Not 'doing' Santa

OrkneyStar

Treevo wrote: »

I was just saying how full of joy you seem. You should try Dulcolax, because you seem to positively brimming with joy.

How, exactly, is your post adding to the discussion?
It really is irrelevant whether you think I, or anyone else, is full of joy, what matters to me is that I am.

quantumleap

As earlier posts indicate I am quite passionate about allowing children to believe in Santa while they are still children. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has been damaged in any way as a result of believing in Santa or who would now accuse their parents of lying to them. Most, if not all, would agree that they have some wonderful memories of that time in their lives, me included. I intend to ensure my children have similar happy memories.

This notion of parenting styles also gets on my goat to be honest. This notion that you can decide how to raise your child (ren) by reading a book or watching a T.V. program is silly, in my opinion. My wife and I use the “gut” technique. It goes like this, I have 3 kids, I’ve never brought children up before so I use my gut. There is a time to be brutally truthful, a time to be honest, a time to guild the lily (so to speak) and a time to lie. Surely being a good parent is having a gut reaction in terms of knowing how to deal with a situation.

Some of the most messed up people I know were kids whose parents wore blinkers, who had a way of dealing with things that was very rigid. This notion that “I will never lie to my child” is, I believe, untenable. Sometimes telling a lie, whilst difficult, is the right thing to do.

Also, I don’t believe that encouraging children to believe in the story of Santa in order that they have a wonderful time should be referred to as “lying” to them.

JimmyTheWig

quantumleap wrote: »

This notion that “I will never lie to my child” is, I believe, untenable. Sometimes telling a lie, whilst difficult, is the right thing to do.

I agree. You have to give age-appropriate answers.
You may well tell the child who is learning about division that 3 divided by 2 can't be done. Or you may say that you can't take 6 away from 5. Or that there is no square root of -4.
All of these questions do have answers, but they are not answers that a child is ready for. The literal truth wouldn't help, here, so you lie.

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

OrkneyStar

quantumleap wrote: »

As earlier posts indicate I am quite passionate about allowing children to believe in Santa while they are still children. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has been damaged in any way as a result of believing in Santa or who would now accuse their parents of lying to them. Most, if not all, would agree that they have some wonderful memories of that time in their lives, me included. I intend to ensure my children have similar happy memories.

This notion of parenting styles also gets on my goat to be honest. This notion that you can decide how to raise your child (ren) by reading a book or watching a T.V. program is silly, in my opinion. My wife and I use the “gut” technique. It goes like this, I have 3 kids, I’ve never brought children up before so I use my gut. There is a time to be brutally truthful, a time to be honest, a time to guild the lily (so to speak) and a time to lie. Surely being a good parent is having a gut reaction in terms of knowing how to deal with a situation.

Some of the most messed up people I know were kids whose parents wore blinkers, who had a way of dealing with things that was very rigid. This notion that “I will never lie to my child” is, I believe, untenable. Sometimes telling a lie, whilst difficult, is the right thing to do.

Also, I don’t believe that encouraging children to believe in the story of Santa in order that they have a wonderful time should be referred to as “lying” to them.

I do this a lot of the time too (the 'gut' thing), with a little bit of this and that that I have gleaned here and there thrown in. My gut tells me not to do the Santa thing though. Incidentally DH also thinks this, independently of me- we were quite happy to find out we both felt the same about the Santa thing!
Your gut tells you to go with it on the Santa thing, thats up to you, but despite us both using out 'gut' not all our 'gut' responses will be the same.
As yet I have not lied to my child, intentionally, though if someone finds an example of it on CCTV I'd happily take that back- the best I can say is I never set out to tell him something that is un-true! Of course blurting out honesty is not always a good idea, tact and sensitivity is needed.
Surely most parents just want their children to enjoy Christmas, that's what is important, not every little detail of how we do it?

OrkneyStar

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I agree. You have to give age-appropriate answers.
You may well tell the child who is learning about division that 3 divided by 2 can't be done. Or you may say that you can't take 6 away from 5. Or that there is no square root of -4.
All of these questions do have answers, but they are not answers that a child is ready for. The literal truth wouldn't help, here, so you lie.

