Serious Will you tell your kids about Santa Claus or not?

Kandy-Sugar

Kandy-Sugar

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Okay this has been something that's been on my mind for ages.

I really don't like how commercial the world is becoming with Christmas, Easter etc.

I have always done Christmas every year and was told about Santa Claus as a child but eventually everyone finds out that it's not true.

Steve doesn't celebrate Christmas and doesn't want us to tell our children that Santa Claus exists because he feels as though it's lying to them.

He believes that we should give them respect from day one and that we should be open and honest about everything and not make up stories.

We aren't planning on having kids anytime soon, but I sort of want to get an idea of what I plan to tell my kids. I don't want to figure it out after I have them.

It's hard, because I don't want to tell them 'Santa Claus doesn't exist, neither does the Easter Bunny etc', because I can see it being a problem during school with fellow classmates who will be being brought up with the knowledge that they DO exist.

I don't want my children to be outcasts and I don't want them to miss out on the magic of being a child, but I also don't want to bring them up to believe in something that isn't true and have them be angry with us when they find out. Even lose their trust.

It's all too confusing and I really wanted to know what you mothers and fathers of the forum think about it all and how you went about it, and what the people who have yet to have children think that they will do when it comes to this matter?
 
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I'm not a mother, but I'll voice my opinion anyway. :ryan:

I think for a kid it's okay. Kids have wild imaginations anyway and will come up with the craziest ideas. It's fun for a little while, to put that joy and a sense of wonderment in their hearts. Although it is true they will likely find out that Santa Clause is not real, the chances of them being scarred for life by it are slim.

The way I see it is because Santa Clause is so highly regarded in our culture they are obviously going to learn about him some way or another. One day your child is going to come up to you and ask you who the fat guy is in the red suit with the white beard. It's nearly impossible to escape him; that is, unless you live in bum-fuck nowhere with no media outlets and the most conservative school curriculum teaching ambiguous holiday activities instead.

However, I don't know what it is like there in Australia. I don't know what the cultural norm is for this kind of thing, though I do know that Santa is widely known across the globe. It's just a matter of how highly regarded he is in your part of the world. If you're going to be seeing him like he is plastered here everywhere in America, you better be damn well prepared to make up a good excuse for why Santa isn't real. xD Little kids especially won't understand the way we adults perceive reality.

Then again, you've got your own parenting style to consider. Some people are adamant about what they indoctrinate their kids with and every little detail of how they raise them. To be honest, I think there are more important things to worry about when raising a child instead of worrying you're going to break their tiny heart over a beloved figure of cheer and joy.
 
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I think what makes it more difficult for me is that, Steve does not want to do the whole Christmas thing, seeing as he used to be a Jehovah's Witness and is now accustomed to not celebrating anything really.

In Australia it's pretty much the same with Christmas. Santas all throughout shopping centres and peoples houses covered in lights.

It's also harder because when I take my kids to see Steve's family, they'll be on about Christmas and Easter etc and they won't have a bar of it.

Religions get in the way so much these days. v_v

[Moved to the Temple of The Ancients]

I think this is more suitable here now. >_<
 
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Well, you could always just not celebrate in the name of religion. I know I don't. I celebrate Christmas as a time of fun, warmth, a time to spend with my family and a time for giving. It would be an awesome time to teach your kids to give to the less fortunate. You don't always have to make a religious thing out of it because now-a-days people aren't doing it as much as you think.

Take Thanksgiving for instance. We don't celebrate the fact that we raped the Indian's of their land anymore. We celebrate the holiday to give thanks for everything. Old customs don't have to remain so. The good thing about being a parent in this day in age is that you get to decide how you want to raise your child.

One thing I'd also stress is that you should really sit down and have a heart to heart talk with Steve about the issue, and that means coming up with a fair solution for the matter. If each one of you have to sacrifice something, so be it - as long as you're not really sacrificing your own beliefs.

