The Santa Clause

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It still might not be too late to say, "Santa Claus is not a real person, but the spirit of generosity is very real." My husband is Aboriginal and talks a lot about spirits. We believe it's a good idea for children to believe in things that cannot be seen. I think it helps them with abstract thinking, which is something my AS daughter has a lot of trouble with. You might start by saying that just like love and anger are real but can't be seen, there are a lot of other invisible ideas. When people think about them, sometimes they describe what they would look like if they were people or things: Cupid for love, Santa Claus for generosity, etc.
BTW, my dd is 12 and just started asking last year; it's a gradual thing, and this is how we've answered her. So far so good. OTOH, we were the unpopular parents whose 5 yr old told other kids Santa Clause wasn't real. That was really upsetting for a lot of families.
J.

I was the unpopular 5 year old that burst the bubble for everyone else lol. We were asked to write a letter to Santa in school, and I quite loudly said I didn't see the point in writing a letter to an imaginary person. My teacher pulled me over to the side and told me not to say that anymore.... So I didn't, and then I found out in 7th grade that my best friend still believed in Santa, and I just couldn't take it so I told her. And she cried. See, by parents lying, they force children to lie too. As a general policy, lying is a bad thing in my opinion.

It is possible to give children the joy of the idea of Santa, without lying to them. We played coy on it, and never said outright that there really was a man who wore a red suit and delivered the gifts. When the kids asked, we deflected carefully, usually throwing the question back on them, asking what they believed. A fine line to play, but it works. My AS son had it figured out pretty early as a result, his logic caught that coy play, but he couldn't get us to say either way, so he would dream up all these experiments to catch out the truth, it was very cute. I think it also helped that I decided early on the kids would also get gifts from us, and only one gift each would be marked from Santa. Now that his sister is old enough for it all to be out in the open in the family, we do have one piece of magic left, that he is still puzzling over: Santa gifts arrive in unique wrapping paper, ribbons and cards that cannot be found anywhere in our house.

A little magic is a good thing.

are you kidding?

why shouldn't kids know where babies come from??????????????? or that goldfish die????

what is wrong with that? wow.

Ok, I should have clarified. I don't think people should lie to their kids at all, but those were a couple of examples that I thought people would come back with if I said that. Those seem to be pretty common lies parents tell their children, and I don't know how to convince them otherwise. So, my overall point was: if you're going to lie to your kids at all, make sure it's something worth lying about, not something that's way too much work to maintain and that you're going to have to tell them you've been lying to them in just a couple of years.

you can lie about these sort of things creatively..well maybe not lie but explain. The way the "where do babies come from" was explained to me... well. My brother came along when i was 4 so i understood that he was in mommy's belly, but how he got there was an act of god, atleast thats how it was explained. And i'm not terribly religious, but i think that's a great way to put it.

I understood it that, when a married couple wanted a baby, they prayed really hard and finally god would grant them their wish and the mother would get pregnant. This was especially true for my family because i later found out my mom had fertility issues

Curiosity kitten, I just wanted to let you know that I've enjoyed your contributions in this thread. You have a nice outlook on things,

aww thanks! i enjoy this thread! even if its about telling the truth about santa, i love discussing the meaning behind christmas. so warm and fuzzy.