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

I would honestly say some questions don't have answers, quite often that is the case in maths, and some clever people spend lots of time thinking about that. That's not a lie, and something me and my 5 yr old have already covered, not maths theory :eek:, but that some questions just don't have answers.....it's almost quite fun thinking of them, well if you are a bit bored that is.

Welshwoofs

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

are you going to say their reception class drawing is crap, when they think it is a work of art?

I don't have children and a friend recently took me to an evening christmas fair at the local primary school. There were tons of stalls selling the usual tat - smelly candles, bead jewellery, herb stuffed pillows etc and a stall that was selling tea-towels with amusing caricatures all over them. I looked at those and was laughing away saying "That one's an axe-murderer, that's an Emo, that one's a bunny boiler" when a rather terse voice from behind the stall said "Those are self-portraits from the school children and I'm glad you haven't got to my son yet!"

Oops

(My friend, who's son is at the school was busy peeing herself laughing a few feet away...)

notanewuser

Wow. Massive response!!! Thank you all for your views (even the really offensive/bizarre ones!).

There are a few points I want to respond to specifically, but I'll have to do that from a laptop rather than my phone. Bear with me.

(And sorry Skintchick and OrkneyStar if you feel you've been arguing alone )

Mojisola

skintchick wrote: »

You don;t have to comment on the other stuff as an opinion. I look at her drawings and instead of a blanket it's lovely, I try and notice something specific about it, such as 'you used lots of colours' or 'I can see you spent a long time on that' so that I am valuing her creativity and effort rather than just saying 'it's lovely' which is rather vague.

I would do the same with clothes. In fact I do now as she chooses her own - 'I see you chose to have a stripy theme today' was one I used this week when she wore a black and white striped dress, blue and white stiped top underneath, and stripy leggings, all of which colour-clashed. She loved her look. So I commented specifically on an aspect of it rather than give an opinion. SHe didn;t want my opinion. She loved her outfit.

quantumleap wrote: »

This notion of parenting styles also gets on my goat to be honest. This notion that you can decide how to raise your child (ren) by reading a book or watching a T.V. program is silly, in my opinion.

Some of the most messed up people I know were kids whose parents wore blinkers, who had a way of dealing with things that was very rigid. This notion that “I will never lie to my child” is, I believe, untenable. Sometimes telling a lie, whilst difficult, is the right thing to do.

skintchick - do you ever say "That's lovely" or "I think that's really nice/you've done really well" to your child?

Children generally want their efforts recognised and want to please adults close to them and want to feel valued and appreciated. If my parents had just fed me back facts about my childish efforts, I think I would have read the sub-text as "I don't think that's very good but I've got to say something about it".

Like quantumleap, I couldn't have parented by following someone else's rules. There are many tools in the parenting toolbox and most parents use whatever is appropriate at the time. I've also found (as a parent and a teacher) that different children need different techniques. Flexibility is the key to successful parenting.

Mojisola

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I agree. You have to give age-appropriate answers.

You may well tell the child who is learning about division that 3 divided by 2 can't be done. Or you may say that you can't take 6 away from 5. Or that there is no square root of -4.

All of these questions do have answers, but they are not answers that a child is ready for. The literal truth wouldn't help, here, so you lie.

"Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."

Our whole education system is based on "lies to children" - as Jimmy say, age-appropriate answers. Wittgenstein has a posh way of saying it but Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen cover it really well in "The Science of Discworld".

gingin_2

notanewuser wrote: »

Wow. Massive response!!! Thank you all for your views (even the really offensive/bizarre ones!).

There are a few points I want to respond to specifically, but I'll have to do that from a laptop rather than my phone. Bear with me.

(And sorry Skintchick and OrkneyStar if you feel you've been arguing alone )

Can I ask what you wanted to get out of this thread? It didn't really pose a question, it was just a statement. Nobody seems to have changed their opinions from either side.

It's not intended to be an antagonistic question, I'm just genuinely curious.