One thing a lot of people do is to compromise by being real with their children and raising them with all different choices. In the case of not wanting to tell your kid about Santa, you don't always have to tell them downright that he is real. But you could use it as a chance to teach your child about myths.

The bottom line is, if you want to respect your kids as you say you do, you should give them the choice in whether they want to believe or not. You don't have to sacrifice your beliefs, but think of it from all different approaches. Sometimes, I believe that parents are being too blind with their children and not as open minded as they could be. And that is where the child ends up suffering.
 
I have a godson who is like a son to me, so I do pretend for him that Father Christmas is real. Luckly his mates and younge brother believe as well, so I dont have to worry about anyone telling him othewise. Hes 7 and I believed in Father Christmas till I was 9 o 10, cant remember which. I see no harm in pretending to a child that something innocent and magical is real, it would break his heart if I told him now it all mum and dad. As he gets older, I think he'll stop believing and accept it, like I did.
 
If you would have asked me this question awhile ago, I would have said "No, I wouldn't lie to my kids about Santa Claus" but nowdays I think I would just to avoid the drama associated with truth telling.

I do agree that holidays these days are nothing more than splurging and such but I think some of the innocence in childhood revolves around that child's ability to imagine and BELIEVE that there is a jolly, old fat man in a red and white suit delivering them toys to play with on Christmas day.
 
It's a holiday, and I don't see anything wrong, with seeing kids eyes glow up when it's time for presents from Santa. I think it's a great holiday. The best one out there to be honest.

The lights, the whole christmas feeling, it's great. I think if anything, you miss out as a child, having your imagination taken away from you, and having to be told the harsh truth from the beginning, kids are kids. Let them enjoy being kids and teenagers, problems can wait till you're 18.

=/ I will tell my kids (When I get them, im not planning on being a mom anytime soon o_O) when I think it's time for it. In the time being though, I'll let them believe and feel like there's no worries in the world.

That's the job I take on as being a mom, in my honest opinion.
 
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Well I might tell them about it, but it will be merely a suggestion really. I mean I don't want my kid to be an early skeptic in life trying to debunk all the fairy tales. I kind of want my kid to fit in, until he/she is strong enough to think on their own.

I mean Christmas to me is most excellent, I just hate spending the copious amounts of cash though, to give the corporations their assets.

I should start Christmas shopping 7 months away in order to stop worrying about it. My kid will know Santa, and he will like as I did. That's all :jtc:
 
I will certainly tell my kids about Santa Claus. To a child, that adds another level of excitement to an already exciting time. Sure, you have to lie to them, but it's not like you're telling you're not really their parent when you've acted as though you are. It's a lie that's ultimately harmless that the child will understand when they get older. I'd rather not risk taking that element of excitement away from them.

I remember my parents saying things like "you gotta go to sleep, otherwise Santa won't come" or even just the stories of how he arrives through the chimney. It just leveled up the anticipation so much that you would be ready to burst! And I'm not taking that feeling away from my children. Even as a parent, it would be exciting to see my kids like that.
 
I think that is a very good question, and something I thought of a lot after my experiences in learning the truth.
I came to the decision that all children, unless the parents are both strongly against it, should be told that Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth-fairy etc all exist when they are young. As for telling them that they are false, I believe this should be handled delicately and when should depend on the character of the child, which you'll come to learn many years later. I’ve not figured out a gentle way to tell the child this yet though, and I guess there isn’t. There is always a risk it will upset the child, but my experience is that most won’t be too badly affected by it long-term.

I think some children may suffer from learning the truth, or at least it might greatly upset them for a time, if they are really imaginative and held it close to them. I was such a child myself really…. I was traumatised by being told that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth-fairy were all false. I genuinely believed they existed, and I was quite old when I was informed. I literally cried because they were three of my closest pals at the time. I used to write letters to the Tooth-fairy in particular, and she used to write back (AKA my mom writing really small :brooding:).

