As a kid I always beleived the coil referred to a big spring, looking back it should have resolved all that ascension to heaven business.
Someone on Wikipedia had a nice userbox that summed up Santa Claus, some sort of a game to play that is ok to participate in, as long as we don’t try to push the “he’s real!” part too much.
I don’t intend to teach my kid anything about deities from a religious point of view, it’s bad enough that she’ll have that shoved down her throat at school (one good thing about her Mum being Protestant, their schools have less rubbish to throw at you than in a Catholic school.)
So I feel a bit guilty about the whole Santa Claus shenanigans. But I know at least that turning around and saying he doesn’t exist won’t cause as much fuss as saying that gods don’t.
If I had kids, I would tell them the truth about Santa, but I don’t have a problem with others doing the opposite. What I do have a problem with is flat-out lying when your kids start to have doubts and actually ask you the question. Letting your kids gradually figure out the truth for themselves is one thing; it encourages rational thinking and deduction, and lets you be proud of them when they gain enough confidence in their conclusion to announce to you that they don’t believe anymore.
Lying in order to “preserve the magic”, especially when your kid probably strongly suspects the truth anyway (IME dealing with small children, by the time they’re actively poking holes in your story, they’ve largely already figured out what’s up and are testing you moreso than the hypothesis) mostly just serves to teach that direct answers from mommy and daddy about the nature of reality can’t be trusted. Sure, it’s not going to make them need therapy later in life, but it’s just not a fun thing for a kid to try to reconcile at that age.
Now, this last part is coming purely from personal experience, so take it for whatever it’s worth, but…parents whose kids do believe, I implore you: when your kid does ask the question, if you don’t want to lie but don’t have the heart to let the cat out of the bag, PLEASE come up with something other than the line of B.S. about Santa existing as “the spirit of Christmas”, or “the kindness and joy of the season”, or “a feeling in your heart”, or other such nonsense. My mother did this, and I cannot begin to explain how very badly it pissed me off at the time…I knew the truth, she knew that I knew, and I knew that she knew, but she still refused to just answer the question directly. I can’t really articulate my mindset at the time to explain why it bothered me so much – at least, not without making this post much longer than it already is – but suffice it to say that it was a bad enough experience that, even today, I still go out of my way to ask parents not to do this.
The problem however is, for everyone who had a bad taste, there is someone else who was DELIGHTED that their parents never actually said “Santa’s a Fake” and did the “Santa is the spirit of Christmas” line.
Individuals react differently to different things. One person may resent that their parents ever introduced Santa - the next might resent that their parents never did.
When you have kids, you have to start scripting the story to the demenor of yourself and your kids - some parents are really good at this - others frankly suck. Some kids need to have the whole thing spelled out for them sometime before they become the laughingstock of their class - other kids will delight in finding out the secret - others will be crushed and never forgive you for lying in the first place. But if you are trying to avoid the last by not doing Santa - then you have to beware the child who feels cheated out of magical childhood experiences.
I do understand this, but considering that one is the truth and the other’s a disingenuous question dodge, I’d hope your child would be happier about the former. If not – and I agree with you that it’s a possibility – then it’s going to suck for them either way when they figure out the truth, so it might as well come sooner rather than later, and from a source they trust. I’ll turn to the old Sex Ed saying: would you rather they hear about it from the streets?
I get that…I probably should have been more specific. My point wasn’t that I think that all kids will react like I did; it was that once the jig is up, it’s up, regardless of how it’s received. I provided my own story as context for the opinion, but the actual reasoning is more to do with the second paragraph of my post. It had very little to do with the Santa issue specifically, and more to do with the parent’s refusal to acknowledge the child’s thinking as valid – not necessarily correct, but worthy of an actual response as opposed to a vague semi-sensical brushoff (made worse by the fact that I was already pretty sure I was right, but that’s the subjective part). I don’t think it’s a good way to handle ANY question from your kid; the “spirit of Christmas” bit is just the way that idea applies to the subject of the thread.
Permitting Magical Delight is good for children.
It’s not harmful to permit a period of Magical Delight–permitting a child totally innocent of scientific principles to believe in fairy tales, including Santa, without crushing the innocence on the spot with the appropriate science.
Among the reasons this is good for overall psychological development is that it lays a groundwork for the ability to feel a sense of wonder that is richer than the science itself.
I am not familiar with Frylock or his Mrs.
In GD I think the rule is not to call anyone names, so I am certainly not naming names, particularly for people I don’t know personally. Their associates would have to decide. Lovely folk, I am sure. Lovely.
I encourage you not to get too bent out of shape over my (or anyone else’s) use of hyperbole for the sake of making a point, but getting a little too bent is actually relevant to the point at hand, so I’ll comment on it.
There are people who insist that their child is going to learn The Scientific Truth from day one. No mystery. No fantasies. No ordinary childhood fairy tales without an immediate reminder that it’s not Fact. If you’re not familiar with the type and you think that’s a reasonable approach, you probably are the type. (Not you personally, of course)
Jerks? Hyperbole, because that’s an extreme end of the spectrum and it is a spectrum. How about flat? How about calling them people who get too bent out of shape over a kid Pretending, and robbing the kid of the natural joy of doing so?
See, it’s OK to pretend.
Nutcases? Dunno. As Mom told me many times: “All the world is crazy but you and me, and I am often very worried about you.” But I am always a little skeptical of folks who store away little childhood traumas and nurse them with such care they can be milked for a lifetime. It depends on the trauma of course. I guess I’d say that if you still remember the anguish of finding out Claus is a hoax, sumpin’ ain’t right. But to each his own. I remain secure in my opinion that one’s personal lifetime pain over the Santa Revelation is not a reason to rob the next child of the World of Make-believe when it comes to Santa. It’s an atypical response to carry the hurt for life and most kids have fun with the Santa thing when they are little.
