How old were your kids when they figured out the truth about Santa?

My kids are 10 & 12. I learned, this year, that my daughter (12) no longer believes in Santa. My son? Yeah, probably. We haven’t discussed it.

I tried to talk about this with my daughter, but she refuses to participate in the discussion. I guess it makes her uncomfortable. So, I don’t know if this is a recent development, or if she’s known for a couple years.

How about your kids?

  1. My wife made me do thisto my son.

Going into 6th grade, he would mention Santa bringing this or that, and my wife said we just couldn’t send him to middle school running his mouth about Santa. They’ll tease him, punch him, nickname him Santa - all the things that mean kids do to pick on someone.

We told ourselves that he most likely knew, but we had to be sure.

I grudgingly agreed to break the news one night at bedtime. As I gently explained about the tradition, and came to the part where Mom and Dad are actually Santa and he would help carry on the tradition for his sister, tears started rolling down his face. HE DIDN’T KNOW! :smack: I wanted to jump off the Chrysler Building right then.

His delicate little boy heart was breaking, and I was the one doing it. Sorry kid. Childhood is over. You start in the coal mines tomorrow.

He got over it as kids do, but I never have. I held him as he cried, apologized for an hour, and planned how to make my wife’s death look like an accident! :cool:

Don’t do it. Let nature take its course. Then the mean kids at school get blamed, NOT YOU!

Oh man, that is one funny and sad story right there!

My kids figured it out when they were maybe 10 or 11? They’re 15 and 17 now, so I’m not 100% sure.

:eek:

Our kids are 2.5 years, 14 months, and 14 months. You have just validated our decision never to tell them about Santa is real in the first place.

Every year, my husband starts down the same road your wife did. Every year, since my oldest was about 7. And this is a kid driven by logic and critical thinking. If she says she believes in Santa, it’s because she wants to believe in Santa. I am not going to be the one to destroy her need to hang on to some innocent childhood beliefs (and I know her well enough to know that’s what is going on).

Winston, my kids are 10 and 12. Letters to Santa posted today.

I don’t know. He’s 16 now, so I’m pretty sure he knows ‘the truth’…but we never told him that Santa wasn’t real, and he never told us that he’d ‘figured it out’.

If anyone asks, I still believe…after all, I keep getting gifts from him…

My daughters are 12 and 8. I am not sure if either or both of them really believe in Santa but they are pretty good actors if they don’t. They also seem to believe in the Elf on a Shelf (a smallish Christmas doll that moves around the house at random to watch for bad behavior and report back to Santa). I can’t remember ah-ha! moment when I stopped believing in Santa. Things just didn’t quite add up over time so I slowly understood what the real deal was. No harm was done but I was 7 or 8 at the most when I understood it just fine.

I guess they found out early on, but I’m not real sure, except for my daughter. She was in her 5th or 6th grade class and the teacher said something about her neighbor’s child who “actually still believes that there is a Santa Claus.” All the other kids were laughing except for my daughter, who sat there in shock. :frowning:

My daughter was six. When she was five, she had an utter belief in Santa and even wanted to tell on a couple of kids at the bus stop who told her he didn’t exist.

When she was six, though, it was “Santa this” and “Santa that” and “When will he come?” and “Let’s be sure to leave out cookies.” We really enjoyed it being her last year to believe.

Then, on Christmas Eve, as I was tucking her into bed, she got a very worried look on her face and asked, “Daddy, is it OK to pretend to believe in Santa?”

I told her it was OK and left the room.

It was perhaps the sweetest moment of my fatherhood.

We have 3 sons.The oldest figured it out enough to ask the question when he was 7 or so. The understanding was, as long as he did not spoil it for his younger brother (4) he would still get Santa presents. The younger figured it out about the same time, though it was kind of a non-issue.
Flash forward, and our new addition confronts me when he was 5 or 6. I remember this because it was traumatic. His mom and I were in the computer nook, and he toddled in. He asked us, 'Mommy, Daddy, are you Santa?"