Unfortunately for me, learning of the false nature of these people was rapidly followed by the death of my grandparents on my moms side (both died within a short space of each other), and then also followed by my parents ceasing to go to church… This essentially threw my well sheltered child’s life into a very confused state. Everything I knew was suddenly a lie, and I assumed God was too, which meant to me at the same time that death = actual death, which made it harder for me to accept the death of my grandparents. Although I know my parents still believed in God, even though they didn’t attend church anymore, I certainly stopped truly believing from then on, though I always hold that I’d prefer to. Basically, my world was completely turned around, and this created huge trauma in my life which I’m only just accepting and deciding to move on from now, as from then on I pretty much went in on myself. I didn't complain or moan or cry after that, I just got on, but it made me a shadow of a person and I was incredibly lame, tbh. I used to be a happy kid that would talk to anyone and make loads of friends. In the years that were to follow, I was a loser and was silent, and it gradually got worse and worse as time went on and I didn’t do a thing about it.

Though obviously finding out that Santa is real isn’t to blame for all of that, I just think it was unfortunate that learning this was followed rapidly by that dreaded year of grief. An unfortunate coincidence more than anything, which led me to never really get over learning the truth, partly because it played a role (though I may have exagurated it in this post) in overturning everything I had known in my life up to that point, and I had some trouble dealing with it.

That said, I’m glad they did it. I mean I already stated above that I believe kids being truly upset about learning the truth will be very rare, and probably only affecting them when trauma is associated with learning this. I can imagine most kids would be able to just carry on after learning and still be happy kids etc. And I’m glad I was told to expect Santa. It was really exciting and I couldn’t wait for the morning, seeing the mince pie crumbs, and a half eaten carrot (my Dad playing the part of Santa and Rudolph in this), and then walking into a warm room with presents around the Christmas tree, with all its lights on. I really felt safe and comfortable believing in all that magic. We still try to emulate this today really, but it was so much better believing it had all came from Santa Claus’ magic.

I think imagination is quite crucial in a child’s upbringing, and Santa is one of those stories that helps the imagination run wild. They get really excited about Santa Claus, the anticipation is one of the best feelings of my childhood, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from any children. If it gets to the right point to tell them, unless they have already figured it out, I’ll have to figure a way out to tell them about the truth… However I can imagine most kids just wake up the next day and are over it. Some kids will just shrug it off and act as if they knew all along / some might have known before being told, but others might be a bit sad. It depends on the child really. All in all though, the magic may be gone, but then you grow to appreciate how much your parents care for you for doing that for you every year.


So... I say tell all kids about Santa if possible, but perhaps be more careful when deciding when to tell them that he is false.

If I was ever able to fool a woman to have a child by me, I'd certainly want to tell the child about Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth-fairy etc. I'd want to embrace my childs imagination, encourage them to be creative and to think amazing and magical things like I used to when I was a child. While I might have been a bit devastated when I discovered it was all untrue, I'd give anything to go back to that time when your mind was clear of all stress and you were just able to believe all these incredible things with all your heart.

When kids believe this stuff, and the joy it brings them, that is the true magic of Christmas.
 
I remember my mom playing along with it very well. She would sprinkle ashes from the fireplace in front of it, and she wrote me cards in red pen/cursive from "Santa". I remember being so amazed that Santa wrote me a note. It really was amazing how real it looked to me at the time though. We even watched the "Santa Tracker" on the weather channel. I think that the kids at school gave me the idea, and then when they found out, took it away. I wasn't mad at my mom though, I was about 10 and I think she assumed I knew. So now, I just get presents from her and my dad.

I don't think that a kid would be mad at their parents or lose trust in them. As long as they have a good relationship with the parents. I think I would just go along with the whole Santa thing. If I were to be a stay at home mom, I think around Christmas time I'd be reading them books on Santa Claus, and I know for a fact that my mom would push me into telling them, because she is so into the holidays it's ridiculous. You know that classmates are going to mention it to them, as well as the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny. I don't think I'll be using the tooth fairy one though, I never really believed in it myself and I don't see the point, really. But that's getting off topic.

