The Whole Parent Podcast
The Whole Parent Podcast
The Big Santa Controversy
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It’s the ultimate parenting conundrum: Do you tell your kids the truth about Santa? In this episode, I dive into the psychology, cultural traditions, and ethical questions behind the Santa myth. Why do kids believe so wholeheartedly, and how do we respond when the questions about Santa’s reality start rolling in? Plus, I explore the tricky balance between keeping the magic alive and maintaining honesty and trust with your children.
This episode includes insights from child development experts, My personal parenting reflections, and an adorable interview with my own kids about their own feelings on Santa Claus.
Whether you’re Team Santa or Team No Santa, this episode will help you navigate the holidays with intention and a deeper understanding of how magical traditions impact your kids’ development and emotional well-being.
What We Covered in This Episode:
- The Big Question:
- When your child asks, “Is Santa real?” how do you respond in a way that honors both their wonder and your values?
- The Psychology of Belief:
- Why kids naturally embrace magical thinking until around age seven.
- How the Santa myth fosters imagination, perspective-taking, and moral reasoning.
- The Controversy:
- Should parents perpetuate the Santa myth?
- The downside of using Santa (and Elf on the Shelf) for behavior modification.
- Why the “naughty and nice list” might be doing more harm than good.
- Navigating Tricky Conversations:
- How to approach the Santa topic with sensitive or skeptical kids.
- Why honesty at the right age builds trust and helps children process big truths.
Resources Mentioned:
- Alfie Kohn’s book, Punished by Rewards, for understanding the impact of extrinsic motivation on kids.
- The 1973 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood where Fred Rogers talks about Santa Claus.
- Jon’s upcoming book, Punishment-Free Parenting: The Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising Your Voice.
How to support Whole Parent:
- Subscribe, Rate, and Review: Your feedback keeps the podcast going and helps other parents find it!
- Share with Friends: Know someone grappling with the Santa conversation? Share this episode with three friends who have kids between ages 3 and 10.
- Pre-order Jon’s Book: Available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook formats. Pre-order now to support the release and start 2025 with fresh parenting strategies!
Thank you for tuning in! Wishing you and your family a joyful and meaningful holiday season, whether you’re celebrating with Santa or creating your own traditions. See you next week! 🎄
Just a warning this episode is about Santa Claus and how we talk to kids about Santa. If you would prefer for your little ones to not hear what we're talking about today, this might be a better episode for you to listen to alone. It's a crisp December evening and you're sitting by the fire with your kids. The tree is twinkling, the stockings are hanging neatly we have six this year, it's a lot your kids are carefully setting out cookies for Santa because it's Christmas Eve. There's that magic feeling in the air, the kind of magic that all makes us feel like kids again. And then, from across the room, you hear the words that you have been dreading since your child was born Is Santa real? In that moment, time freezes. You glance at your partner. You're caught in the silent parental game of chicken. Who's going to take this one? For generations, the story of Santa has been this pillar of a magical childhood the idea of this jolly old elf who travels the whole world every single Christmas, fueled by cookies and goodwill. But the magic also comes with questions. What do we do when our kids start wondering, if it's true, what happens when their wide-eyed wonder gives away to skepticism? How do we strike a balance between nurturing an imagination and a childhood and staying true to values. Today, on the Whole Parent Podcast, we're diving into the great Santa controversy. Is it okay to lie to your kids about Santa? We'll explore the psychology of why kids believe the moment they start to doubt, and how you navigate those tricky questions in a way that honors their wonder without compromising their trust. Because at the end of the day, it's not really about Santa. It's about how we show up for our kids when the questions are big, when the answers aren't easy and the stakes feel impossibly high. I'm John. Today we're talking about Santa Claus, why he matters, how we can talk about him and why his story, like parenting itself, is more about a journey than any destination. So this year so far we've been watching some Christmas movies, maybe fewer than years past. I think we got kind of burned out on them, but we did watch the Santa Claus with my oldest.
