To tell your kids about Santa or not?

Many parents fight the battle on whether or not to tell their children about Father Christmas.

Below are the arguments both for and against telling them.

Father Christmas is one of the many myths that parents tell children, another example being the Tooth Fairy.

According to Dr. Benjamin Siegel of the Boston University School of Medicine “During this young age – four to seven – children are influenced by what they see and hear around them. They get very excited about characters.”

It a tradition; parents look forward to the yearly dance around putting gifts under the tree and giving St Nic the credit.

They do eventually find out and some of them do become disappointed when they do, however, if it goes well, they find out themselves once they reach a certain age.

Other parents completely argue against the idea of lying to their children. They argue that it defeats the purpose of their imagination if they are presented with Father Christmas as real.

American Ph.D, Kyle Johnson states, “It’s a belief based on convenience, rather than good reason and evidence.” This could possibly leave room for resentment as some of the first memories your child will have are lies. He continues to say “lying to your children about Santa risks their intellectual and/ or moral growth.”

As shown above, there are both arguments for and against telling your children about Father Christmas and it is mostly up to what the parent wants and what the parent was taught when he or she was young.