10 & 11 year old believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy

[Erich]

My experience concerning these things is that the kids who believe longer than their other little friends know which side their bread is buttered on.

It may be that their belief is little more than convenient playing-along. I’m in my mid 30s and I’d “believe” in Santa Claus if he kepy bringing me presents!

I think kids suspect there is no Santa or Tooth Fairy for a while, but they don’t say anything because if they don’t play along they don’t get presents or money.

The child gave up believing a long time ago but they play along because Mom or Dad get such a thrill out of the ritual.

All these comments reminds me of the following:

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it.”

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”

The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar.

“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!”

Later, the customer leaves, and sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. He asks. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?”

The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game’s over!”

 

[TheRealJuliane]

All these comments reminds me of the following:

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it.”

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”

The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar.

“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!”

Later, the customer leaves, and sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. He asks. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?”

The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game’s over!”

Beautiful!!!

:clapping::clapping::yup:

 

[EasterJoy]

All these comments reminds me of the following:

A young boy enters a barber shop and the barber whispers to his customer, “This is the dumbest kid in the world. Watch while I prove it.”

The barber puts a dollar bill in one hand and two quarters in the other, then calls the boy over and asks, “Which do you want, son?”

The boy takes the quarters and leaves the dollar.

“What did I tell you?” said the barber. “That kid never learns!”

Later, the customer leaves, and sees the same young boy coming out of the ice cream store. He asks. “Hey, son! May I ask you a question? Why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar bill?”

The boy licked his cone and replied, “Because the day I take the dollar, the game’s over!”

*That *is classic!!!

The main thing is that it bad idea to make a big deal out of it, to not embarrass the child about it one way or the other. That is what would be remembered, looking back.

 

[Cat]

So let’s see: Based on some of the opinions in this thread, my bishop is in grave error and giving scandal when, at the end of his annual Christmas Eve children’s Mass, he talks about Santa and distributes chocolate lollipops molded in the image of Santa. Do I have that right?

No, you don’t have it right.

It’s one thing to “play” and “pretend.”

It’s another thing to teach a myth as fact.

According to my reading of the OP, the older children in question were not “pretending” with their parents. They were and still are taught as fact that Santa Claus (and the tooth fairy) exist.

I think that’s something that many of the responders in this thread are missing. Yes, I agree, certainly most children “figure it out” and many continue to play along with the fun myth for years, even into adulthood. Our family does this, too. Good heavens, my family has German ancestry and we Germans invented the fairy tale!

I talk to the bacteria that grow on the petri plates in my hospital lab!

But I don’t expect the bacteria to answer me. That’s important. The day the bacteria talk back to me is the day when I will be leaving my job and heading up to the fourth floor in our hospital for a happy stay in the “Mental Health” unit.

According to my reading of the OP, the children in question are not just “pretending.” The girl is expecting a visit from Santa while she stays with the OP. That’s not pretending.

Now of course, I may very well be mis-reading the OP, and if so, then what I am saying doesn’t apply. I assume that the OP will eventually step back into the thread and make any clarifications.

Are you all telling me that you think it’s OK for a 5th grader and a middle schooler to believe–for REAL, not just pretend–that Santa exists?

My response to that is, “No wonder so many Catholics don’t believe in the True Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.”

The children in the OP are not little ones. The girl is in 5th grade and pre-pubescent. (I started my periods in 5th grade). The boy is in middle school–that means young teen or close to it.

I stand by my original post.

And yes, I still stand by my statement that this borders on abuse. It is abusive of parents to not allow their children to experience normal maturation processes. In other words, it’s not normal for older children to believe–for real–in Santa Claus.

Arresting a child’s development may result in the child’s isolation from their peers, and although perhaps some of you think this is a good thing, it really isn’t, unless your family lives in a bubble and never associates with anyone outside of that bubble. There are families in the home-school movement who do just that–never associate with anyone who might “contaminate” them or their children. Well, that’s fine, as long as they have a way to support themselves. Live and let live.

But I’m assuming that’s not the case with the family in the OP, as they are asking the OP to take their children over the holidays.

When parents arrest a child’s development, this could cause a crippling of a child’s social development which may cause problems for the rest of the child’s life. To put it bluntly, the child becomes a social nerd/geek/square/weirdo/whatever the current term is.

Although most children are willing to accept differences in other children, many normal, Christian, kind-hearted, friendly children will feel very uncomfortable around another child who has an absolute belief in the reality of Santa and the tooth fairy.

