Nowadays we are not supposed to spank our children. We are supposed to raise our kids in a way that let�s them know that they are being heard and that their opinions matter. Kids are even being sexualized more and more and doing �grown up� things, like dating and dressing/behaving seductively, younger and younger. But even though kids are being allowed these �advancements�, thousands, maybe millions of parents indulge their children with fantasies of an imaginary man named Santa Claus every year.
What do the people of the CDFF forums think about Santa Claus, and parents who create the fantasy of Santa Claus for their children? Is he an idol? Is it right to mislead children this way? Or is it cute, innocent fun?
I agree with LawAbidingCitizen on this one. My grand-daughter is seven and she has always been taught about
Jesus and always knew Santa isn't real. Even with my own children(before I was saved), I never raised any of them to believe there's a Santa Claus; I remember when I was about 8 my dad telling me Santa wasn't real and that he had bought our gifts and it broke my heart. I didn't want my kids to feel the hurt I did after learning that something I had eagerly looked forward to each year was a lie.
I think telling them the truth to begin with is best all around. It's not cute to me ; it's sad to see so many parents deceiving their children.
In General, I think all the "Santa / Raindeer / Frosty is offpointing and irritating. It's everywhere and it annoys me because Christmas is about the birth of Christ, and He seems to always in the very background. Its like people avoid even saying this. Even the thought of Christmas being about family still misses the mark.
Personally, the thought of a God coming down TO US as a baby has always filled me with awe, and I love Christmas because of that. There's more meaning in that than anything. I would never perpetuate what the world defines as Christmas if I had children. Some take a little more lenient view. My sister and her (then) husband used to take the middle road. They told their kids that Santa was real in the land of make believe. So they knew he wasn't real, but just a fictional character to have fun with but never take seriously.
I'll just paste in here what I said in a similar topic a few weeks ago =)
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As far as telling children about things such as Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy (in as far as presenting them as being real), I am VERY much opposed to that.
Speaking from a child development standpoint, children are very literal for many years, meaning that they pretty much will take what you say at face value. They're not able to make that differentiation between a lie "just for fun" and malicious deception. When children are in that very literal phase, they don't perceive motives in the same way as adults do. So, telling a child about Santa, etc. is detrimental for 3 reasons here:
1. It causes the child to see the parents as people who aren't truthful. Because the child doesn't truly understand the idea of a "white lie" being different from other lies, all they're going to see there, on the deep soul level, is that mommy and daddy are liars who cannot always be believed. Obviously, this damages the trust that should be there in a healthy parent-child relationship, even it's only on a very subconscious level that isn't apparent at the time.
2. It causes the child to think that ALL lies are okay since the "white ones" are okay with mommy and daddy. That's why being around children is so refreshing... They tell it like it is, without doing all of that hair-splitting that adults do. White lies to young children aren't in a separate category from other lies. A lie is a lie is a lie. This is has the affect then of giving children a false, unbiblical view of sin, which then later has to be counteracted to effectively minister to your children as the Bible calls you to do.
3. It teaches children that delusions are a normal aspect of childhood and life. This can play out in so many ways, but what I'm going to bring up here is the issue of sexual abuse. It's common for childhood sexual abuse to be done under the guise of being some kind of "game" that involves dress-up. When I was being abused, the main people involved in that would dress up like witches and us girls would pretend to be various characters from "The Wizard of Oz." This kind of thing -- where an adult dresses up in costume and injects themselves into a child's life as this character -- should raise an alarm with a child. But, when a parent presents Santa, etc. as being real, they disarm that alarm system in their child. Again, children are literal... An adult dressed in costume trying to lure them into a sex scheme isn't going to necessarily be any different in their minds than Santa. They're both adults in costume presenting something that is "fun." Normal adults do not walk around in costume breaking into people's homes and depositing gifts. When people feed that delusion to their children, their teach their children that those things are acceptable things for adults to do when interacting with children. It teaches them that boundaries (such as the walls of your home or your clothes) are okay to be crossed.
For me, the whole things about children being literal is something that really stands out to me because my brother has autism. He heard that Santa was real (from other people, NOT our parents), and there isn't anything that we've been able to say to counteract that.
Developmentally, he's stuck in that literal phase... He's never moved beyond that. To him, reading a children's book about Santa is absolutely no different from reading a Bible story. Bible characters and Santa are one in the same to him. He doesn't understand the concept of one book being fantasy and the other one being real. They're both books and are no different in his mind.