All in all, I think I would tell them about Santa Claus, because it was really fun for me as a child. And it's still fun to go along with the story for my cousin, who loves to talk about Santa on Thanksgiving, because she's so excited about it. ^_^
 
I was actually talking to my friends about this yesterday strangely enough, because one of them said that she was never told about Santa and wishes she was. She had heard the other kids talking about him at school and asked her mum who he was and she said that it was just something that parents made up, and I thought this was so sad! Maybe it's because when I was younger, the whole magic of Christmas was because of the idea of santa coming. I just have such good memories of leaving cookies and carrots out for santa and his reindeer and being so excited when I saw they had been eaten in the morning, and lying in bed on Christmas eve not being able to sleep and hearing shuffling outside, and my sister and I whispering 'It's santa!!!' when really it was just my parents getting presents out of the cupboard. And then waking up on Christmas morning at 5am to see if Santa had been, and seeing the sparkle of the wrapping paper when we went into the living room and getting so excited.... It just made Christmas all the more magical and if I have kids I wouldn't want them to miss out on all of that. And as Dee quite rightly pointed out, I don't know anybody who is scarred for life after finding out santa isn't real. In fact I don't even remember an exact day I found out he wasn't real, i think it was just a gradual realisation as I got older...
 
.......................................................

OMG!!! You lied to me mother! How could you?! Santa isn't bringing me that "thing"?

I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!

Okay, well, my parents never made me believe Santa was real. They did tell me stories. But they always referred to it as a story. So for some reason I never actually believed he was real. Its hard to explain. Would I tell my kids Santa is real? I don't know, maybe. I might be ruining the fun for the if I didn't. What would happen if my kids went up to other kids telling them Santa wasn't real? Crushing their dreams because I didn't tell a harmless lie to my kids?

Its like the tooth fairy. Once you're old enough... you know it isn't real and it doesn't bother you I guess. So I would probably tell stories of Santa to my kids... only because it seems like a lot of fun. I wouldn't think of it as lying. My parents never had to tell me "We lied Beth, Santa isn't real." I just... kinda figured it out... Maybe it was easier for me though because I always thought of it as kind of a story anyway.

Just my opinion though =^.^=
 
i dont think its something you can stop kids finding out about/believing in, because of school, and other kids and wotnot, so question is will you tell them he isnt real rather than about him in general i guess

its just harmless fun really and i dont think its causing any lasting damage finding out he isnt real. i cant say it affected me thatmuch finding out, as long as i was still getting my prezzies... infact my mum was more annoyed because i must have been all f about 4/5 and my childminder told me he wasnt real, she was furious hahaha

anyway, i dont think its aproblem them beliving instuff like that for afew years, i think it kinda takes the magic away abit never believing, its cute to believe in that stuf for a while andlet your imagination run with thoughts of santa and fairies and shit
 
don't really know, mean can understand what Steve could be thinking in some regions (some..) telling the truth can be seen as really important and telling the truth within family is really important too. In reglion lies can be seen as something deep because they can be painful to other people, and can possibly ruin friendships and break apart Families..

Was kind of thinking the same as him, tell kids the truth about Santa and not get warped into the lies of Santa Claus, but then again there is the other side where the child could tell other children at school and seen as somebody who is terrible because he broke the other children's dreams that believe in Santa Claus. Santa Claus is viewed as a magical fantasy and some parents like the idea of Santa Claus, because it fulls up their imaginations and makes Christmas more exciting for them. Don't like the idea of Santa because it's just a little hypercritical, we tell our children- Don't Lie, Don't make up ridiculous stories, Don't trick other people into something that is not right and here we come along with " Here come Santa Claus, he is a real man who works with reindeer and lives miles away !".

