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Lies parents tell to their children
Categories: Just For Moms, Just For Dads, Holidays, Playground Bureau
In some small way, I wish we'd never started with the whole Santa Claus things. My kids are so deeply invested in it that I'm afraid finding out the truth is going to break their little hearts. My hope is that they'll learn gradually, like I did, and not all at once. Christmas is still magical to me, and I know that all those years experiencing the mystery and magic of Christmas is part of that feeling.Cole Gamble, over at StrollerDerby, disagrees with me. He calls Santa Claus, along with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, one of the 14 lies we should stop telling our children. Others include:
- Just tell me the truth and you won't get in trouble.
- Do this or you won't get [something big you possibly can't take away anyway].
- Big kids eat their vegetables; aren't you a big kid?
- You'll make more friends if you play nice.
- Mommy and Daddy are "taking a nap."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Vinnie Pennachio 8-03-2008 @ 12:05PM
life holds enough tough situations to allow the occasional white lie, Santa and the Tooth Fairy are like rites of passage, how do you tell your child the truth without alienating him or her from their friends?
How much more stressfull will you make your childs life by telling the truth? Some lies are good, "the needle the doctor is giving you won't hurt", a parents job is not always to tell the truth but to always protect the well being of their children.
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cookie 8-16-2008 @ 7:04PM
I semi-agree with Gamble. When my son was six he found out from one of his Godbrothers that Santa was not real. He was very angry! Rightfully so since we stress honesty in our family. It took a lot of explaining to try to get him to understand that we were not trying to decieve him, it just happened that way. In the end we all ended up learning something; Cj (my then six year old) leaned that Santa is a family tradition(along with learning what a tradation is), and we learned to think things our more before passing our beliefs on our children. The entire family agrees that it is okay to "believe" in Santa, The Toothfairy ect. However, when a child becomes curious about them we should be honest and explain things in a way that children will undrestand.
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