St. Therese of Lisieux lived over a century ago. Times have changed since then, like it or not. Although it is commendable to try to allow our children to remain innocent and childlike for as long as possible, the times we live in make it important for us to help our children to grow up with the social skills that they will need to function and even survive in a high-tech, fast-paced world in which the majority of people do not believe in the God of Christianity.

Our job as parents is not to try to keep our children children forever. Our job as parents is to help our children to grow up to become well-adjusted and reasonably happy and healthy adults. I know that’s hard–all of us love our little ones and want them to stay little forever. But they have to grow up and we have to help them. Teaching them that Santa is real, REALLY real, is not a good parenting tool to help a child grow up normal.

One more thing, and I hate to tell you this but… (spoiler alert)…
…Miracle on 34th Street is just a movie. As lovely as it is, It’s not real, everyone. Sorry.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

…Miracle on 34th Street is just a movie. As lovely as it is, It’s not real, everyone. Sorry.

Then who does USPS send all those Santa letters to then? Gotcha now smart guy!

 

[maryjk]

According to my reading of the OP, the older children in question were not “pretending” with their parents. They were and still are taught as fact that Santa Claus (and the tooth fairy) exist.

I think it is impossible to guess what the parents have told the children in the OP. We got a few sentences of information from someone that didn’t allow their children to play the Santa game. I don’t think what they posted is the full story.

 

[1inICXC]

My experience concerning these things is that the kids who believe longer than their other little friends know which side their bread is buttered on. The kids who believe a long time aren’t the stupid ones. They don’t care who they impress and they are too smart to pay the price of jumping into cynicism before they have to. Others are very sensitive, and take great delight in these little customs far later in life than their peers do. You aren’t being asked to “participate” so much as you’re being asked not to be a spoilsport. What exactly is the harm in that? How does it hurt you, exactly? I’m hard-pressed to think of how this would harm you. Really. Fifty years from now, you’ll be remembered as the person who just had to spoil the fun under the auspices of “doing the right thing”.

The rest of my experience says that getting into this question is getting between the bear and her cubs. Do not go there. These people are not teaching their kids to worship the devil. Stay out of it…but also do not be surprised if you get a knowing wink from one of those two kids! You’d have to be a real Scrooge to spoil this racket!

Also, consider that Thérèse of Lisieux was indulged by her older sisters with Christmas customs usually reserved for much younger children until she was 14. It is a famous story; you ought to look it up some time. Less than 18 months later, she was a Carmelite. Insert yourself into that story when Thérèse was 10, and you’re not exactly a hero. The parents of these children you know may know things about their children that you don’t. Any harm you do by taking this decision upon yourself cannot be undone. The harm you do by saying nothing is…what? Please accept that possibility, and leave them alone. It won’t hurt you. Butting in when your opinion was not solicited might really harm your relationship with these folks, though.

I don’t think I have ever disagreed with you, EJ, before but there’s a first time for everything.

I was that kid in grade 3, the only one who still believed in Santa Clause. I was standing up to my whole grade defending that belief. You know what happened when I found out it was all a systematic lie on behalf of my parents? I started to doubt EVERYTHING they taught me, I went into the: are angels real, is God real was that story about so and so real? It broke my trust more than any other experience with my parents. I was so angry, sad, disappointed. It was horrible.

You know what was even worse? I started doubting myself. Every single time I had a group of people disagree with my opinion I remembered how stupid and blindsided I was in defending Santa Clause and I was fearing I was pulling another one of those and would eventually just shut up. I felt stupid and duped for a long, long time afterwards.

This is all VERY damaging. We chose to not lie to our children, We chose to make Christmas fun and amazing for what it really is, Christ’s Birthday!!! Why in the world do we need Santa, and precisely at Christmas, to make one of the greatest feasts of Christianity happy?! Why would lying, and this kind of well thought-out, orchestrated and acted-out lie, be ok when our children are young? Is that how we build their trust, by getting them to believe something great only to let them down when they’re “old enough”?

Unfortunately, I am by no means the only person who experienced broken trust, anger and deception when we were told the truth. I keep my mouth shut when it’s around other kids, and asked the children to do the same, but by no means would I ever particpate in this deceptive game.

OP, I agree, tell the parents it’s time they sorted it out…and brace themselves for what’s to come…though, honestly, I imagine both know from their peers that this is all a lie, or at least, I HOPE.
While some seem to have craftly managed to create and involve this made-up character in their children’s lives without causing the child to have trust issues, for those parents who let it go on too long, I believe that it is very unlikely for things to play themselves out this way.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

I don’t think I have ever disagreed with you, EJ, before but there’s a first time for everything.