Jon @wholeparent :It's a story about a guy named Scott Calvin. He's this workaholic toy executive. He's played by Tim Allen and he is doing the bare minimum parenting for his son, charlie. He reluctantly takes him on Christmas Eve and everything just goes terribly. He burns the turkey. They have to go out to eat. He doesn't know how to talk to Charlie when they're sitting there. It's awkward. There's this general vibe of like when is this going to be over? And then something truly unexpected happens. Scott accidentally kills Santa Claus in front of his son. I'm paraphrasing, but that's what happens, right? He yells at Santa when he's on his roof. Santa falls off his roof and plunges to his doom. Now you might think, as a logical adult, that maybe Scott, this very grown up, very mature, a logical adult, that maybe Scott, this very grown up, very mature executive, is going to call 911, maybe check to see if Santa's okay. But no, not Scott, calvin. He is going to put on the suit of the man that he has just killed, because apparently, when you kill Santa, that is what you were expected to do. What Scott doesn't realize is that this small act is going to have massive implications for him. You see, there is a clause, a Santa clause. Get it C-L-A-U-S-E, and it's written in microscopic legal language that binds him to being Santa as his job for the rest of his life, because that's the real power and magic of a well-written contract. Charlie and Scott spend the rest of the night delivering presents, doing Santa's job. Eventually they wind up at the North Pole, where they learn the extent of this contract, including that Scott is now officially Santa.
Jon @wholeparent :It's a fun movie. I found myself enjoying it, like I did probably when I was a little kid, but I really found myself doing something that I'd never done before, which is empathize with the villain of the movie, the antagonist. His name is Neil. He's Charlie's stepdad. He's a psychiatrist who wears these horrible sweaters and whose primary fault seems to be the fact that he is deeply troubled that Charlie's beliefs in Santa go way beyond what's normal. Charlie doesn't just believe in Santa, he said that his dad is the real Santa, and if we take this outside the context of the movie, you can see how a psychiatrist would probably be pretty unnerved by this. Neil is even more concerned that Scott, a man who, neil, has been nothing but nice to so far in the movie, although a little patronizing, if we'll admit, is feeding into this delusion. For context, the magic of this contract is transforming Scott into Santa, but what Neil sees is this adult that's going to these extreme lengths, putting on hundreds of pounds, growing this massive beard, changing his hair color to manipulate this vulnerable and confused child of divorce. I have to admit I have a really hard time hating Neil and, for that matter, you know Charlie's mom.
Jon @wholeparent :I could keep going on about this, but really what they seem to be struggling with is something that I very much so empathize with, which is how do we talk to our kids about these sort of magical things? What do we tell our kids about Santa? Let's start by acknowledging the elephant in the room that Santa is a really big deal. For many families, santa is this figure who represents joy and magic and the spirit of giving, and for others, the idea of Santa feels just kind of dishonest Just I can't lie to my kids that way and I've walked that struggle right Like it feels kind of at odds with your values of trying to instill honesty and transparency with your kids. Perpetuating this myth and that kind of leads us to the reality, which is the reason Santa is so controversial is that it's really hard to take a neutral approach to Santa.
Jon @wholeparent :Kids are going to ask you really pointed questions and at different times it can be really hard to know what to say. How does Santa get to every house in one night? Why does Santa have different handwriting or use different wrapping paper at one friend's house or another? Why did my friend get this larger, bigger thing than my other friend, who has less money? Doesn't Santa, you know, have unlimited resources to be able to give every kid what they are asking for? And eventually it leads to this kind of fundamental question, that one that I talked about in that setting of the scene on Christmas Eve, and that's the big one, you know is Santa real? So how do we answer these questions without crushing the magic or compromising our kid's childhood or anything like that, or our integrity as parents? First, I think it's really important that we answer the question, or at least ask the question, why kids are so drawn to Santa. Why are parents so drawn to Santa? Why do kids find it so easy to believe this?
