Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Santa, Tooth Fairy, etc.

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum, but have learned much just by "lurking"!

I have a quick question: My DD7, a new DYS, has been sort of obsessing about Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny lately. She found out about the Tooth Fairy in the spring from a friend. We told her, and from there it was just a slippery slope to Old Saint Nick. We'd always said when she was old enough to ask if he was "real," we'd tell her the truth, but maybe we 'fessed up too soon. She did ok with it for a while, but now, when she's really tired or upset, she starts to cry and wail. I mean, **really** cry and wail.

She did a similar thing last year about a moral issue--she was afraid she'd been mean to a little boy in her class, and whenever she was super tired or upset she'd relive the episode.
So it seems to DH and I that whatever she's obsessing about is less about the subject itself and more of a way to let out all of her intense feelings.

Anybody experienced similar? Any coping strategies (besides lots of cuddles and "I love yous")?

Thanks in advance!

Sometimes letting go hurts too much and people (children or adults) need to cry out a route to Goodbye. It occurs to me that this reaction is a way of saying "I can't accept this loss right now because <Santy><the Easter Bunny><my dog who died> might think I don't love him if I do, and I love him so much." Does that make sense? What I'm saying is that maybe, in this case, she's mourning a loss.

Some people feel things very deeply, and loss or pain that occurred in others can sometimes feel worse than one's own pain. Not physically worse, but emotionally. It's especially bad when the one who's suffering was defenseless and hadn't done anything to deserve the bad treatment.

Things like this are always worse when after a long or tiring day, or when there's a triggering event. For example, say a child is upset about the loss of a family pet and then someone mentions that the dog down the street is sick. The sick dog can trigger sadness about the family pet. So there would be two issues feeding into each other, with a net result of a synergistic effect on the emotions.

As for coping strategies, it might help to talk about keeping Santy in your heart. If everyone walks around with a bit of Santy inside, he'll always be with us in a way.

For future things like the past problem with the boy in school, she could make a hand-drawn card to say she's sorry. Or she could just be encouraged to say, "Joey, I think I was mean to you and I feel really rotten about it and I'm really sorry."

If it makes you feel any better, any child who feels so deeply will probably grow up to be a wonderful adult.

HTH,

Val

Hi Val,

WOW! That helps so much--thanks for the insightful post! It really makes sense to see this as her mourning a loss. I'd been so focused on whether we'd told her too early that I didn't stop to think that this could just be her coping mechanism, regardless of age.

I can imagine her feeling like if she just lets that childhood magic go, it'll be like she never loved Santa/Fairy/Bunny in the first place.

Thanks again for that help!
jenner

Lovely to read your advice Val!
Jenner, welcome! I think this is correct. Giftedness often goes hand in hand with being very very sensitive. This can be hard on the grown ups.

Smiles,
Grinity

My DS7 goes back and forth in his beliefs, but he said the funniest thing the other day, "Mommy, if you don't let me stay up late, I'm not going to believe in Santa anymore!!" He was wailing and emotional from being way too tired...yet it tied into his emotional feelings about Santa. Nan

I'm glad this topic came up, I was thinking of posting last week. I'm lost as well. Last year, my DS 5 asked asked me if there is really a Santa, or if the parents leave the gifts. I thought he had heard it from a kid at school. I asked him what he thought and he gave me a laundry list of logic reasons of why a jolly man in a sled couldn't possible carry that many presents. This year at 6 he told me that he believes that parents leave baskets at Easter and presents at Christmas for kids. My husband and I are split on this topic, my husband wants to draw out the belief as long as possible. I thought that as long as he asked then we could put it back on him by asking him what he believed. But when he told me he thought it was us a few weeks ago, I felt an obligation to gently let him in on the truth. I sort of danced around the whole spirit of Christmas and Santa is in our hearts, and I thought that might be the end of it for a while. But last week he started to cry and said that in Summer he doesn't believe in Santa, but when it gets closer to Christmas he does, and that he is afraid that if he doesn't believe, then he won't get presents (I think in part due to the well intentioned adults who have told him in the past that if he doesn't believe, then Santa just won't bring any gifts). I do feel strongly about being truthful with him, and I don't really see this any differently than other topics. But I think I may have to look at it another way, given the emotional investment he has obviously put into Santa. I'm curious to see what other say.