I was that kid in grade 3, the only one who still believed in Santa Clause. I was standing up to my whole grade defending that belief. You know what happened when I found out it was all a systematic lie on behalf of my parents? I started to doubt EVERYTHING they taught me, I went into the: are angels real, is God real was that story about so and so real? It broke my trust more than any other experience with my parents. I was so angry, sad, disappointed. It was horrible.

You know what was even worse? I started doubting myself. Every single time I had a group of people disagree with my opinion I remembered how stupid and blindsided I was in defending Santa Clause and I was fearing I was pulling another one of those and would eventually just shut up. I felt stupid and duped for a long, long time afterwards.

This is all VERY damaging. We chose to not lie to our children, We chose to make Christmas fun and amazing for what it really is, Christ’s Birthday!!! Why in the world do we need Santa, and precisely at Christmas, to make one of the greatest feasts of Christianity happy?! Why would lying, and this kind of well thought-out, orchestrated and acted-out lie, be ok when our children are young? Is that how we build their trust, by getting them to believe something great only to let them down when they’re “old enough”?

Unfortunately, I am by no means the only person who experienced broken trust, anger and deception when we were told the truth. I keep my mouth shut when it’s around other kids, and asked the children to do the same, but by no means would I ever particpate in this deceptive game.

OP, I agree, tell the parents it’s time they sorted it out…and brace themselves for what’s to come…though, honestly, I imagine both know from their peers that this is all a lie, or at least, I HOPE.
While some seem to have craftly managed to create and involve this made-up character in their children’s lives without causing the child to have trust issues, for those parents who let it go on too long, I believe that it is very unlikely for things to play themselves out this way.

This may sound horrible but i’m glad i’m not the only one.

 

[doormouse73]

im a father of two,one fifteen the other seventeen.

ive told them from the start even to present day and always will do,that santa claus is real(saint nicholas)…

he worked for Jesus,in the way he brought presents to the children.including the word of God.the best story ever told.the birth of Christ.

Jesus got presents as a baby/child,so he wants to share this with you i tell them,through st nicholas(santa claus).through your parents and family and friends…

i ask them could they point out a saint who people enact more in one day than the saint of saint nicholas?and people dont even know they are doing it.thats the sad part.

they think im of my rocker.lolol…but they never say that they dont want saint nicholas to come this year.they like his generosity and the stories he has to tell.

then it of to mass to confirm what he has spoken about.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

This may only strengthen your case since I’m an atheist, but hear me out

I really don’t think that under normal circumstances it will hurt a child or their faith to have them believe in Santa.

A child doesn’t see their parents go to church every week to worship Santa, they don’t see their parents pray to Santa when times get hard, they don’t see people dedicate their entire lives to Santa.

 

[maryjk]

This may only strengthen your case since I’m an atheist, but hear me out

I really don’t think that under normal circumstances it will hurt a child or their faith to have them believe in Santa.

A child doesn’t see their parents go to church every week to worship Santa, they don’t see their parents pray to Santa when times get hard, they don’t see people dedicate their entire lives to Santa.

I just talked to my teenager. He said, of course he knew that just because Santa wasn’t real, that didn’t mean Jesus wasn’t real. And then he gave the same reasons you just gave.

Santa is one night, or at the most a month. Jesus is day in day out, through prayer, Mass and the like. As he said, how many people grow up and become elves? But people do grow up and become priests and nuns.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

I just talked to my teenager. He said, of course he knew that just because Santa wasn’t real, that didn’t mean Jesus wasn’t real. And then he gave the same reasons you just gave.

Santa is one night, or at the most a month. Jesus is day in day out, through prayer, Mass and the like. As he said, how many people grow up and become elves? But people do grow up and become priests and nuns.

The point isn’t that it directly harmed my faith, but that it catastrophically harmed my trust of my parents.

 

[maryjk]

The point isn’t that it directly harmed my faith, but that it catastrophically harmed my trust of my parents.

I am sorry it did that to you.

It wasn’t a problem in our house.

 

[EasterJoy]

I don’t think I have ever disagreed with you, EJ, before but there’s a first time for everything…

I’m surprised it has taken you so long! I have so many opinions, it is hardly possibly that anyone is going to agree with all of them indefinitely!

You’ll notice that we chose to take sort of a middle ground. We didn’t manufacture concrete evidence of Santa Claus, save for gifts that our children knew very well sometimes came from someone who was not in fact in residence at the North Pole or any of that…that is, the kind of gifts that they themselves picked out for someone else they’d never meet. There was never a big elaborate con going on, because we did have an eye towards where this was all going in the future.

