Just a random thing I was thinking about today. I don't have kids so I can't say.
For those who do have kids, in the age of the Internet is it harder to tell your kids about Santa Claus and keep them believing unto an appropriate age?
In 1988, my mom told me, "Santa Claus died six years ago and the Santa's that we see at the stores and mall are his helpers." I was five at the time, and understood what she was saying, and conformed to my little reality around it.
I agree, it'll possibly making it harder to tell kids that Santa is real. Through osmosis, they'll learn quickly about Santa or the lack thereof. However, is "Elf on a Shelf" still a thing? My nieces were way into that at one point.
One thing I don't get... WHY do people want to convince kids that Santa is real?
I mean, I had a co-worker proudly boast to me that her nine-year-old still believes in Santa. Why the hell is that something to be proud of? I'd think it'd be reason to worry about the kid's IQ.
Parents want to convince their kids that Santa is real because it makes childhood more fun. I certainly believing in Santa as a kid; it made the Christmas season feel very magical.
I eventually realized at the age of seven that the story just didn't add up and it was a disappointment to understand that it was just a fun story and nothing more.
How do you know that believing in Santa is more fun that never believing in Santa? You can't compare your experience to that of a five-year-old who knows that their family buys the presents, because you weren't a five-year-old with a clue...
I can only say that I'm glad I had the opportunity to believe it as a kid. I doubt that most others in that situation would disagree; and I also feel confident you can find plenty of people whose parents never told them Santa Claus was real who feel like they missed out on something.
shareAnd I bet you can find plenty of people who think that convincing children that Santa is real is "gaslighting".
Technically, it is.
THAT IS A FAIRLY SHITTY WAY OF LOOKING AT IT...YOU GET ONE CHILDHOOD AND WHEN IT'S OVER ITS ALL ADULT STRIFE AND STRESS UNTIL YOU DIE....ANY EXTRA MAGIC OR FUN YOU CAN ADD TO A CHILDHOOD IS 100% WORTH THE EFFORT. NOEMOJI
shareBut why lie? Santa can still be fun without lying.
shareAdulthood is WAY better than childhood! If you're an adult and have problems, you can actually DO something about them, but if you're a kid and your life is crappy, you're just stuck.
It's Thanksgiving, take a moment to appreciate the wonders of adulthood!
I WON'T...AS THERE ARE FEW...SANTA MAKES CHRISTMAS MAGICAL FOR KIDS...KIDS ARE EVERYTHING. NOEMOJI
shareIq is the capacity to learn, more specifically targeted at finding those who have difficulty learning
DisBelieving in santa is more about maturity, when children are no longer imaginative or creative as they grow up,
In trurh that childdmlije view on lifevcan inspire truebthinkingnoutside of thebbox and is a gift i think.
The loss of innocence may prepare us for the harsh dog kill everything world we have created, but the purity of a child's mind is beautiful
It's probably not even true unless he/she has Down syndrome or has lived a very sheltered life (home schooled, no friends, no internet). If she believes it's true, the most likely explanation is that her kid is just playing along so as to not disappoint her.
When I was a kid, I remember there being one kid who believed in Santa Claus in first grade and other kids made fun of him for it. Nine years old = fourth grade and no kid who was even remotely in the category of normal believed in Santa Claus by that time.
There was never a time that I believed in Santa Claus. My parents taught us kids that Santa Claus was fictional right from the get-go. For one thing, they were very Christian, so they didn't approve of the secularization of Christmas to begin with, and for another thing, they thought it was absurd to give credit to a fictional character for the presents they bought us with their own hard-earned money.
When my niece was a little kid, I started to get how people wanted to preserve children's innocence.
But it sounds weird that somebody would brag about it.
I’m a person who doesn’t believe in anything fantastical and even I think it is fun to play along with kids on Santa Claus.
shareI never believed Santa was real. I don't know if someone told me when I was younger, but I just never believed it. I was aware of the whole Saint Nick thing so to me that was reason to know that Santa was a con artist.
shareSaint Nick is tha bomb. The guy is 1752 years old and he still climbs millions of roofs every year to deliver presents.👍
shareNo kids want to believe, the internet is great if you want to disprove santa, but they aren't the ones looking up on youtube is santa real,
Kids can use the internet for research but at that age they just want to have fun,
Try changing their tablets to something educational and they throw a fit, the internet age changes nothing, kids are still kids, gullible willing to believe anything, and believe they already know everything
All my kids have always had access to the internet. We even watched santa on the website as he travels round the world.
If they want to believe they will. Santa is magic. He doesn't have to exist in our world.
We used to ring a crystal bell to tell them they needed to go to bed as santa was coming and only they could hear it.
Without the magic of things like that then christmas loses a lot.
My kids are slightly older now. Turn 13 this year for 2 of them, other is 18 so that magic has been lost a little and its a shame. Christmas is still fun but i'll never forget seeing there eyes light up when they heard that bell before bed, they thought it was truely magic.
GREAT COMMENT...NEEDLESS TO SAY I AGREE ENTIRELY. NOEMOJI
shareThat's nice. Sounds like your kids had a lot of fun during December growing up. I applaud that.
Kids definitely get to experience Christmas in a way that is forever lost once they get older. Even at 40 I still love the Christmas season, but that is at least partially due to the, as you put it, truly magical experiences that I can remember from when I was a child.
I haven't read any responses so my comment is off-the-cuff.
Seems like whatever conception a child acquires about Santa has it's own arc. Believing in Santa doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than what we ascribe to it, as in the famous letter to little Virginia ("Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus").
I have no children either, and I suppose I would engage in the same behavior most adults do concerning Santa Claus and would also feel a small sense of loss when a child reaches the natural conclusion that such a person cannot possibly exist.
But in a different culture I doubt this figure would emerge like some immutable archetype, and I don't quite see the purpose for it.
I may be mistaken about this.
You'll have to explain your last paragraph.
shareThere's always the online "NORAD Tracks Santa" site: https://www.noradsanta.org/en/
This is a modernization of a custom which started in 1948: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa#Origin
I remember seeing these fun reports on the local news broadcasts in the days before the Internet.
That's cool about the Norad site. I've heard of it but never actually looked at it.
And I also remember seeing reports back in the day on the news. Fun times. For the kid mind, that kind of thing really lends credibility to the story.
I find the NORAD Tracks Santa site very blah. Santa is so obviously a cartoon on their site, even when you are "tracking" his sleigh on Christmas Eve. It totally kills the illusion of realness.
share