Not my kids to raise, though.
I am not a psychologist specializing in childhood development. Raised a few of my own, and I have a little common sense–that’s about it. There are many out there eager to help you raise yours, however, should that be your preferred method of deciding how to raise your children.
I believe children NEED to be taught how to believe in things. In life we all learn about things and have things “disappoint” us. But just because the ending wasn’t what we wanted doesn’t mean we didn’t learn or benefit from that.
It’s like a magic show. Everyone knows it isn’t real, but it’s FUN if you allow yourself to believe.
Ever read a novel or see a movie and while you’re watching pretend your the hero?
Kids can have it pretty rough and they need to learn how to cope. Being able to sit back and lose themselves in a world of make believe will help them as they grow. Sure you want a balance, certainly they can’t live in make-believe but they need to know how to get there and back.
This is why adults are often so miserable, 'cause they can’t allow themselves any enjoyment unless it’s real.
A child will learn on his own Santa isn’t real, the love of her life is not the boy she thought he was and be better off for it in the long wrong. In the meantime the joy that had in believing should outweigh the reality.
Well, the feline has officially extricated the sac, at least for my 11 year old. Her teacher (grade 6) just made them write Santa Claus response letters to the grade ones at school.
So, she proudly announced to us yesterday that Santa is definitely not real. She was very proud of the fact that she now knows this. I asked her to please not spoil the magic for our 9 year old son, and so far she has been really good. In fact I think she feels more like a “grown-up” because she officially is in on the secret and he isn’t.
She’s been really, really accepting of this whole thing. “Like some fat guy in a red suit is going to come down your chimney and leave presents for you, riggghhht…”
See, it’s a right of passage into a new level of maturity. The Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy were similarly assassinated yesterday. God and Jesus remain: for now.
So, it’s okay if parents share with their children the experience of *pretending *that Santa exists, right?
I’ll pretend, then, that you are referring only to your own children when you say:
And, I’ll pretend that this is IMHO and not ask you for evidence for your claim about what’s good (or what’s necessary) for overall psychological development.
I’ll pretend that you are being sincere.
In any case, have a Merry Christmas, and make sure that Santa manufactures and delivers enough presents to help the retailers and the overall economy.
At what age, though, does it become kind of weird when a kid still believes? Leaffan, you said your daughter announced it, but did she already have some…inkling that it wasn’t true? It’s just kind of hard to believe that at 11, one wouldn’t be more skeptical. Someone else said in either this or another thread that some parents had a neighbor dress up as Santa and visit every year and their child didn’t know till age 12. I guess I just assumed that seven, maybe eight at the latest, was old enough.
Maybe I was deprived of a sense of wonderment (not being Christian helped!), but even if I had been, I can’t really conceive of believing in magic past that age. Maybe I was just too skeptical even then.
I was around 4 or 5 when I figured it out, mostly because I was learning math (Mom’s a math teacher) andit stopped making sense. Most kids in my class had figured it out sometime between 5 and 7 years old.
There was one girl who still believed in Santa Claus in fifth grade (age 10) and she got made fun of a lot for having not figured it out sooner.
My parents tried to raise me as a Christian, but it didn’t work. Not long after I figured out the Santa thing, I applied the same logic to god/Jesus, and successfully argued the right to not go to church anymore.
I have been an atheist ever since, and came out of the atheism closet during college.
I do remember believing in the tooth fairy, but I also vaguely remember writing her notes and getting one back (I don’t know, I guess I wanted some kind of proof), but at some point when I was seven (and I guess past the age of loose teeth), I just sort of…knew. It wasn’t really about the math (though that also doesn’t make sense), just somehow knew that the world didn’t have that kind of stuff in it. I do remember at that age just thinking it was odd that someone my age could believe in Santa. This sounds patronizing, but it was more quaint than anything else.
So do I. It was an awful blow. I brought my kids up knowing it was a nice story, fun, part of the Christmas idea. We aren’t Christians, either, and the baby in the manger is just another story about Christmas in our family.
Winterfest! Yule! Celebrate the Solstice! The Sun Returns!!! Whatever you call it, doesn’t every northern culture have this midwinter light festival?
Kids today may need the Santa fantasy more than ever, according to some experts. “In today’s world, filled with economic meltdowns and terrorist showdowns, kids need something magical – like Santa – to believe in,” said Dr. Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist on staff in UCLA’s department of psychiatry. http://blogs.abcnews.com/health_insider/2008/12/should-you-lie.html
You won’t have any problems finding a contrary opinion.
I suspect you’ll be disappointed finding good evidence on how to raise the babies.
Best wishes finding the right child psychologists up to which to hook your cart of children-raising principles. Even better wishes finding evidence-based guidelines. We don’t even get that very much in ordinary medicine, much less child-rearing psychology. My own approach to shrinks for kids is to at least make sure their own children aren’t goofy. Tough to do. Some of the nuttiest people I know, with the wackiest kids, are in the psych biz.
And as always, the chance to use my favorite tag line: Cite? I am the cite.
Santa is so obviously an anagram of Satan who is known as the master of all lies.
Santa encourages greed and all the by products of greed,like envy,theft,corruption and debt.
The poverty caused by debt alone leads to all sorts of Sociopathic acts and teaches children at a very young age that greed and avarice and the manipulation of others to satiate this greed is a desirable thing.
Santa also encourages gluttony.
Santa distracts people from the true meaning of Christmas,a celebration of a gods self sacrifice for humanitys sake.
Santa dresses in RED,the colour of blood and wears furlined robes,no doubt from killing endangered species in the cruellest possible way while he watched and HO HO HOED !
Santa is evil and all children no matter how young should be warned about him and his enticements…
