I’m amazed she made it to 10 years old before she started questioning. I think my oldest son was 8. He had a younger brother and sister at the time, who did still believe in Santa. I told him “Santa” is the spirit of giving…and anyone who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus would get no presents from him under the tree…each of my children were told this…

I am afraid you will have no choice but to tell her the truth considering that she is nagging you now incessantly about it. But the fact that you already reaffirmed the claim today might complicate matters severely.

At 10 years of age it is time you leveled with her. I think she has most likely guessed the truth, and is now gauging your sincerity.

“Santa Claus is a game we play. Pretending that Santa is real is part of the fun of Christmas. It’s part of the way we celebrate, just as other people have other traditions. Some like to pretend that the Three Wise Men bring their gifts, and others talk about Father Christmas…etc. I can see that you’re ready to stop the pretending part, but we don’t have to stop the game yet.””

I recently watched The Santa Clause for the first time on cable, with Tim Allen with my two sons (8 and 6 years old) and while fantasy, it was a nice storyline that dealt with the issue of belief, without being preachy or taking a stance…I recommend it for your daughter.

Each and every one of us here found out about Santa Clause and we never had any lasting ill effects from it.

what are you all staring at?

I believed for a long time growing up. Just means you did a good job as a mom!

When it was explained to me, it wasn’t said that there was “no such thing” as Santa, but that Santa was more a spirit, or way of being.

I suspect she will take that better than “yes, m’dear, I have in fact lied to you all of your life.”

Good luck! :)

My youngest was also a long time believer. He came home in 3rd or 4th grade and said with great sincerity and amazement “Mom, can you believe it? Some of the kids in my class think Santa isn’t real!!!”

I knew then that trying to keep it going was leaving him open for some serious peer abuse. So I told him..Santa is a name for the spirit of giving. Not a real man just the generous feeling we get when we give a present to those we love. Yes, it has been Dad and I all along. Now you’re old enough to know the secret and it is your job to help the little ones believe in the spirit of giving until it is their time to know the secret.

I never got too much flak for “lying” so it must have satisfied him.

@AuntieEm Sounds like we think alike. :)

@taciturnu makes a very good point folks. You don’t owe your children an explanation for anything until they are living on their own.

Too many parents feel the need to answer to their children on every little issue.

Thanks for all the answers. GAs all around. Maybe I’ll just tell her that it’s the spirit of the holiday that is really Santa.

@Blondesjon I agree with you that we don’t have to explain every little thing to our kids, but when they keep bugging me over and over, I just want to give them an answer already!

The only harm I can see is continuing to lie to her. There have been many excellent suggestions made on how to do it. But sooner than later will make it easier on your ENTIRE relationship with her.

FYI Jeruba and AuntieEm, when I have kids I hope I do as good a job as you guys have. Great answers indeed.

The answer lies here

It sounds like she still kinda believes, but she is beginning to doubt it. I say why not enjoy one more year of Santa while she has some belief, and then tell her the truth by next year when she will strongly doubt it.

I feel for you because I will eventually end up having to deal with this situation myself in about 2 years to be exact me and my wife have went through debates on this , I believe that telling a kid a story based on fiction will only hold them back while there minds could be working on some thing more productive in society ” the wife say’s I have no imagination” maybe so but that’s my views and I think they hold some truth , I don’t think the holiday should be based off of a fat guy that wears a red suit and sneaks into your house while your sleeping

I understand the joy the spending time with family and the love but why the fiction ? there is no evidence showing a known birth date of jesus or if jesus even existed so why the BS ? why teach children these things really ? most of all why Lie ?

if my daughter comes to me and says daddy does santa really exist, I am going to say honey I love you but daddy would never lie to you and no he doesn’t really exist the true meaning of Christmas is much deeper then that it is about how much we love each other

and leave it at that !!

I am sorry she made it to 10 years old before she is beginning to doubt. I believe you should never lie to your children, and while it may seem like this isn’t what you are doing, it really is. Giving your children false hope about something only to tell them later that its been a falsity since the beginning is cruel. While I’m sure many people will take offense to this, but really. Lying to your children to make Christmas more ‘magical’ will only deter from it in the end. Tell your child the truth and don’t keep lying to her.