My wife was shocked, and asked him where he had gotten such an idea. He pulled out a gift tag addressed from Santa, and told us that it looked like his mom’s handwriting. He then produced a scrap of wrapping paper that had been used to wrap Santa gifts, noting that he had found it under our bed. Finally, he told us that he figured the reason we set out tea and brownies for “Santa” (note the air quotes, ladies and gentlemen) was that I was lactose intolerant.

We held his gaze, held strong. And then he looked at me and told me it was okay to tell the truth., that I wasn’t a liar…

I cracked. I admit it freely, without shame.

Stonebow, that story is even more funny and touching than ducati’s. Y’all both have some fantastic families, I reckon.

My older son was nearly seven when he told me he’d figured out the whole Santa thing. I asked him to not spoil it for his baby brother, who was almost one. And for a couple of years he was an enthusiastic Santa-pusher.

Not sure when my younger son stopped believing, but I suspect it was about the same age. He never said anything, just around 7 or 8 I saw some little changes that made it clear he was going along with the game because it was fun, not because he believed.

I’m not sure we ever had a discussion. However, one day as I was driving them to school, we were listening to an audiobook in the car (Superfudge, by Judy Blume) and the characters in the book started talking about how they knew the truth about Santa!

:eek: click “Hey, y’all want to listen to some music for a while?”

never mind

Wow, I had no idea kids believed in Santa until so late. I figured it out at around age 5 (I distinctly remember being tactful around the adults at my aunt’s house, because I did not want to disappoint them with my lack of belief) and secretly thought my son was a bit slow when it took him until age 6 to observe that Santa was implausible. Based on this thread I guess that’s actually pretty young.

When my kids were about 6 and 8, one Christmas, there was a huge factory fire near our home. I saw about it on the news, threw the kids in the car and drove them over there.

I told them, “This is Santa’s secret workshop but from the look of things he and all the elves, including the crap one played by Will Ferrell, are totally fucked. But we will continue the tradition of gifts from Santa but never mention him again as he is dead.”

They seemed to understand and never mentioned Santa again. In fact that never spoke to me again. Kids, who can work them out?

I was 5 or at the most 6. I’m a bit resentful of this, actually, because I only had about two years with Santa. I came over from India in 1979, which makes me four years old. As soon as I got to school, some pedantic future Doper decided I needed to know the “truth”.

It’s funny, it’s actually one of my oldest memories, as I retain no memories from India at all. I remember my kindergarten teacher, and I remember the jerk who told me there was no Santa.

Around 8 or 9, I think. There was a period of a few years where I think he knew the truth but was afraid that if he let on that he knew, he wouldn’t get the fun “Santa” presents and would be left with socks and underwear under the tree. By age 10 we asked him and he said he knew it was us.

Haha, when my son was in that “Does he know or doesn’t he?” period, we rented Gremlins since my wife had never seen it. Fortunately I remembered Phoebe Cate’s “…and that’s how I learned there was no Santas Claus” speech before she started and fast forwarded through that part.

Microwaved gremlins were fine, but no Santa-Dad caught in the chimney, thankyouverymuch!

The Nephew turned 9 in October; a couple of weeks ago he told my mother that he had to ask her a question but she had to promise she’d give him a straight answer. The question was whether the Magi were the parents. She gave our family’s standard answer of “no, it’s the people who know - so now that you know, you can be among those giving presents too!” (Very common technique, leading to some extremely intense sibling arguments over who gets to be which Magus).

He’d actually figured it our last year, but! As I said, his birthday is in October. There was a toy he wanted and had been told it was very expensive, too expensive for a birthday gift, he’d be getting it for Christmas. He reasoned “if it turns out that it really is the parents, then if I ask and it really is them, then the budget suddenly shrinks from Heaven-sized to not enough and I won’t get that present.” So oh yeah he totally totally totally believed! Yep! Sure! Can I get my present now?

His mother (who’s got some serious control issues) was mad at my mother for answering, because she “was already planning on telling him and was looking for the appropriate way to do it”. Considering how many times she’s told him about some issue in ways that left the poor mite throughly confused, I’m very glad he asked Mom!