Daughter's School told her the "truth" about Santa

[HappyDi]

Hi there long time lurker, first time poster so be patient.
We live in a little village in Angus Scotland, the kind of place where life goes just that little bit slower. Which suits us fine. The local school is ok, not that good, not that bad.
However tonight my daughter came home with her new reading book and I was appalled. In it on page 8, the reader is told that parents buy all the Christmas presents, and not santa. It is also full of really dreadful english, the kind of words that if the pupils use in a test, they are marked down for and there are whole words spelled out in block capitals. It is written in the vernacular, which is entertaining to read out, but in all my years as a professional writer I have never looked at a book that provided such an all round appalling example to children. These little children (my daughter has just turned 10) aren't yet secure enough in the rules of grammer to be able to discount what they read in textbook. There are loads of great, modren children's writers who provide excellent examples for writing (even the cadence in the sentences is not appropriate for UK voices). I bet the book itself is a laugh, but it isn't appropriate for school, yet she is stuck with it.
AIBU to expect a reading book from school that actually sets a good example to children?

Why does the fact that children grow up have to be sad? Can't it be something positive? My dd was not a world weary cynic by the age of 10 (nor am I a world weary cynic at 46). But she had reached puberty, she took an interest in the outside world, she had her own library card and was gradually making the transition to more grown-up reading material.

Why should I be sad about something that happens naturally?

I did not encourage a precocious style, in the sense of sexualised clothing or anything of that kind, but neither did I see the point in forcing her to read fairytales when she was ready for Pride and Prejudice.

She still greatly enjoys Santa, but in a suspended disbelief sort of way. So do I.

Cory, my DD who's only slightly younger than the OP's gets a reading book home from school every night which is the same book everyone in her reading group has, they have to read set pages at home (aloud to parent) then continue in class and so on. We have no choice on the books and due to cutbacks they are all about 20 yers old! That's the way it's done in Scotland. Also ours don't start secondary school until 12. DD also has a personal reader of her choice which she reads at her own pace and records at the back or her reading notebook

You could be right, maybe my DD doesn't believe in Santa and it's me who's being protected from the truth although either way we don't want the illusion shattered by a reading book.

I that age I used to read anything and everything-I doubt if my mother could have kept up. She certainly wasn't aware of how much information I picked up from women's magazines that she had in the house!

I wasn't aware that they still have set reading books at age 10 in Scotland; that is a difference then. Here in the south, they go to the school library and get out what they want.

Dd was also reading voraciously from our family library at this age- it never occurred to me to keep books hidden because they might tell her about the grown-up world. And she went down to the city library on her own, and read the newspapers. I could never have kept up with the pace of everything she was reading, not if I ever wanted any work of my own done.

I just found with the need to prepare her for puberty and other changes in her life, the tone of our communication changed in late junior school. Lots of illusions get shattered at this age: I wanted her to see growing up as something positive and fun, rather than a tragic loss of innocence.

Santa can be just as enjoyable after they have worked out who is under the coat (in the case of my dd, that was around age 4, with no prompting from anyone else- but she has always been tactful about it ).

For what it's worth, mine have never (I think) really truly believed in Father Christmas. That doesn't stop Christmas being a wonderful magical time with glitter dust and mincepies for the reindeer.

If ever I spend Christmas Eve with my mother I still hang up a stocking - and I'm old enough to be everyone on here's mother.

It's a lovely thing to have a shared fantasy - you don't have to be ignorant to be innocent.

Hi, there, me again.
Well I had a think about it, and decided that whilst I was perhaps being unreasonable regarding the book, I had legitimate concerns. So I wrote a letter to the head outlining my concerns.
Got a phone call from her yesterday am (half way through a meeting as per usual). She had received 12 complaints regarding this book and its grammer and agreed that while it is an entertaining book, it shouldn't be given to children because of the highly stylised grammer and vocabulary.

My daughter chooses to believe in Santa, like she chooses to believe that good people win, and if you behave well, then you are rewarded for it, and that when you see something wrong you should do something about it. How long will it be before she finds out that it is often the mean, nasty and selfish that triumph in this world, and will that make her a more mature person?

