here, the original question of AIBU has been twisted out of all proportion

is anyone going to answer my question of what you'd tell a 10 yr old who asks is santa real?

it'll happen to us all one day!

My 10 year old dd has decided to continue believing. She also insists on believing in the tooth fairy. We don't make a bit deal about FC (never have done) and she has not led a particularly sheltered life, but she seems to have a need to continue hanging onto a belief in these kinds of magical things. Could be because she lost her father when she was only 6 (and that was just a couple of weeks before Christmas) and the next year at the same time she lost her grandad. She needs to believe nice stuff can happen too. I know where she's coming from. She's no fool; she clearly doesn't discuss her "beliefs" with her friends and is well aware that lots of them don't believe. Nor does she ever ask me straight out whether FC is real or not. Quite different from her little brother (3), who will doubtless have rumbled the whole thing before next Christmas, if his scepticism this year is anything to go by.

sorry for not reading thought it had become a mental rant.

Anyway I'd probably turn the question around and ask the 10 year old what they thought, why they were asking etc etc and allow them to quietly come to their own conclusion.

For many dc at 10+ I feel it would be wrong to just blindly keep the santa story going...but I'd let them find their way there.

(I can't bear to read it all but that's mho)

Hey, ssd, I don't think that all children do eventually ask their parents whether Santa is real. I certainly never did. Children can just grow out of these things without having to clarify it all with their parents.

maybe not

I'm just going by my 10 year old who asks
questions all the bloody time!! and insists on a straight answer!!

Do you always answer his questions for him?

Or do you question around the subject and get him to pull together all his ideas and come back to you....do that!!!!

I do try saying "what do you think" but when he insists on a yes or no answer to "is santa real" its hard!

I also tell him don't ask a question if you don't want an answer!

What you answer depends on what your child is like, surely. If my dd ever does ask me (see post above), I will have to word my response fairly carefully and let her down gently (i.e. waffle for quite some time before coming out with the truth). I suspect that my ds will turn out to be the kind of 10 year old that could take the unvarnished truth in a very direct format and be none the worse for it (I might be wrong about that, obviously, I'll find out in 7 years...)

why do you ask?
what do your friends think?
What do you think/feel about santa?
what does it matter?
what's brought all this on?

I think you need interrogation training...

I'm usually the one being interrogated

BTW how old are your kids ronaldino, you sound like you've got some experience!

Lynette. I'm glad there are at least 2 of us.
Spread the Christmas magic.

No, I wasn't joking ( ) .

YABU 2 of my children still believed in Father Christmas at 10 and my 9 year old niece still believes.
What is wrong with them still being children and believing in magical stuff.

Happymummy why do they need to know the truth before highschool? DD3 still believed when she went and so did some of her friends.

OMG, you mean to say Santa isn't real???

SSD if your 10 year old is asking and is not happy with you saying what do you think but wants a yes or no answwert,then I would tell him the truth.
I think my children believed for so long because they knew that we bought the main presents but Father Christmas bought the stocking presents.

Highschool kids can be very cruel and like to appear grown-up, often doing so by deriding those still seeming "babyish" in some way. Therefore unless highschool is a cosy one where all their other friends are going, it could place them at a disadvantage "socially" in their class early on.

By socially, I mean marked out as a soft jessie in 1st year for still believing in FC, by the more sophisticated types.

In that respect I think it's more for the parents mentally clinging on to believing their DCs are still LO's (in the style of Readybrek ads where the mum still has her 8yo in a sling) when in actual fact those baby years are over and they are very nearly teenagers, than it is for the benefit of the DC's.

That's what I interpret the OP meant by "creepy".

What I find horrible is the assumption that once they no longer believe in Father Christmas there can't be magic, or stockings or all the loveliness of Christmas.

And there IS that "pecking order" in most classes. I remember trying to explain this to my mum when I was younger ie "Well Sarah X is first followed by Rachel X followed by Katy, then I'm next, then Jo is after that"...

My mum was puzzled - "I thought you did better than Rachel X at school?"

Parents didn't get it, we all did. Ever seen About a Boy? Think on . Still believing in FC could be the kiss of death aged 11.

BoffinMum: Put your fingers in your ears love.
You and I (and Lynette) know the truth, pity these people they are non believers.

Seeker, my DH still gets a stocking at Christmas from his MUM! (I don't bother cos then he'd have two lots of stocking fillers cluttering up the place) and insists on watching Home Alone and Miracle on 34th Street and having tangerines all over the show etc

He still loves that magic of Christmas it's just in the knowledge that FC doesn't really come to the house.

Chaufleur, I think your dh and I are twins seperatd at birth! My mum still does me a stocking, as she does for my two elder brothers. She is 88 and housebound, so I have been delegated to buy the stuff for dbs stockings, and I'm sure one of them has been asked to do the same for me! And I'm pushing 50 and my eldest brother is 55!

Sorry - that should read 65!

seeker!

See, Christmas can still be fun no matter how old you are or if you know FC is real or not!

This thread is all a bit odd. Perhaps there is something strange about the Santa myth after all. Surely as everyone finds out eventually that he doesn't exist, that is also part of the childhood experience. It's part of getting older. To say "shame on you" because a 10-year-old doesn't believe any more is a bit strange I think.