Jon @wholeparent :And if you're going to ask childhood development specialists, they're going to highlight that before about the age of seven, kids live in what we might think of as this kind of magical way of seeing the world. Just take, for example. You know, when we think about magic and ask these fundamental questions, we are doing so from a place where we understand how things work, and so when something like Santa Claus, which clearly doesn't work, comes up, it competes with our views of other things that do work, whereas for our kids they live in a world that they don't really fundamentally understand before the age of seven. They don't know how an elevator you know doors open and how it's hydraulically or whatever pulley system to move it up and down. I don't even know really how elevators work, I just know that they kind of do. They don't really understand how cars work, they just kind of you know you press a pedal and then they move. They don't understand internal combustion engines or electric engines or whatever. And so because of this they are just kind of wired to be open to magic and wonder and imagination. So they're not just believing in Santa because we tell them to. They're believing because it aligns with the way that they're really processing everything in the world.
Jon @wholeparent :Santa's story for them just kind of feels normal. It feeds into their sense of wonder that they're experiencing all over the place and it gives them some frameworks for some positive considerations, concepts like generosity and kindness and even delayed gratification, and that's that's the positive side of santa, if we're being honest. Waiting for christmas morning teaches patience. It teaches tolerance of emotions. Writing letters to santa is this reflective process? It allows us to Santa. Is this reflective process. It allows us to even participate in some gratitude. You're leaving out cookies. That's a lesson in hospitality and generosity and doing something for others, and so Santa's not all bad.
Jon @wholeparent :In fact, during this 2016 interview that I was able to find with the Wall Street Journal, developmental psychologist and bestselling parenting author also podcast host of my favorite parenting podcast, raising Good Humans Elisa Pressman who, by the way, herself is Jewish, so she has no vested interest in this Santa question said to the Wall Street Journal that it's not only acceptable for us to perpetuate the myth of Santa in kids under the age of seven. It actually can be beneficial to helping them develop this rich imaginary life. She goes on to talk about how kids are learning all the time through imagination. This is how they're doing perspective taking and developing moral reasoning. It's something I talk about extensively in my book that we utilize and leverage their imagination to teach them the life skills, and that traditions have been doing this forever not just the Santa Claus tradition, but traditions going back to indigenous communities for thousands of years. So participating in the Santa myth with your four-year-old is probably not as harmful as some of the people who are on the extreme. I will never lie to my kid side are maybe forwarding that it is, but it also can depend on the kid, and that's an important consideration. And really, what this all brings us to is the central question that we have to ask ourselves when we're considering this whole Santa thing, which is really the central question that we have to ask ourselves whenever we're talking to our kids, and it's why are we doing what we're doing? What are we getting out of it? Is it for our kids? Is it only for our kids? Is it for both us and our kids? Who is this Santa myth actually? For it's complicated, I think.
Jon @wholeparent :One thing that kind of gets to this is this interesting phenomenon where kids pretend and I don't know the statistics on this, but I have heard this in multiple different interviews with parents. I watched so many interviews, read so many interviews about Santa from developmental child experts, and one of the things that often they will point to again I don't know the percentage of kids who do this is that at some point kids will actually learn that Santa's not real from school or from a friend, or maybe they will just, you know, kind of logic it out for themselves and they'll stop believing, or maybe they, you know, saw it on a show or something. And they will actually lie and pretend to believe that Santa's real for the benefit of their parents. And when they're asked about this, you know it's not just like they're saying oh yeah, well, I like the presents, I'm going to keep pretending so that I can keep getting the presents. These kids will actually come right out and say no, you know, my mom or my dad really loves this Santa thing. They love that I believe in it and so like I just kind of do it for them. And so I think we often tell ourselves that Santa is only for our kids, it's to keep their childhood magical. I think the truth is often more complicated and I think our kids even sometimes will know that. And then there's the other kind of issues with Santa that we often don't really consider, that are really not for the benefit of our kids. I think about specifically Santa's omnipotence, and now he has spies to assist in that omnipotence. We call them the elves on the shelf right, and these are tools of behavior modification for parents and have been for decades.
