THERE'S NO SANTA CLUAS! What the fu.........?

Someone once brought up a great point about how some kids watch as Santa brings all their classmates iPhones and video games and how some kids whose families can't afford those things would think Santa hates them. It broke my heart when someone mentioned that. I remember bragging to everyone about the awesome stuff Santa brought me, never wondering if my classmates was crying wondering why Santa could only bring him socks. What a horrible feeling

One young sceptical Christmas I left Santa Claus a pickle sandwich instead of the usual milk and cookies.

Years later I dated a girl very briefly. On our second date I found out that she didn't know Santa Claus wasn't real until she had her first child at 19. It was Christmas and her parents told her that she needed to get presents. I guess she didn't know Santa didn't bring them. That was enough for me. Bye bye.

It's ok to have the illusion to make the holiday fun for the kids, but it needs to be addressed by 5 years old at the max. It is, after all, an illusion.

One young sceptical Christmas I left Santa Claus a pickle sandwich instead of the usual milk and cookies.

Years later I dated a girl very briefly. On our second date I found out that she didn't know Santa Claus wasn't real until she had her first child at 19. It was Christmas and her parents told her that she needed to get presents. I guess she didn't know Santa didn't bring them. That was enough for me. Bye bye.

The way I see it (with no research done on the subject), letting your kids believe in stuff like that, and then finding out they’re not real, might be detrimental to their relationship with their parents. Children believe everything they’re parents say because they trust them. Then that trust goes away when they find out their parents were, I suppose, lying to them. Again, I haven’t done any research, this is just the way I see it.

I don’t see any problem with it. I don’t think I’ve met a single person who said they were displeased because of being told these things. If anything it may help them be more capable of seeing through other myths.

These articles point out for most it is not harmful, much like kids may believe Barney is real, but a minority of kids are adversely affected by finding out it was a lie. Given this, why take the chance, but I would say if you are going to go with it, you should probably tell them before starting school - and well before peer opinions start to shape how they perceive themselves.

On a side note, my daughter's believed, but my over zealous religious nut father told them it wasn't real b/c that is a lie and detracts from the real purpose of CHRISTmas (all the while ignoring how christian's stole the holiday and traditions from pagans). I however may not agree with my daughter's parenting decisions at times, but I respect her enough to allow her to be her child's parent. This is not biggie topic for me, but any other disagreement or advice is given in private, so as to not undermine her parental authority in front of grand-daughter.

[psychologytoday.com]

[psychcentral.com]

Enable the magic of childhood just as far as you can; they will remember it fondly in later years. No need to overthink it- In a healthy and enlightened home, the truth will out without harm and at the proper time.

You can use the Santa belief as a starting point to teach your kid skepticism. Let them figure out for themselves that their is no Santa, and they will develop critical thinking skills.

I don’t plan on teaching my kid about Santa, but if they happen to start Believing on their own I may ask them a few questions about . If they want to believe fine but I won’t along. If someone else wants to get them gifts from Santa that’s fine too. I don’t think it my place to tell them what to believe/ think but I don’t want to lie to them either.

[agnostic.com]

Oh, I don't mind it. I think belief in God is okay until you're about six too. And the tooth fairy.

You can raise kids to be creative, witty, fun loving, and striving to be their best. Why destroy their respect for you by lying to them?

I'm all for it..... I tell kids that all the time during the "season." Sheesh... some parents though! They get mad and call mall security on me!

When i found the empty chocolate marshmellow egg package in the trash I knew there was no easter bunny . All lies no Santa no Jesus . That was the day my world changed . I had a born again friend whose children were told that there was no santa. Every chlid is not treated the same by a santa screw santa .
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I think kids eventually find out for themselves. Same thing with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

I never thought Santa as a big deal until I saw how upset my son was when he found out he had been lied to. At that point, he questioned everything he had been told. I went for almost brutal honesty after that. If he didn’t want to know the truth, he didn’t ask.

I didn’t give it a second thought as a kid. I’m sure that I didn’t believe at an early age because all my friends got much more and expensive presents than I did. My brother believed for a long time because he thought my mom was too cheap to buy that much stuff and I didn’t tell him anything different because he seemed happy.

I think it's patronising to expect someone to believe something you tell them that you don't believe yourself.

Eventually kids realize the only thing they did care about was the presents, so a little fantasy growing up is actually a harmless memory

I think Santa is kinda fun. Our two children were brought up with belief in Santa, but they had a bit of churchy stuff, too (not my idea). I'm not sure how learning the truth affected them, but one is now an atheist and the other sort of — well, I dunno — certainly not churchy. I believed in Santa, and told a friend so about four days before my parents let me into the Big Secret. Embarrassing! (I had been told there was only one Santa, and the ones I encountered in department stores etc. were just 'pretend'.) Being told the truth about Santa was the beginning of my doubts about God, so in a way that was Good Thing. My mother believed in God and I went to church with my parents, though we didn't go every Sunday. I was never threatened with anything if I didn't believe in God. Neither of my parents believed in hell, and I later suspected my father was a closet atheist or agnostic. He never talked about religion, and my guess is that he had promised my mother that he wouldn't.

Wow that's a tough question. I personally talk about santa to my girls like most parents do but didnt emphasize things like flying reindeer or anything impossible for a man to do. I didnt really even like doing that but I'm only one of there two parents so compromises are made by almost all parents. When they started asking questions like how santa gets down the chimney or visits so many homes in one night i started slowly teaching them about the culture of the man and the reasons for the stories. My 8 year old daughter is still not sure what is real and what is fiction.every Christmas she asks new well thought out questions and I can see that I likely only have one more Christmas that I will have to struggle with this issue. Where I live it would not be the thing to do to just tell her it's all fake. Grand mothers and fathers,aunts uncles and friends and neighbors are all effected by the way a parent handles it. Atheism it not common or at least openly in the bible belt so for all concerned I choose to let them believe in the magical santa until I would have been forced to out and out lie to them about it. How many of us i wonder didn't believe in Santa ourselves as children? I personally can't remember anything before about 6 or 7 but I know my mother taught me about santa and I do not believe it affected me one way or the other. That is a vary good question for this forum.

I'm really against it, but since I don't have kids of my own, I have to go along with what other people want to tell their kids.
However, I have been in a position to talk to several kids right after they've found out that Santa Claus wasn't real. For some of them, it's a really hard realization, and they are pissed. One, because it's not real, and, two, because they were lied to about it.

I don't disapprove myself, but morally I don't like the idea of lying to my children just so they behave for a few weeks and don't appreciate the presents I worked to buy

I was always troubled by the "only good, well-behaved kids" got presents, especially the effect of that idea on kids in families too poor to provide presents. That being said, I treated Santa about the same as I treated other fairy tales although with presents. During one conference, I learned how to lasso and saddle reindeer and always claimed that qualified me to work with Santa.

I told my daughter Santa represents the spirit of good will and humanity and that is something to believe in even as she gets older. I would much rather her believe in Santa than any God. He is a celebration of kind heartedness and love for one another. Why not embrace that?