If you tell your kids about the truth of Santa being a fake straight away, it's probably going to be a hard road. There is always the risk of him telling children that Santa is pretend and end up destroying their fantasies, which could be viewed as very bad. Though if maybe you explain your reasons why you are being different and not letting your child believe in the myth of Santa, then he could become a stronger child throughout ?, he could learn to tell the truth at a very young age, and he could learn to respect other people's beliefs and ideas, and he could learn to respect your parenthood.

But this is just a personal opinion, there is the other view that your child could become weaker if he isn't told about Santa because Christmas could be dull/ boring for them and they are growing up with nothing to look forward towards. And believe that without growing up with Santa the magic of Christmas is dead for them, in a way/ sense ?.

But yeah, would prefer to be fair to the child and not feel guilty about telling them lessons to not make false stories, and not to tell lies to other people and then turn around and create stories about the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus..
 
I would tell my kids Saint Nicholas is real. Santa is a thing every kid should experience, and I believe that it is in a sense a right as a child to believe in Santa. I mean, in the harsh world we live in, might as well give them hope in some form, something indestructable and well meant.

At least until they find out he is not real.

But than again, Santa is more than the fat man in the red suit who gives good children presents, he is a shining spirit of hope. Santa is an idea, in his true form, that gives a sense of innocence to children and allows people to come together under the thought of universal well being and what not.

In fact, the entire season is the same. Everyone should be able to live in happiness during this time of the year, everyone should realize that the point of this time of the year is not the gifts, but the love and hope that comes with the season. Everyone should love one another.

Except the Jews....

just kidding about the jews. Happy Holidays Everyone.
 
Well I had to belive in Santa or no presents...even when I'm 17 I won't say he doesn't exist
 
Actually, I was among the few kids at kindergarden who knew that Santa Claus was indeed fake. Of course, I kept it to myself since I rarely talked to others and well, usually I couldn't be arsed to prove them wrong. We can say that I skipped the "innocence" part of childhood because I was very skeptical in believing other stories such as the "Boogeyman", and the "Tooth Fairy" (actually I discovered by myself that the Tooth Fairy never existed since I caught my mom putting a quarter under my pillow when I lost my first tooth). I believe now that thanks to this, I am not easily amazed and have this urge to question everything and not belief simply by faith, though I give a 50-50% chance of truth to things I can not prove false.

Perhaps this the reason why I do not feel different in this time of year, or any time. A month like any other...but only a bit colder.

But to answer the question: it depends whether or not I can fully master the art of lying to someone while staring right at their eyes. Besides, kids are hard to fool these days, I guess that now the world has suddenly become numb.
 
I as a kid quite enjoyed Christmas and was told about "Santa Claus" It's totally up to you but, imo, Santa represented the joy in Christmas holiday. It brought my family closer. And hey, if you do tell your kids about santa maybe that will make them behave better. :wacky: But on a more serious note, When I decide to have kids i'm going to tell them about santa...When I found out I wasn't really mad at my parent's but it was deff. different the following year. When I was younger my parent's didnt wrap the prezzies on xmas day and thats how i kinda caught up to it. It's not all about santa because either way it's about giving and spending quality time with your kids and family. And after I found that out that's what my feelings were.. I was pretty selfish back then and thought santa was kindof a tool just to get more gifts. :/ sounds horrible, i know but as a kid I enjoyed every moment of it. All the excitment all boiled up and my bros, sis and I would wake up early just because thats how excited we were. I'm glad that my parent's told me about santa... because really santa was my parent's and I think that's the reason I wasn't mad at them. After all, they were just thinking of us. Went out of their way to take money outta their pockets to get my siblings gifts. Actually brought me and my parent's closer. =] Hope that helped ya out...
 
Of course I will; he never did me nor anyone I know any harm, so I see no reason to stop the tradition with our generation.

...then again, I'm overweight and I once drove over the speed limit - maybe Santa DID influence me, after all! :ohshit:
 
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