Jon @wholeparent :The holidays, the winter break, like these, are dysregulating times for kids. We have holiday parties and family gatherings. Parents, can you know, that can bring up some childhood stuff for us. We don't often parent our best in front of our families. Obviously there's some uncomfortable clothing, itchy sweaters all of that, at least for my childhood and just generally way too much sugar. We're missing bedtime, we're out after dark, and this just means that kids are out of routine during this time of year, and so it's nice for many parents to have a way of sort of mitigating those tantrums and those meltdowns. And that's, I think, the kind of uncomfortable part of Santa that we do need to touch on before we keep going with just the do we believe, do we not believe? And that's the part of the Santa myth where Santa becomes the bribe or the threat that keeps kids doing what we want them to do rather than, you know, doing the things we don't want them to do misbehaving, having tantrums, melt-ons, whatever when they're in less than ideal scenarios. I have a story about this. It actually just happened to me yesterday I'm recording this in December of 2024.
Jon @wholeparent :And we went to the library but not our local library because it's currently under construction. We went to the one in the town, the next town over, and I go there often with my middle kids. So I have a four-year-old, I have an almost three-year-old, and then I have an eight-year-old and a two-month-old. And the four-year-old and the three-year-old are the ones who are with me in the morning while their brother is at forest school and we go to this local library and we're playing in their play area and they both reach for the same piece at the same time. They're playing with the library Legos and they both reach for the same piece at the same time. They're playing with the library Legos and they both reach for the same piece. And then they both proceeded to kind of let each other know that they wanted it.
Jon @wholeparent :Now nobody laid hands on each other, but they both expressed their displeasure, let's say to one another and this is totally normal, right, sharing is difficult, especially with siblings, and a librarian walked over and said to them she intervened, which was a little strange because I was sitting right there. Usually you don't see adults do this but she felt empowered to come over and say you know, we need to share and we need to be nice to each other at the library, especially this time of year. And this, in my view, is just like the highlight of and I don't mean to you know this librarian had the best of intentions and she's just operating from her worldview too, like I'm not knocking her at all, but this is the gross underbelly of the Santa myth, right, the way that we use kids' sense of magic and wonder to gain compliance and to try and incentivize good behavior. You're being watched, you know. He knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. You better be good, and I would argue that if we are going to choose to participate in this Santa myth with our kids, at the very least that part of it, what I call the naughty and nice list, part of it, we should deconstruct and get rid of Now. I don't think you have to get rid of the entire myth, then I'm saying that the part of the myth that is used primarily as behavior modification is problematic, no matter how old your kids are and how you're utilizing that.
Jon @wholeparent :And the reason I say this is because home really needs to be a safe place for kids to express their big feelings when they have bad days, and it cannot be a place where there are elves narking on them because they got too hungry or because they had trouble sharing or because they had a bad day at school and they just let off some steam and that kind of goes. And even if you don't do the elves, you know the narking elves. You also need to yourself be a safe person. The number of times I've been in the grocery store or we've been walking by the toy aisle and you hear a parent say something like well, I'm going to tell Santa that you are X, y, z right now. We need to be safe too and our kids need to know that we can be people who they can bring their problems to.
Jon @wholeparent :The world is not a place where our mess, our kids' mess, is always going to be welcome and so that it needs to be welcome in our home. Like that's the basis of secure attachment. As Eli Harwood attachment expert says, you have to give kids a safe home base, like when you're playing tag and there's like a home base where a kid can go and be safe from being tagged. Like that has to be home and you can't have that place be a place where they're constantly being watched and assessed and monitored, and immediately by the way, this was my son's, my oldest aversion to Santa and Elf on a Shelf, like immediately.
