Telling children lies

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Children aren't as dumb as we "adults" think. When I was a kid, I wanted to figure out what was going on around me. So yeah, if someone explained to me why the sky really was blue, I probably would have been pretty confused; but I would have learned better. It might be an aspie thing to get mad at our parents for not telling us the truth, but c'mon.. there's no reason why you should lie to kids about stupid things. Even Santa Claus.. think how far ahead of the game a kid would be if he read books during the time that the other kids were baking cookies for Santa.

It makes me wonder if adults lie purely for humor.

It does seem as though many on the NT spectrum get the kind of mild entertainment value out of trying to mentally juggle all the lies they've told that week and not trip themselves up, that I get out of a good crossword puzzle or a game of chess. I can't abide people like that.

It may seem silly in retrospect, but I was devastated as a child, when a neighborhood bully exploded the Santa Claus myth for me, and I have a hard time forgiving my parents for that to this day. Talk about creating trust issues. I've never been so humiliated, nor felt so stupid and gullible.

I never once lied to my daughter about that (or anything else for that matter). She saw me dress as Santa working for a portrait studio when she was just 4, and I told her honestly "I AM Santa Claus." She never took it seriously of course, because she wanted to believe, but I never told her anything but the truth. So as the realization grew over the years that in fact, I WAS Santa Claus, she could never claim she'd ever been misled.

I'm glad of the way my parents did Santa Claus - they explained every year from when I could speak til I'd really understood that it was a game mum and dad play where dad dresses up and plays Santa but the presents are really from them. Perhaps they just wanted the gratitude, but it suited me.

yeah, it was my brother. He said it in front of his friends to be the 'big man,' my mother was there and made it known to him that he had ruined my fun, to which my brother was not impressed as he had decided I was too old for Santa Claus, just another thing . I on the other hand was stunned. I remember (that's how old I was! I remembered) stumbling around for days.
I know it was not becase my dear friend Santa was fiction, I had lots of fictional friends, it was because THEY ALL KNEW! and I was not included in this . . I was not part of them, is how I took it ( whew, what an Aspie I am I went from no Santa to personal betrayal to odd man out of the family in as long as it took to betray my childish trust.) I never stopped thinking that I was not part of the family since then. What a shame.

Merle

i've had my parents try & convince me the easter bunny existed.
but i never beleived them, even when i was a really gullible 4 year old.

My mother tried the whole lying thing with me..... but it didn't work.
When we moved to Wales, we had quite a few incidents of jet planes flying over the house... and I got used to the sonic booms from them, and it didn't take me long to realise that if Father Christmas / Santa / whatever was really supposed to be getting around the whole world in one night that he would have to break the sound barrier, and I have never been a heavy sleeper..... so the lack of sonic boom on Christmas Eve was something I had to confront my mother about, not to mention how one is supposed to make reindeer and a wooden sleigh immune to burning up in the atmosphere.

My mother buckled fairly easily on that one, since she was never much of a liar. She kept trying to maintain the Tooth Fairy lie though, and I knew she was bullsh!tting on that one. She also tried to convince me not to let my brother know the truth, but always having been one to advocate honesty as the best policy I naturally told my younger brother.

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What is even better though was that when it came to my youngest brother (many years later), I didn't even let them get the Father Christmas myth to him before I'd intercepted with a better one. I told him that "Father Christmas" was just a cover for the fact that christmas presents were, in fact, delivered by a Dragon. It makes more sense afterall (I explained to him): Dragons can fly, Dragons are fire-proof, Dragons can carry a lot of stuff because they're so big, yet they have long tails which they could, in theory, extend down a chimney.... and though Dragons are fast, they don't need to be THAT fast when there are actually lots of them doing it at the same time. Of course I also warned him that the dragons were black, so he didn't stand much chance of spotting them at night.

It worked for a while at least.... or at least convinced him that everyone was bullsh!tting him on a constant basis just to see his reaction. My youngest brother is a proper little sceptic about most things now! ^_^

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Regarding the sex thing... I found that out from biology books. No problem there. I never really had any issue with it, and my mother never tried to cover it up. What REALLY grossed me out when I first had sex-ed lessons were the videos about masturbation being natural and sexual hygiene. >_<;

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I think lieing to kids about santa is alright, it lets them think that there is a bit of magic in the world. What kind of person would tell there younger sibling santa is not real, especialy if they were told not to.

*Waves*

What kind of person would let their younger brother be deceived into believing foolish lies like that?

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Not telling children about sex before they reach puberty is just cruel. It’s embarrassing to learn the nuances of the subject from jokes at school.

dose anyone here have fond memories of waiting for santa?

Are you serious?
I never had to.

Besides... I usually knew where the presents were hidden. I was quite the treasure-hunter when I was a kid. Hours spent nature-hunting (because there is little enough else to do in the country for entertainment) honed those skills.

I showed my younger brother too. Told him straight: If Santa was going to come, then why were the presents already here?

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I figured it all out but I did not tell my younger siblings, I kind of played along with it aswell, who dosnt want free stuff? would you go out and tell any 5 year old you met santa is not true.

If I felt so inclined, but most young kids would rather believe their parents than a total stranger anyway, so I usually don't bother with that.
There are easier ways to torment kids.... and more fun ways.

But yes, I'll tell any kid who trusts me.
That way, they'll trust me all the more and their parents less. ^_^

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I have not lied to my ( 8 year old) son about sex, or Santa Claus, or anything else that I can think of right now.

I believe that if he asks a question he wants to know the answer.

The Qu. and Answer session about sex that Spokane Girl described; it's not me that decides when to cut off, but him. I will carry on answering as long as he asks, keeping it to the point, sticking to the thing he asked about.

When he doesn't want to go any further/doesn't want to know any more, he stops asking.
It has worked fine.

I remember being agnostic about Santa Claus. I never really thought it seemed that plausible but the idea of free presents was so compelling that I didn’t want to totally dismiss it.