Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to handle the Santa issue?

FWIW, we never told any of our kids. Our daughter (6) still believes. DS10 and DS8 figured it out together a couple years ago. Neither of them felt lied to or anything negative; they were more bummed out that it was true.

Also FWIW, I figured it out when I was 7 or 8, and I never felt lied to. For me, figuring it out was just part of growing up.

Val

I think that's a good point. The OP's son is almost certainly not going to feel betrayed. Although he might feel awful for a little while, that's also not a given.

every kids different and it'll come out when they get curious enough to want to know. My oldest said she knew for a while but didn't want santa to stop comming so she insisited she still believed, I think even now at 26 she would tell me she still believes,lol...dd7 figured it out because she never believed there was a tooth fairy, so if there's no tooth fairy there's no santa, she keeps it up for dd6 who still does. Best wishes...

My oldest DD didn't have problems with the whole thing when she figured it out around 11 or so but my youngest DD was totally devastated and couldn't get past the fact that we'd lied to her. We tried to explain that the concept of Santa was just a sort of symbol of the spirit of giving and it was just supposed to be a fun thing but she seemed really upset for a long time (about the deceit and hypocrisy of our teaching that lying is wrong and then pulling out this ludicrous whopper), I think it also started a line of questioning what else we may have lied about or may still be lying about and it stemmed a bit of a mistrust of adults in general. It killed me because I never felt too good about the charade in the first place but I didn't want my kids to miss out on the fun or ruin it for others. She's over it now at 17 (I'm pretty sure). I am curious to see what she does if she has kids.
On another note, I was glad when they finally did figure it out though because it really started to get hard to stay awake later than them and I got a bit tired of not getting credit for the toys ;-)

Thanks, everyone! You've all been really helpful. I think I'm going to just let him figure it out on his own - but I'm not going to push the issue of Santa. (For example, if he gets in trouble I'm no longer going to warn him that Santa is watching). And if he gets angry with me when he figures it out, I may just have to apologize to him. But we'll deal with that when it happens.

I was thinking this morning about the December impact on kids behavior (good cuz they think Santa is watching). I think it carries over to our newspaper delivery person, who has precisely placed the newspaper in the correct spot on our doorstep every day for the last week (as opposed to in the snowy bushes, which was frequent in November). It must be Christmas/tip time

Interesting Thread. We have never told our children that Santa is real and never played it up much. We have read stories about Santa and watched a couple movies. We did wrap a couple presents with Santa's name on it, but that was it. DS6 never asked or talked about it until last year. Recently he told me that he does believe in Santa, but does not believe in the whole flying reindeer thing and knows that is not possible. He somehow thinks that Santa goes around in a plane or rocket. He clearly does believe in the Santa part though. I am a little concerned because he is in a class with 4th graders and also around older kids for some things he is involved in. I am sure someone will tell him Santa's not real. My answer will be some believe in Santa and some don't. DD3 has recently started asking questions about Santa. Also, we have never gone to the mall to sit on Santa's lap, and he knows that people dress up as santa. We don't do the easter bunny thing and he is pretty questioning of the whole tooth fairy thing too. This year he decided to get a present for Santa and put it under the tree (a hat for one of santa's elves because he figures that they can use it and pointed out that poor santa never gets presents). We only do one or 2 presents from Santa and the rest are from us and the kids know that anyhow. And never have I told them about being good for Santa, I am a fan of behaving because you should and it is respectful...not because Santa might not give you presents.

Growing up my parents never told me Santa was real...but I had that desire to believe so I did. I think a lot of kids just love to believe and pretend. I work with 4 and 5 year olds all day and it is amazing how much they want to pretend and believe things!

I do think that kids behave better when they believe that 'someone' is watching them. Is it worth doing - I don't know.
I was raised with the idea that everyone was watching me, and I behaved pretty well. I consiously avoided planing that idea in my son - going for the more abstract, "You are watching you; Choosing well today with small challenges helps you choose well tomorrow when the challenges are larger."
I think even with his PGness, it was still too abstract for him -or perhaps it worked really well but we'll have to wait 15 more years to see it. There is something reasuring about small children behaving well that I certianly missed out on. It sure disinclines me to judge other people's parenting!
((shrugs and more shrugs))
Grinity

That is so sweet! Yummy!

DS8 just asked me yesterday what he ought to get for Santa this year. Since he's never gotten Santa anything before, I'm not sure what he has in mind! We do leave cookies for Santa, but not gifts. On the other hand, he ran around at DD4's Christmas program telling everyone that Santa (who paid a visit after the singing and handed out little gifts) was his dad, which was true but also not very helpful, LOL!

In my family, we keep Santa going for as long as there is someone who wants to believe -- and since that includes me, it's going to be a while!

Last year, I told DS8 that once you don't believe in Santa, you get to be Santa for the littler ones such as DD4, and he seemed likely to be giving it up at that point, but then he hedged his bets and came back around. I think he's still on the fence this year.