From a spiritual standpoint, I fail to see how presenting Santa and the Easter Bunny alongside Jesus is appropriate. I think that if we're really serious about teaching children the true meaning of Christmas and Easter that we wouldn't want to pull other things into the mix to muddy the waters there. There are SO many fun, neat things you can do with you children around these times that could easily rival the fun of Santa and the Easter and also teach them Biblical precepts and the character of Jesus.
All of that said, I see nothing wrong with informing children of how the delusions/fantasies of how Santa came to be. It presented properly to a child, the child will be able to see Santa as a fairy tale character, similar to Cinderella or nursery rhyme characters. Fantasy does have some basis in fact many times, and it can be okay to teach children those things from a historical standpoint, as long as we're very clear that those things aren't real. But even with that, I really think that a parents has to be careful and sensitive to where the child is at developmentally.
I'll tell my children that Santa is a game some people play pretend with over Christmas. I'll be much more concerned about celebrating Advent than leading them on or even making much of a deal about secular christmas.
My own parents took a similar approach to what Tulip talked about: my brother, sister and I understood that Santa Claus was something that other families pretended, and yes some children were led to believe Santa existed because it was �fun�� for a while. I also remember my mom telling me not to flat-out say that Santa Claus wasn�t real, but if it was brought up to me that it was okay to say that I didn�t believe in him. However, my brother had to ask how anybody even came up with Santa Claus, which led my dad to explain Saint Nicholas to him. Then my brother promptly told his entire second grade class that �Santa Claus is dead�, because his tiny child brain interpreted that a long-gone Saint WAS Santa Claus. My parents got many, many phone calls from angry parents of disillusioned children.
I agree with a lot of what Pixy said, about how children are incredibly literal (gullible, even) and I can�t imagine what happens in a child�s mind when the truth gets out. But strangely enough, it seems the majority of small children are still led into the Santa illusion, so it is a different challenge for the kids that are not a part of it. I always felt like I had to just kind of pretend I wasn�t listening when my friends were going on about �Santa�, and endure their condescending talk when they found out I foolishly did not believe in Santa. When I was in a Christian private school as a kid, one classmate actually asked me, �If you don�t believe in Santa, why do you believe in God?� I wonder what happened to him when he learned�
One year I got kind of jealous of the kids that bought into the Santa Claus thing, and I asked my mom if we could �just pretend� that year. She obliged, and the first time she tried to play along with me I realized just how stupid it all seemed, and I wanted to go back to no Santa. Still, she has and still will sign some gift tags as �from Santa�, in her own distinct handwriting, which has always tickled me. One gift is always from �Mom�, though, and usually one from the pets. Maybe she has a multiple personality disorder.
Anyway, I don�t see a whole lot of harm in fairy tales as long as it is made clear to children that fairy tales are not true, they are fun stories. To tell a child that something is real that is not seen, much like we do with God, but that is NOT real is very dangerous. I am surprised that there is so much of Santa Claus still in circulation.
I used to attend a church where we had a van ministry. At least 50% of our kids came from unchurched homes. They didn't know about God, had no idea how to act in church or what it was all about, used questionable language, etc. etc. I loved being around those kids and teaching them!
But I digress. This is about Santa. So -- back on topic. A lot of them believed in Santa. Our "church" kids would almost always, immediately, jump right in (without prompting) and explain about the true meaning of Christmas. I'm talkiing kids from 3years old to 6th grade.
There were times I had to take kids aside and ask them not to be so vehement about telling someone "there was no Santa Claus". Simply because 1) I thought it should be done gently in love and 2) the teaching came from the parent, so the explanation needed to come from the parent also. The other teachers did the same thing.
I like this: " ... don�t see a whole lot of harm in fairy tales as long as it is made clear to children that fairy tales are not true, they are fun stories." Always keeping in mind not all children are the same. Some can handle the concept of fairy tales better than others.
I was not able do discuss Santa with my kids. However, I knew about him when I was a kid and I watched all the Santa tv shows, sat in Santa's lap a few times and I don't think it hurt me at all. I mean really, look how I turned out!
You know what I would do though, I would get on-line and do some research and find out about the real St. Nicholas and tell your kids about him. His story is great and very inspiring with lots of good morals.
