Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater wrote:
Broke the news today to my youngest son, he's 16 and does have autism, nicest person in the world, that Santa isn't real.
That's not a fun conversation. But he needed to know. He took it pretty well.
All he wants for Christmas is a wall calendar.
I suppose I could have let Santa bring him a wall calendar and let him go another year. I don't know what I'm doing. I suppose there are books out there.
He needs to be prepared for the world.
Merry Christmas, everybody!
A friend of mine's kid- the kid is 21 now, I guess I would call him a friend at this point too- when he was 7 or 8 years old he was out to breakfast with his mom (my friend) and his aunt. I guess that's a about the age when most kids start questioning Santa's existence, hearing rumors from older kids or whatever. It was right before Christmas and the kid was telling the two women how he and one of his friends at school were going to try to trap Santa to make sure he was real.
The aunt (my friend's older sister) is a very no-nonsense kind of person. I don't think she ever let her own daughter believe there was a Santa Claus. Anyway, she said to the kid, "You don't need to go through all that trouble. You can just ask me if Santa Claus really exists." So the kid asked, "Auntie, does Santa exist?" And she told him no. My friend was absolutely livid. The kid looked like he was going to cry. But then my friend said, "Okay, you're a big guy now. You have to be very careful not to tell any younger kids." That made it okay as the kid got all puffed up and proud like he was an adult who knew a special secret. But my friend was still furious with her sister.
my wife was like there is no need for santa, i was very indifferent. our oldest figured out quick enough that he wasn't real but we explicitly let her know it was not ok to tell other peoples kids that. she and my other child did great at keeping this secret. my 3rd child did not. we have a family we are very close with. we count them as family. well my "sister" had a kid aroudn the same time as my 2nd and he was told santa wasn't real in 6th grade. however the mother had to fend off the bullets my 3rd child would use as retribution for him picking on her.
I pretended that I believed in Santa and would do odd things to try and convince them he was real. It was our fun game and the kids loved it. They really believed that I believed for a long time.
Enter our 4th. adopted out of foster care. a few weeks ago her teacher pulled me a side. "could you talk to her about the Santa thing....she told all the kids that Santa was dead" ooooook
so in the car the conversation was like this :
"hey kiddo did you tell the kids Santa was dead?"
"yes...he iiiiiisss"
"I know but some kids don't know that and its their parents job to tell them that...its ok they think he's real"
"but these are my friends"
"ok so"
"I can't lie to my friends"
"you can talk with Mom about it when you get home"
so we get home and my wife is like the girls told her santa wasn't real and she asked if he ever was real so I told her there was a saint nick but that was a long time ago and she asked if he was dead and I said yes
Its going well