Oh and I may be short, fat and have hair on my chin regularly removed by my beauty therapist, but I am not a troll, looking for an fight, just a hard working mum looking for some perspective. Happy days y'all.

I think that by that age some are pretending to still believe in case the presents stop!

exactly,
we keep up the pretence,
though i think dd (aged 10) still believes.
she was questioning a tv programme recently that said if they didnt have a christmas tree santa wouldnt come,
she was querying that. i spose she will question more and more. and then just accept the presents greedily happily

i remember when i was about 10, i told the entire sunday school that Santa wasn't real and was made up by Coca-cola as a marketing tool.

that's what my mum told me.
so the Sunday school teacher told my mum and my mum had to sit down with me and explain it wasn't santa who was made up, it was his red coat etc. by that time, i was fully convinced he didn't exist, but admired my mum for trying to backpeddle!!
but she said that whatever i believed, i must go back and explain to the Sunday school her new "theory".

well, at the same time i thought i was doing the church a favour; believing in santa when the true meaning of christmas is the baby Jesus, not how many pressies some beardy bloke gives you!

i am more interested in the book, though. it's not up to the school to destroy the illusion and if it was badly written then the school should take the book off the reading list. or read it themselves.

Well I was rather proud of dd(8) this morning. Walking to school with two younger children, one of them remarked that they had written their list for Santa last night.
DD rolled her eyes, pursed her lips and I waited for it...but she chose to scooter on and leave them with their dreams intact.
In this house, deluding ourselves that dd believes in Santa is on a par with believing that ds(15) is really watching I'm a Celebrity for the wildlife rather than the ladies in bikinis.
It's ds's fault that dd doesn't believe - the fact was imparted during a particularly vicious row.

Would it be really wrong for me to not tell DS (only 13 months just now) about santa and just tell him that he is NEVER allowed to tell other children otherwise?

mc: maybe you should!

in addition to what i just said: i truly do not want my children having a childhood where Santa brings them all these lovely presents if they've been good all year. why should my parenting be trumped by the promise of a fat-beardy bloke rewarding their behaviour?
it also seems to me to promote and encourage the commercialism of christmas and does nothing to promote the true meaning of christmas (from my POV as a christian! ), and i don't want to buy into it.
but it would be a fucking bloody-minded parent who would be able to over-ride the opinions of every other adult in the country/world. and if my child is anything like me, they'll tell everybody that there's no such thing as santa anyway! can't win.

Oh, the book was an entertaining read that is great for kids to read for fun, the problem that I had with it (and it would appear the majority of other parents and the head agreed with me) was that since it was written as if an American child was writing in his diary ie first person singular, block capital words in the middle of sentences, not using commas when they should be used, using colons in a frankly bizarre fashion, putting the word "like" at random points in the sentence to denote that the child was thinking about something etc etc etc, it wasn't the kind of book that should be given out as a set text, since if the children concerned wrote in this fashion, they would be marked down. The Santa thing was just the icing on the cake. Anyway, it will not be given out as a set text anymore, but since it was never intended to be used as a set book, I feel it is unfair of me to "name and shame" it. The fact the school used this book for a purpose for which it was not intended is not the author's fault.
My daughter loves reading, currently she is working her way through "To Kill a Mockingbird" at home, and we have had many interesting discussions on drug taking, civil rights and the need to respect others. So I'm hardly wrapping her in cotton wool.

I am also a Christian and hate how the point gets missed although that isn't really my issue.

I just dont want to lie blatently to him. I will tell him the STORY and still buy him the extra presents 'from santa' but he will always know he isn't real.

That doesn't make me a cruel mother then?

To kill a mockingbird!!! great. Give her Death of a Salesman too! Oh and The Great Gastby! (depending on her age of course!)

glad you and others complained

meltedchocolate - we haven't 'done' Santa as being real, but ds1 dresses up as Santa every Christmas afternoon and delivers a present to everyone. So the phrase 'Santa isn't real' doesn't really come into their vocabulary - because 'their' version of Santa is real.

To the OP - every year, people get very cross about threads that 'reveal the truth about Santa' in the thread title - as lots of children can read over their mum's shoulder! I think your thread title falls into this trap!