My husband and I decided that when our kids asked outright “Is Santa real?” we would tell them the truth. Our daughter made it to age nine before she asked, and wisely waited until just after Christmas. She’s 10 now and knows the truth, but wasn’t upset when we talked about it. I told her Santa is the good feeling you get when you give a gift without expecting anything in return. Which is what my mom told me. Now she has a lot of fun helping us keep the tradition going for her younger brothers.

if you are not religious ,,, would you tell her there is no god ?... it’s these kind of questions where you have to leave them to decide for themselves .. give them the ” some say santa is more the spirit of giving ,, some say he’s real… etc etc.. its up to you to decide what santa is for you . .” speach . it will at least stop them from asking ;-) good luck.

Shes getting at that age.

You should tell her…I don’t think it’s very healthy that a child goes so long believing in such things to the point that they are seriously hurt by it, especially in the coming years of emotional discovery and a defining of the individual self.
Deception is a part of life unfortunately, and I sincerely believe that it’s better for the parent to use such docile deception as Santa Clause at a young age and all to help ready them for the world.
It might be hurtful, but if she goes on like this for years to come, I’m pretty sure that the emotional damage and imbalance will be much greater. :/

lol, this is interesting..

Is batman real? I know I’ve spent money and time on him. How about you? I don’t think I would ever spend money on something that wasn’t real. And if I say: Batman wears a bright red cape with bright blue tights and leaps over tall buildings.. i’ll bet your daughter would be the first to correct me and tell me “that’s not true!” Hell, there are countless nerds out there who would hang me for saying this at a comic convention. Fictions are real somehow.

Is jesus real? Really, americans wouldn’t have “in god we trust” on their dollar bills if he wasn’t. He either did or didn’t exist materially, but he’s real enough that he impacts the world. 300 years of death and torture in the dark ages.. he certainly was made real if he wasn’t already.

Is Santa real? Santa is real enough that your daughter has received gifts in his name all these years, has had fights in school about him, and is currently causing you enough grief to have to seek the help of people around the world! For someone that wasn’t real, he seems to have made a real impact in your lives.

I think you can keep the joke going and she’ll figure it out. But as she grows up she’s going to have to make sense of the nature of his existence on her own. Fun to think about..

My older son asked me about Santa just before Christmas when when he was four years old. I said, “Do you really want to know?” He said yes.

I said, “If you really want to know, ask me again in July and I will tell you.”

In July I told him that Santa Claus is a pretend game we like to play. I also said in the strongest possible terms, “Don’t mess with other people’s beliefs.”

It helped that I had never once told him any lies about Santa. I l knew from day 1 that I could never look my child in the eye and tell him something I didn’t know to be true. So I never once uttered a sentence that began “Santa is” is “Santa does” or “Santa will.” He got enough of it from everywhere else.

I also never spoke any such sentences with God in them or the Tooth Fairy in them or the Easter Bunny in them.

I have never lied to my kids, not even “It won’t hurt” or “The ice cream’s all gone.”

But when they were little and asked me questions about Santa, I was evasive and played along. I hated the idea that they might think Santa would treat their friends better than they treated them and also that Santa was an agent of punishment. I put my foot down when their babysitter started telling them that if they didn’t behave, Santa would put rocks in their stockings. No dice. I was Santa, and I was not going to put rocks in their stockings. Who wants their six-year-old to be afraid of Christmas?

My younger son was basically never fooled at all.

My kids found out really early at preschool. I explained it to them and said that we were Santa’s helpers and had to do everything for Santa. But since this was a special time of year, we wanted to make it special. So we ALL had to have a Santa, or no presents from Santa. It was our family secret; the same with the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc.. “Santa” will come this year to my 20+ kids, and me too.

At 10, your child may be more embarrassed and upset at school when the rest of the kids know. I was one of those kids and decided no lies to My kids. There are good answers here.

Tell her the truth. The whole truth. Santa is more real than you think; he’s just not who you think. Tell her the real story. It’s so much better than the made-up one.

These two articles are a great start:
http://satucket.com/lectionary/Nicholas.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/opinion/25mcguckin.html

@Jeruba : Addressing your first post… I think I’m going to have to save that speech for when I have kids.