Obviously the first thing is to reassure him as much as it takes that he will get presents anyway, because you and DH like giving him presents! Would it work to tell him that you've been ambivalent about telling him the truth because your DH really likes the Santa story and enjoys pretending to be Santa when you bring the presents? You could then invite your DS to join you in *pretending* Santa is real, even though you all know it's a story really. In our house stocking presents are brought by Father-Christmas-nudge-nudge-wink-wink - we've never invited DS to believe that there really is such a person, but we still have fun with the story.

venture, I feel your pain. My older son started asking such questions at the age of 3-- he is a very skeptical little one and always has been. If I recall correctly, the very first reason for the questions was the mall Santa. My wife was the one who wanted to draw out the fiction in our case. Like you, I feel strongly that I should always be truthful with my kids.

We were having a conversation one day not long after that about lying; he had lied, I don't remember about what. I was explaining to him why lying is bad, and at one point told him I had never lied to him, then modified it slightly to say something similar to "Well, I've never lied to you about anything except to avoid hurting your feelings". Of course he had to get to the bottom of it then, and I told him. He was happy to know the truth and actually thanked me.

I will warn you that telling a little one about Santa may cause a backlash, and you may get a lot of judgmental comments from family and even total strangers.

The truthfulness issue has also caused us some stress regarding religion. I and my wife can't tell our son that we believe, but on the other hand don't want to discourage him from being religious either, and certainly want him to have respect for religious beliefs. You walk a fine line in dealing with these issues with a gifted child, and you walk it when your child is much younger and perhaps emotionally unready to hear the information.

I would tell him that the presents will still be given. If you think it will reassure him, tell him that misbehavior will still earn him a lump of coal.

Not to mention the stir at daycare when DC announces to all the other 3 year olds that their parents are all part of a giant conspiracy to trick and fool the children in an attempt to get good behavior out of them, by positing a magical spy network to monitor each child's misdeeds. Totally not fun! Not fun when he told the 4 year olds the next year, nor the 5 year olds the year after that.

Yeah, I'm one of the parents who drew a sigh of relief when the gradeskip finally came through!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Great discussion.

In our case, my daughter had been suspicious of the Tooth Fairy for a while. She asked me at some point as we were piling into the car, so I told her. Turned out she really was just testing me because she'd heard a friend say the Tooth Fairy wasn't real--what she'd really was expecting to hear was that the friend was wrong. Belatedly, a good friend told me you always say "What do YOU think," first, which I thought was very good advice.

I really like the advice to sort of wink-wink playalong idea, too. My DD has since lost a tooth, and she seemed to have fun pretending the Tooth Fairy would still come (and, of course, she didn't mind getting the dollar...).

(Grinity--that is really funny!)

Jenner, remind me that this is really funny in about 10 years - I'm currently still traumatized!

DS13 was totally serious and full of righteous indignation. But he did later admit that he used the information as a weapon against other kids when things weren't going his way. Ah Asynchronous Development!

My soon to be 4 yr old DD sounds a lot like your DD. We haven't had to deal with Santa, Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy yet, but we have had the issue of death including a pet and a grandmother. She obsesses over what would seem to me as minor situations with classmates just as you described with your DD as well as major things: death. I would have never aligned the two together before your post and the comments to it. Very eye opening for me. I would love to know if anything has eased her obsession and if you have found any useful coping methods.

Good suggestions. DS also asked about the tooth fairy and I answered, "Do you really think that parents could put money under pillows at night and NOT wake their kids up?" He didn't answer, but eyed me suspiciously. I think that because Christmas and Easter are some time away he has the luxury of time to contemplate their existence, whereas the tooth fairy seems to be making an appearance every month or so, and it hits closer to home, lol. We also put out holiday candy out for the Sugar Sprite, which surprisingly he has not questioned at all yet. Ah yes, obsessions. Don't get me started on fire safety covered in DS's kindergarten, and his resultant obsession with functioning smoke detectors in our home. My only suggestion is lots and lots of hugs and reassurance.

