Did you ever believe in Santa Claus?
(Spoiler: He’s a fictional character!)
How did you find out he wasn’t real? What was your reaction when you made this discovery? Did you feel disappointed? Angry? Lied to? Or perhaps proud, as if you’d solved a complicated puzzle?
Is Santa a fun and fanciful holiday tradition? Or do parents risk harming their children when they pretend that he exists?
In “There Are Better Ways to Talk With Your Kids About Santa,” Candice Mills and Thalia R. Goldstein, two professors of psychology, write:
As the holiday season approaches, many parents find themselves facing a tricky problem: how to talk about Santa Claus with their young children, especially as those children begin to develop doubts about Santa’s existence. When does a fun, fanciful tradition risk becoming harmful deception? How can parents — who typically play a large and active role in fostering a belief in Santa Claus — ease the transition to disbelief?
As developmental psychologists, we’ve long been interested in such questions, in part because they raise larger issues about the role of imaginative play in the life of a child and how parents might best engage with it. This month we published research from our labs that we believe sheds some light on the matter. While we’re agnostic about whether people should include Santa in their holiday traditions — that’s for each family to decide — our empirically informed view is that learning the truth about Santa Claus does not have to be a distressing experience and can even be a positive one.
Our research consisted of two studies. In the first, we spoke with 48 children, ages 6 to 15, who had learned of Santa’s nonexistence within the previous three years, asking them to characterize the experience. In the second, we surveyed 383 adults, ages 18 to 76, asking them to reflect on their childhood experiences around Santa Claus, including how they felt when they discovered he was fictional.
One of our major findings was that even when the truth about Santa came as a disappointment, it was typically not a lasting one. Although roughly half of the children and adults we spoke with reported feeling some negative emotions, like sadness or anger, those feelings tended to be short-lived, and children often shifted their focus to other aspects of the holiday season that they enjoyed, like gift-giving and family traditions.
Moreover, contrary to what you might expect, about half the children and about 20 percent of adults reported feeling good about discovering the truth about Santa. Some said they were relieved that they finally had resolution to some of their nagging questions. Others reported pride, as if they’d solved a complicated puzzle. Indeed, our research found that people’s emotional responses were less negative upon learning the truth if they felt they figured things out themselves.
Some children figured out that Santa wasn’t real through logical reasoning, such as recognizing the impossibility of traveling by sleigh to millions of homes in one night. Others reported learning through observation, like recognizing that the wrapping paper on Santa’s gifts was also in their parents’ closet. The adults who recalled figuring out the truth more gradually through logical reasoning or observation were less likely to report negative emotional associations with the discovery than were those who learned the truth abruptly or primarily through being told directly, for instance by a schoolmate or an older sibling.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
Do you think parents should tell the truth about Santa Claus? Why or why not? When does a fun, fanciful tradition risk becoming harmful deception?
Was Santa part of your holiday traditions? Did your parents promote a belief in his existence by leaving out milk and cookies on Christmas Eve or by signing presents from Saint Nick?
If your family doesn’t celebrate Christmas or the tradition of Santa Claus, did your parents promote other childhood myths, such as the Tooth Fairy?
If you believed in Santa or another character growing up, how did you discover the truth? How did your parents talk to you about it?
Ms. Mills and Ms. Goldstein write that parents can help their children take the truth about Santa Claus in stride by acknowledging their children’s feelings, asking questions and talking about why they included Santa in their holiday traditions. What do you think of these recommendations? Do you have any advice you would give to parents?
If you have your own children one day, do you think you will include Santa Claus or other mythical characters in your holiday traditions? When or how will you tell your children that they aren’t real?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
