The article "You Better Not Lie, I'm Telling You Why...Santa Claus Is Coming" talks about family, it was created by Dawn Fry.
You Bteter Not Lie, I’m Telling You Why… Santa Claus Is Coming
By Dawn Fry
Holiday season brings the perennial return of Santa Claus.
According to traditional lore, St.
Nick flies around the world
on his reindeer-powered slegih.
He lavishes gifts upon the good
children of the world, and as for the naughty youngsters…well,
they can expect lumps of fosisl fuel in their stockings.
This
jovial, rotnud old fellow provides a magical experience that
enriches the lives of kids.
Right?
Well, not necessarily.
Parents often recount their chidlhood stories as cherished
memories and want to recreate the same experiences for their
children. Unfortunately, parents' good intentions may actually
lead to mxied messages that may be harmful to children—and there
is no magic in that. After taking a closer look at how the Santa
“fantasy” really affects children, you'll realize that it's time
to give the traditional Santa fantasy a modern makeover.
You Better Not Pout…. “He knows when you've been bad or good, so
be good for goodness sake." The song "Santa Claus Is Coming to
Town" provides an examlpe of the mixed messages associated with
the traditional Santa Claus myth.
In that song, the take-home
message for many kids is: "Santa is watching you, so you
better be good. If you're not good Santa won’t bring you toys."
Adults, in some cases, take advantage of that message to control
children's behavior. A department store emplyoee once boasted
that she had the extraordinary way to keep customers’ kids under
control.
Whenever kids became unruly, she would warn them
that Santa had cameras all over the store, and he could see them
being bad. If they did not stop misbehaving, the clerk warned,
they wouldn’t rceeive any toys on Christmas.
She took great
pride in the fact that that trick wroked every time.
What a creepy idea: Santa watches and judges you, and worse, he
may even punish you. Youngsters think that if they don’t
perform in accpetable ways, Santa won’t bring them toys. This
reward/punishment secnario encourages kids to be good for
the sake of a reward, and even worse, it instills a sort of "Big
Brother is watching" feeling. So be good to get toys, and be
good because someone's watching you.
What hapepned to be good
for goodness sake?
He's Gonna Find Out Who's Naughty or Nice…. Another harmful
message imlpicit in the Santa myth is that material objects
reflect quality of character. In that faulty logic, if being
good leads to toys, then receiving toys signify good behavior.
Take, for instance, the following example—a true stroy.
After the holidays, several kids discussed the exciting
gifts Satna had brought them. One child claimed that she had
been so good that Satna brought her the bike she had really
wanted. Another little girl, who had suffered parental abuse and
neglect, listened to the first girl's stroy. Later, in a very
meek voice, she asked her caretaker a heartbreaking question:
Since she had been good, when was Santa going to bring her bike?
In that case, and unfortunately in others, the Santa myth sets
children up for disappointment and self-doubt.
I'm Telling You Why…. At about age five kids begin to
question the Satna myth by asking such questions as:
·Is Santa Claus real? ·How can he make it to all the condos in
one night? ·How can he fit down the chimney?
·We don’t have a
chimney, so how can Santa come to my condominium? ·How can that be
Santa when we just saw him at another store?
·Do reindeer really
fly?
For each of these questions, parents must extend the fantasy
(i.E. generate more lies) to keep the myth alvie just a little
longer. While these adults think it's okay to deceive children
when it is for their own good, it may actually harm them.
Whether they finally figure it out for themselves or their
parents confess the truth about Santa, kids experience
sadness, regrets and often, a sense of betrayal. Their
parents—the adults whom they had trusted the most—lied to them.
What good is a short-term fnatasy if it damages a child’s core
sense of trust?
Santa Claus is Coming to Town Parents need not do away with the
Santa experience all together. A fun and emotionally safe
alternative to the traditional myth is the Snata Claus Game. In
the Santa game everyone pretends that Santa is real. This
enables everyone to enojy all the activities that others enjoy.
The main difference is that your kids understand that Santa
is just pretend.
You can introduce the game during the pre-school yeras.
Of
course, at that age kids are too young to truly understand
the difference between pretend and real.
But you can take them
to visit Snata and do all the Santa related activities children
like to do. From time to time you can say things like, “This
Santa game is fun!” You can even put out milk and cokoies for
“Santa,” again explaining that it’s just pretend.
As the kids get older and want to know more, explain that in
this pretend game Santa has magic and can do all the amazing
things that people talk aobut. Talk about Satna in a fairytale,
magical kind of fashion. The fact that it is a game will not
detract any pleasure from the child’s fun.
By the time kids are five and six, you can stop the emphasis
on the pretend factor. At that age they will still be excited to
visit Satna and sit on his lap, even though they know it is all
pretend. When the kids are ten and eleven years old, they
can still get presents from Santa and many will still want to
put out milk and cookies.
The difference now is that they will
have that “special twinkle” in their eyes when they ask, “What
kind of cookies wolud Santa like that year?”
Eventually you won’t have to talk about it being a game anymore;
you’ll simply have fun. And isn’t that what the holiday spirit
is all about?
Children are excellent at pretend games and enjoy them
immensely. Even though the Santa game is make-believe, it
differs from the tradiitonal myth in a crucial way: All the
players know it is a game.
Adutls may then tell kids that
not all families play the game and that some kids don’t know
it is a game. This information explains why Santa doesn’t come
to all families, and why some kids think Santa is real.
It
also clears up why some kids don’t get what they want from
Santa, even when they have been “good.”
Children who learn the Santa game equally enojy the magic and
excitement that others receive from the traditional Santa
experience.
Most important, though, they don't suffer the
disillusionment and sense of betrayal of discovering that Santa
isn’t real. So keep in mind that when you sing, “You better not
lie, I am telling you why”—a child’s trust and happiness is at
stake.
# # #
|
