Does Santa ever really not come as punishment?

[missmam]

I read a post on another forum from a mother planning to have Santa not come as a way of not rewarding/punishing her seven year old's recent bad behaviour. honestly the examples of his behaviour she gave sounded like fairly regular stuff from an unsettled energetic kid. I think the responders talked her out of it, but please tell me people dont this? I'm post partum and maybe overly hormonal, but now im sat here worrying if there will be children up and down country with xmas disappointment as some kind of delayed punishment and my heart is just breaking! surely not?

My friend put three or four potatoes in her DS8’s stocking last year after she had repeatedly warned him about his behaviour. He still got all of the presents he would have done anyway but it was presented as ‘well you could have had 4 more but Santa replaced them with potatoes because you misbehaved’. It worked! He stopped doing what he was being told off for sharpish and hasn’t done it since. Think it only worked because he was old enough to understand actions and consequences.

It’s a really shitty thing to do, but there are some really shitty parents out there.
Some people really shouldn’t have children. 😞

Santa doesn't bring the main gifts here he brings what I "don't allow" sweets chocolate and a noisy toy so its a pretty poor threat but DS wont lie to santa (he is 16 now so this was awhile ago) and when santa asked him if he had been good he looked at his feet and said no i could have tried harder im sorry even santa looked like he wanted to cry he still got all his gifts because Christmas shouldn't be used as a punishment for children who cant emotionally regulate like an adult expects them too

I knew someone 30 years ago who did it, ripped down all decorations and binned all presents on xmas eve. Christmas money was used to buy school uniform. Kids were distraught. It was the tip of the iceberg, social services were involved but the mother was manipulative and vile. I dropped contact not long after, heard on grapevine that they went NC as soon as they could and still don't communicate with their family in their 30s.

My niece lives in Bovaria, Germany and Santa is very different there. When you go to visit him, he has a list of your most recent infractions (supplied by parents) and quizzes you about them. It's more like behavioural therapy than anything else! Most kids are afraid of him! Luckily, their presents come from family other than a token gift from Scary St. Nick!

I’m sure there are parents who emotionally abuse their kids in this way.

I feel sorry for the parents who cannot afford to lavish their children at Christmas and would love to.

Personally I never used the police or Santa as a threat. I used me 🤣 Misbehave? I’ll deal out a suitable consequence and you won’t like it!

I wouldn't even threaten it. It's horribly manipulative.
What do you do the rest of the year if that's how you manage their behaviour?

Just making kids feel bad won't help them behave better.

One year my sister got some coal from her boyfriend and my niece was horrified that she'd obviously been naughty enough to get coal!

That sounds so hard! this is kinda what I as worrying about! Poor little you

Well, I told dd1 as much when she was 5 - when a ‘friend’ who (as dd had witnessed) had form for very loudly effing and blinding in the street, told her that Father Christmas wasn’t real.
Dd was distraught!

I told her that ‘friend’ had probably been so naughty when she was little, that FC never came, so no wonder she didn’t believe in him.

Happy to say it worked like a charm.

Would never ever dream of it. Anything DS does is dealt with on the day and the next day, we start afresh. With exception to one day in the summer when he failed to come in from the sea and I ended up frog-marching him back to the car and grounding him for two weeks. It was done from exasperation of me yelling/begging/pleading for him to come out and him refusing. It's all another story, and he would agree it wasn't the worst grounding in the world 🙈
As for cancelling Christmas? Absolutely not. It would have to be pretty bad for that to happen. (And I don't know the back-story of the mums threatening to cancel, so I can't really pass judgement on their decision, come to think of it) x