Jon @wholeparent :He was like what do you mean? This thing is watching me. I am not okay with that, and even if it's not the removal by the way of presence like oh, if you aren't good, you're not going to get any presents, even if it's the reward side, the other side of this coin, we still have the question should we be using rewards, like presents from Santa on Christmas, to incentivize good behavior? I actually have a snippet here that I'm going to play from an interview that I did for an upcoming episode of the podcast It'll be later on in this season from Alfie Kohn, who wrote a book called Punished by Rewards, but anyway, this is his take on rewards with kids.
Alfie Kohn:Studies have continued to show that children who are frequently rewarded or praised by their parents tend to be less generous and caring than other kids. You might buy the behavior of getting them to do something, but now the point is to see that activity as a means to an end.
Jon @wholeparent :I want to stop here for a moment and ask you, if you're enjoying this episode of the whole parent podcast, to subscribe, wherever you're listening, to rate this episode and review the podcast. I read every single review myself. They are what keep me going, and I want you to go and do one extra thing for me here, and that's to share it with at least three friends in your life. You can share it on social media. I think that that's great, but I want you to actually send this episode to three people in your life who have kids between the ages of three and 10 and say, hey, check this out, especially your friends, maybe, who have already talked about this. Are we doing Santa? Are you not doing Santa? And send it to them. You have no idea how much it helps not only me to grow the podcast, to get more listeners to keep us going doing this thing, but also how it how it helps people. You don't know what, what, what's helping, and you can just point to this episode, this part in the episode, after you share it with them and if they say, you know, wait, do you think I'm a bad parent? Why are you sharing this with me? You just say no, no, no, he just told me I had to share it and so I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do. It, you know. And if you don't do it, I want you to know. Santa Claus is watching you and you're going to get coal in your stocking for Christmas if you don't share this with three people. Also, if you're looking to start the new year off parenting, better consider pre ordering my book punishment free parenting the brain based way to raise kids without raising your voice. It's available at the link in the description, as well as wherever books are sold, and it's also available on audiobook. So if you like this episode, where I'm kind of doing episodes a little differently if you didn't know that this season I'm doing them more similarly to the way that I wrote the book and the audiobook. So chances are, if you like this episode, you're going to love the book.
Jon @wholeparent :Okay, speaking of the episode, let's get back to it. How do you handle that inevitable moment when your kid looks you in the eye and asks you for real? You know, is Santa real? I'm going to give you three approaches that I think you can take, depending on your child's age and personality. The first one is kind of the classic way of talking to kids about Santa, and that's to frame Santa as a symbol. This works better for older kids, you know, seven or older, and this is where you say something to the extent of like Santa is real in the sense that he represents the spirit of Christmas, or giving or kindness, and grownups get to take on that role to keep that magic alive for kids. Now you're old enough, you get to be part of that tradition too. You get to be Santa, and this approach does something that's really cool. It empowers kids to graduate into the role of Santa, which we're going to talk about here in a moment is a really helpful balancing point for that disappointment that Santa is not real and, especially with older siblings, it can help them feel more empowered, like they're contributing to these acts of kindness, helping the younger siblings.
Jon @wholeparent :The second way to answer this is to answer the question with a question. This is what I would use with younger kids. So if your child's asking you about Santa but you think you know they really want you to just validate that you know Santa is real, you just respond by saying, well, what do you think? And this gives them a window into their own thought processes and allows you to kind of gauge how much information they're ready for. This can often just lead them to tell you everything that they think about Santa Claus, which might be the reason that they were asking you in the first place is just to kind of bounce it off of you and at the end you can validate that. You don't have to then say, like you, oh well, that's not true. Like you, you can just kind of say, oh, that's, that's really cool. Thank you for telling me that.
Jon @wholeparent :The last way is what I use for more logical kids, and this is just to give them it's what I call the it's pretend answer and it goes something like this you say santa is not a person who lives at the North Pole. This is for the kids who are asking all of the technical questions you know about time travel. If you're getting into quantum mechanics to explain Santa Claus, like at this point, we're probably past the point where we should have had the it's pretend conversation. So you say you know, santa is not a person who lives at the North Pole, but the story of Santa is something that families, as grown-ups, like to pretend, and it's fun to pretend sometimes, and so you can pretend along with us. And this last approach, the it's pretend approach, is the one that Fred Rogers used in his very infamous 1973 episode of Mr Rogers' Neighborhood called Is Santa Claus Real.