Grinity - my husband has pointed out that this could occur, and given that my DS can be less than subtle, it is a real possibility...hmmmm, something else to consider.

Katelyn'sMom--I totally hear what you're saying. My DD will churn over things that seem "minor" to me, but that clearly aren't to her. And then "major" stuff, too, like death. We tried seeing if she wanted to write down her feelings, but that was a definite no--too raw, I guess. So far the only thing that seems to work is to cuddle her until she's asleep (since these things only seem to come up when she's tired). By the morning, she's generally forgotten them. Interestingly, talking only seems to make it worse.

Grinity--I can see your point. I guess it's just your description that's funny, maybe because it's so evocative! I definitely feel for you, as I can see DD doing the same thing!

And now I'm afraid we might be going through something similar very soon--she's making her way through the Harry Potter series and is on book IV (?), in which Sirius Black dies. Her older sister said, "Boy, if that makes you sad, wait until you read Book V." DD just came down from being tucked into bed and said, "Mom, Dumbledore doesn't die, does he? Mom, just tell me now so I can go ahead and just be sad..."

My brilliant response? "Ummm, we'll talk about it in the morning..."

Sympathy! You're off by one in the volumes: it's HPV (Order of the Phoenix) where Sirius dies, and HPVI (Half-blood Prince) where Dumbledore does. And how do I know? Because DS6 has just steamed through HPI-IV and I'm trying hard to discourage him from reading on just yet, without outright forbidding it... He is not going to like Sirius's death at all - he's been filling in his holiday reading list with a sentence about each book, and they've been about Sirius since Sirius appeared.

You're talking about kids being upset about Sirius and Dumbledore?? I had to re-read those sections 10 times each to convince myself it was really true. No way they could be dead boo hoo hooooooooo.

More about Santa, etc: DS questioned the logic of Santa and Easter Bunny before he started school. Once everyone in school was talking about it, he seemed to accept it more. 1st grade was also when he came home talking about God (we are atheists and had described it as a myth) and told me we would go to "the bad place" if we didn't start believing! So I started taking him for religious education for him to learn his own way instead of having kids at school telling him what to believe. It's amazing to see a young kid come up with his own beliefs instead of just going along with what his family believes. I was raised a certain way and didn't question it until I was much older. Another interesting aspect of giftedness that I love! Nan

With HP, I was much more upset about Sirius and Dumbledore than DS5 was! I was shocked at how well he handled the whole series, since he still sleeps with a light on and is my just-like-mommy scaredy cat. Book 7 gets REALLY scary, I thought, esp. with George dying, but it does make you feel a little bit better about Dumbledore, doesn't it?

With Santa, etc, I accidentally blew it about the Easter Bunny this year by buying stickers and candy for the family egg hunt in front of him. He acted like it was no big deal at the time, but was very sad for the entire day. He recently lost his first two teeth, and even though I'm pretty sure his logical mind has figured out that her story has some problems, he's still into it. We've just made it fun by giving the tooth fairy a bit of a humorous cranky attitude in the letters that she leaves with the money. He's having a lot of fun with those.

I think DS also really wants to believe in Santa, so we're good for awhile. Since he knows all about St. Nicholas and we are also a reliigous family, I think he sees the parallels pretty clearly. Besides, don't we all still want to believe in the big guy? I remember being in college when my parents started making us lug our own presents from the basement to the tree after Midnight Mass. It was such a bummer to not see those presents magically appear on Christmas morning!!

Ok, so I didn't read the last HP book and am now sad lol Why did George have to die??? lol I need to get out more

And I'll admit, (nervously stands at front of class) I still lie to my kids about the tooth fairy and santa, at least they havn't told me yet that they found out, they are probably just stringing my along to make me feel better lol.