Should We Lie To Kids About Santa?

I never grew up believing in Santa, since my parents made the decision to make sure my siblings and I knew he wasn’t real from the start. I had friends who believed Santa was real for many years, and while some kids who knew the truth kept it to themselves, I took it upon myself to liberate them from the lie they’d been living. Teachers and parents would try to maintain the illusion for other kids, and while I appreciated the sentiment, I cared more for truth than fantasy. Entering adulthood and looking back on childhood, I see how the decision of whether or not to lie to kids about Santa is more complex than what I had originally thought as a child. Many individuals view the belief in Santa as an imperative aspect of childhood and Christmas altogether. Many parents have fond memories relating to Christmas and Santa that they want to pass on to their children. Other parents believe lying to their children about a man with a white beard who brings gifts may not be beneficial to their child, especially when they eventually come to learn the truth. This begs the question: should we lie to kids about Santa?

This is a common dilemma among parents during the Christmas season. Most adults don’t want to be the whistleblower who spilled the beans and ruined Christmas for their child–or any other child, for that matter. But they also don’t want their children to think they can’t be trusted after lying about something like Santa. Blake Harper, from Fatherly, shares statements from psychologist and parenting expert Dr. Justin Coulson, who believes that parents should simply tell their kids the unadulterated truth. He makes his argument by saying that in the same way that we can watch a film knowing it’s fiction and still enjoy it, kids can also participate in Christmas knowing the truth about Santa while still being every bit as enthralled and excited about the holiday season. Dr. Coulson continues to explain the negatives of lying to kids about Santa by bringing up an integral aspect of the belief in Santa, which is wrapped around Santa’s question “were you naughty or nice?” Dr. Coulson states, “when we use a coercive, manipulative strategy to get our kids to behave, we are relying on extrinsic contingencies by telling them to be good in order to get what they want. And once that motivation is gone, how do we know they’ll still feel compelled to behave? It’s morally, ethically, and scientifically dubious at best. Research shows that kids who are lied to by their parents are more likely to lie themselves.”

An article by Judi Ketteler in Time shared Massachusetts Psychology Professor Robert Feldmen’s thoughts on lying, as he studied the topic for years. Feldmen found that kids grow into lying from observing the behavior of their parents. However, there is such a thing called prosocial lying, which is basically a lie that benefits another person. Dr. Levine did some research on Asymmetric preferences for prosocial lies of commission and omission, and her research supports the idea that prosocial lying can increase trust when someone has true insight into what the other person needs. This is an idea that parents utilize when battling the argument that lying to kids about Santa can be harmful, saying that prosocial lying can be beneficial and not detrimental to their relationship with their children within certain contexts.

There is an argument to be made that allowing a child to believe in Santa isn’t necessarily lying to them. Wendy Thomas Russell wrote in an article on PBS NewsHour that “Seen in the right light, Santa is not a lie; he’s a mystery. And it’s up to each little boy and girl to unravel the mystery for themselves.” She draws from “Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion”—a counterpoint to Flynn’s arguments—where Dale McGowan makes the argument that allowing kids to believe in Santa and figure out the truth is a rite of passage for young children. McGowen argues that it promotes healthy skepticism and allows kids to exercise their critical thinking skills. He uses his experience with his own son as an example, where his child asked him if Santa was real, and McGowen asked his child what he thought. His child responded saying he thought Santa was all the parents, and it was then that McGowen shared the truth with his child. Basically, the article communicates that it may be good to passively support the myth of Santa without exacerbating details of the myth or making overt statements that hurdles a child further into the fantasy. Allowing your child to engage in the myth while making sure they are exposed to evidence contrary to the myth–for example, multiple Santas in various establishments or less fortunate children who don’t get presents–may be the best route to take when dealing with the issue of Santa.

Overall, I think we can agree that the choice to let a child believe in Santa or not should be made within the family by the parents. There are many resources out there that are accessible to anyone who may need guidance regarding this persistent issue in the parental community. Whether you should lie to kids about Santa seems to be dependent on the child itself. Some kids may not develop a habit of distrust or lying and may rather develop a healthy sense of skepticism and critical thinking, while others may use the experience to feed into the belief that it's okay to lie without understanding which contexts are not okay to lie in, and so on. This is why parents should make the decision after doing proper research, and should make their decision based on the knowledge they have of who their child is. Whichever route they choose to take, one thing is for sure: a child can have an immensely joyous holiday with Santa whether they think he’s real or not.

Personally, I’m not big into the Santa aspect of Christmas. I wouldn’t say there is anything inherently problematic about the idea of Santa, but the fuss can be a bit much. As a child, I enjoyed the movies about him and I even enjoyed going to see someone dressed as Santa and telling him what I wanted for Christmas–but it was merely out of Christmas tradition for me. In my household, my parents never allowed us to think he was real because they didn’t want us to focus on greed or receiving during the holiday. Instead, they put an emphasis on giving. We would buy and wrap gifts for our neighbors and the less fortunate we knew in our community. Doing so became our tradition and those were the gifts that were under our tree. On Christmas Eve, we would go out to deliver them, and our parents would also take us to the Salvation Army to volunteer for a couple hours. Since we’re a christian family, they wanted the emphasis of Christmas to be more about belief in Jesus and the reason for his birth rather than about Santa.

In my opinion, you can learn to think critically or have healthy skepticism in the endeavor to figure out whether the miracle of Jesus’ conception and birth was real or not. Coming into that belief changes a person’s life a lot more than a belief in Santa. If I have kids someday, and they learn about Santa outside of the home, I will guide them toward the truth. I won’t immediately burst their bubble, but I will make sure the emphasis and significance of Christmas for them isn’t wrapped around Santa but around Jesus and the idea of giving.