My deepest concern in this case is that the OP could turn out to be a precipitating presence very much like your 3rd grade class. After all, it is too late to decide not to teach these children to believe in Santa Claus. The question is how to help them transition gracefully from a belief in a literal Santa Claus (if that is what they still have) to a belief in the value of delighting others by being willing to opt out of being around to take credit for a thoughtful gesture or a generous gift given in secret. What is not wanted is to transition them abruptly into a life-long sense that they’re impossibly gullible to have ever believed in an unprovable source of goodness! We also don’t want the OP to unknowingly jump in to help the cause of truth, only to be rewarded for her trouble by being taken as a busybody spoil sport, instead. Those are the two main things to avoid.

As always, the truth can be told in a way that builds up, but the truth can also be told in a way that tears down. It is not enough to have the building up intention to achieve building up in fact. You have to consider how to handle the structure you have, to look at where the safety hazards are in this little remodelling project, and proceed accordingly. Measure twice, cut once, that’s what the carpenters all say.

 

[polishandproud]

Childhood should quitely slip out the back door! Don’t force them to grow up! the world’s an evil place. perserve their innocense for as long as possible. the longer a Child is allowed to keep their innocense and purity of heart, the more goodness they will bring into adulthood. They wont be jaded.

 

[Do_Good_Then_Go]

OP, I’d first find out if the kids really do believe in Santa or whether it’s just a sort of fun make-believe that happens at Christmas. Seems to me that it’s more likely to be the latter.

If an 11 year old truly does believe that Santa is real and goes from house to house by sleigh delivering gifts and does it all in one night all over the world, I agree there is something worrying about that. Even so, if you’re not the parent I don’t think it’s up to you to take the children aside and tell them the facts. Certainly talk to the parents and work out how it’s going to be handled if they’re staying with you over Christmas, but bottom line is they’re not your children. You don’t want to be the one who rushes in and makes a mess of the whole thing - good intentions don’t guarantee a good outcome. Talk to the parents.

In any case, I can’t see anything wrong with labelling a present “from Santa” or leaving a carrot out for the reindeer no matter what one’s age is. Everyone (family or friend) who wakes up at our house on Christmas morning receives a little something from Santa. It’s just part of the fun and tradition and the way we do things. Some people would no doubt think this is silly or unnecessary or ridiculous but to say it’s lying is taking things to an extremely rigid and joyless extreme in my opinion.

 

[johnnyjones]

Beleieve me, most kids at 10 or 11 don’t believe in Santa or Easter Bunny even if you tell them they exist. They may believe it FOR YOU but that’s it. My daughter asked when she was five how the easter bunny gets in if the door is locked and I just said. “with one wave of his magic foot”. She burst out laughing and humors me with “belief” .

Don’t worry, it works out. Very few kids if any are permanently traumatized from Santa and the Tooth Fairy. I still haven’t “exposed the truth” to my kid.

 

[maryjk]

In any case, I can’t see anything wrong with labelling a present “from Santa” or leaving a carrot out for the reindeer no matter what one’s age is. Everyone (family or friend) who wakes up at our house on Christmas morning receives a little something from Santa. It’s just part of the fun and tradition and the way we do things. Some people would no doubt think this is silly or unnecessary or ridiculous but to say it’s lying is taking things to an extremely rigid and joyless extreme in my opinion.

Until last Christmas, I had always received presents from Santa. I am 46 years old!!

Each year my mother would buy something for me that I didn’t really need but really wanted. She would wrap it up and quietly slip it under the tree. When I looked at the tag, it was always from Santa (Or Mrs Santa if it was for my kitchen). I always knew it would be something special. I never thanked her for those gifts. I would always mention how happy I was that “Santa” took care of me that year.

It was her way of making me feel special. And it is something I can always remember.

 

[Do_Good_Then_Go]

Until last Christmas, I had always received presents from Santa. I am 46 years old!!

Each year my mother would buy something for me that I didn’t really need but really wanted. She would wrap it up and quietly slip it under the tree. When I looked at the tag, it was always from Santa (Or Mrs Santa if it was for my kitchen). I always knew it would be something special. I never thanked her for those gifts. I would always mention how happy I was that “Santa” took care of me that year.

It was her way of making me feel special. And it is something I can always remember.

I love this, and it’s why we do it too.

 

[cshoremom]

Until last Christmas, I had always received presents from Santa. I am 46 years old!!

Each year my mother would buy something for me that I didn’t really need but really wanted. She would wrap it up and quietly slip it under the tree. When I looked at the tag, it was always from Santa (Or Mrs Santa if it was for my kitchen). I always knew it would be something special. I never thanked her for those gifts. I would always mention how happy I was that “Santa” took care of me that year.

It was her way of making me feel special. And it is something I can always remember.