Owww that one is hard. Its kind of heart wrenching when they loose the belief in Santa because it is a sign of growing older. I love the idea of describing Santa as a feeling or spirit in which we give the gifts I had never heard that before and think it is lovely. I also really like the idea of letting her in on the grown up world secret that now she is not a small child anymore she can know that Santa is not real as a person but for little children they are told about the spirit of giving and love and care through the character of Santa because they are a bit little to understand the concept yet. Say as she is older now she is old enough to understand the feeling in the heart that goes along with Christmas is about love and sharing and joy and belonging etc and that now she knows the secret she can choose to help carry on the magic with the little children in her family and that she knows. Reassure her that she will still get her stocking filled etc just because she knows that Santa isnt real as a person she will still have the same amount of pressies etc like she has before but now she will know it is the spirit of Santa that brings them rather then a man.

I am AMAZED by how many people think the game of Santa is about lying to kids!! Surely its just a story and fun game that we play. Has anyone been scarred by finding out Santa isnt real??? I think there are enough subtle and not so subtle signs around, eg signs and adverts that say “great stocking fillers” etc to help children ‘cope’ with the ‘trauma’. As they gradually become more and more attune with lines on tv, rumours at school, adverts in shops they will have gradually grown in maturity to be able to come to accept quite naturally that there are stories and magic and fun in life and that one of those things is the game of Santa and christmas. In time they will look back, as most of us do without coming out in a panicky sweat, and remember fondly the excitement that that little noise they heard outside might just might be santa and his reindeer on the roof.

I think it is harder for them to break it to their parents that they know and that they no longer believe. I remember telling my mum when I was about 9 or 10 that there is no toothfairy – part of me felt like I was breaking the news to her!! I wrote a letter to the toothfairy on behalf of my younger sister who was so upset that she had lost her lost tooth. I knew it was a story but I enjoyed passing on the magic of the joy I had felt when I had believed.

Im totally unscared by the discoveries that easter bunny, santa and the toothfairy are magical stories. Infact I just came to learn it I have no idea how or when or anything which does show it was a non event n the full scheme of childhood. After all kids imagine all the time – when they run around with a superman cape of and play superheros would you go along with it or would you sit them down to explain that no they are indeed not a superhero – just incase they grow up confused about reality and fantasy or even perhaps they may get a split personality – aarrrrr quick book them in with a shrink!!! A kid is displaying signs of imagination!!!!

Okay guys, I told her that Santa is real, but is real only because of the magic and spirit of the holiday. I told her that Santa may not be a man in a red suit that goes around and gives gifts, but he is all about the season of giving. I said he will continue to be real as long as we believe in what is important around the holidays. (Then she said, it’s not about getting gifts.)

She asked me if it was me and my husband that put the gifts under the tree from Santa all these years, and I said “I plead the fifth.” (She knows what that means.) She asked me about the tooth fairy and Easter bunny, and I also said “I plead the fifth.” Then she asked me if we actually ate the cookies and drank the milk that we left for Santa, or did we just throw them out the window. I laughed and told her we ate them.

She doesn’t seem traumatized, and she definitely wants to keep up the tradition of Santa for her younger sister.

I asked her what she was going to tell her kids when she is a mom, and she said “I’m definitely going to tell them that there is a Santa!”

phewwwwwww. It all turned out okay. Thanks guys. I couldn’t have done it without your help and support.

@Narl . . . Kids are definitely more resilient than we give them credit for being.

Good for you.

@ Narl perfect ;-)

I honestly do not remember ever believing in Santa… but I do remember playing along with it. My sister and I would put out cookies, write letters, the whole deal. We also did the thing on December 6th with the shoes (I don’t remember the details of it, but I remember doing it while we lived in another country because it was something that they did there). My dad would also write letters back to us in Santa’s name. I remember pretty clearly that there were obvious parallels between what was going on in Santa’s life and in my dad’s life, and that I knew it was because he was the one actually writing the letters.

So to those who are saying that there’s no reason to destroy the fun of it: I don’t disagree. But: It’s possible to play a game without thinking that the game is reality.

@gemiwing – thanks!
@taciturnu great minds and all that jazz :)

I’d suggest telling her the truth, and the “spirit of the season” thing is as good a way as any to do that.

You might consider having another talk with her just after that, “Now, let me tell you about the myths surrounding this Jesus guy that people talk about so much at this time of year. Well…”

Get it all over with at one time.

If her friends know, it is cruel to let your daughter be the only dupe her age. I had a cousin whose parents took pains to lead him on as long as they could manage. He was still telling me what Santa brought him in his early teen years. I can’t imagine what his friends must have thought of him, and I can’t imagine how he felt when he realized just how long everyone else had known.

I tell them that anyone who does not believe, gets clothes for gifts