Jon @wholeparent :It's hard to imagine now that that show was ever considered controversial, but there are actually a handful of episodes of Mr Rogers' Neighborhood that were incredibly controversial, some of them so much so that you can't even watch them. I can't find them anywhere. There's a whole week in the 1980s where he talks about nuclear weapons and disarmament. I mean, like Fred really was pretty radical in many respects. But in this you know 1973 is Santa Claus real episode he effectively tells kids at the end no, santa is just pretend. And it's remembered for that moment when he admits that at the end and then he sings this song about pretending. But it also features what I think is one of the best children's most poignant conversations about Santa in the make believe world. So in make believe world, if you're familiar with the show, this is where Daniel Tiger. So in Make-Believe World, if you're familiar with the show, this is where Daniel Tiger lives. This is where the puppets live and Daniel Tiger in this case is concerned.
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Clip:Santa Claus is coming to the neighborhood of Make-Believe Santa Claus. What's he going to do to us? Oh well, I imagine it will be something good. Oh, I try to be good, but I'm not always good. I think I'm afraid of Santa Claus.
Jon @wholeparent :I wish he weren't coming here. Daniel basically says like he doesn't want Santa to come because Santa is watching him while he's sleeping and Daniel knows he hasn't always been good To which Santa, who is being played by one of the kind of regulars on the show something that Mr Rogers is going to point out later when they talk about the land of make-believe that it was just a person in a costume Santa says you know, I'm not even always good.
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Clip:I am Daniel Striped Tiger and I'm not always good. Well, I'm Santa Claus, and I'm not always good either.
Jon @wholeparent :And Santa has this line. I can just imagine Fred writing it.
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Clip:You aren't, of course not. Good people aren't always good, they just try to be.
Jon @wholeparent :By the end of the episode. I think it's kind of inescapable that Fred has kind of put on a master class in how you can effectively and ethically talk to kids about Santa. But I'm telling you, parents in 1973, according to people who have researched Fred and his life they were not happy. They did not feel this way. They felt like the man that they had trusted to teach their kids about emotions had just hurt them. So I think it's important to point out that the reason they felt that way, I think is because one of the biggest reasons that parents will keep up the Santa charade is because we're afraid of how kids are going to respond to the truth and react. So the next kind of point here that I want to make is to ask the question is that fear that our kids are going to be absolutely devastated by learning that Santa is not real grounded in reality for us? And according to Dr Eileen Kennedy Moore, who's this PhD host of this Kids Ask Doctor Friendtastic podcast, which I had never heard of until researching for this episode, she says you know, yes, there's disappointment, but actually it's okay. She's phenomenal in this segment that I watched. She says, yeah, you know what, there is going to be disappointment, but it's actually okay, because if they're at this age where they're really looking for answers, then they actually need the honesty and that if they're at the right age to learn this which, by the way, the right age is not old enough, it's not too old. If they're young enough to learn this, they'll recover quickly. The disappointment is actually also going to be balanced out, according to her and this is kind of what we were talking about in that first response by the sense of growth and pride, of being trusted with this adult concept that Santa's not real. But what is very clear is that that happens if you are able to express that Santa is not real young enough.
Jon @wholeparent :On the other hand, kids who are going to you know by some miracle make it to middle school and still believe in Santa, they have a much harder road coming ahead of them. They face a much bigger betrayal and there are social implications. At some point it stops being naive and imaginative to believe in this immortal elf who uses his flying reindeer to break into millions of houses around the world to deliver gifts and, you know, satiate his seemingly bottomless appetite for cookies and milk. At some point it just gets weird, like, if you have a 12 or 13 year old who believes this, their friends are not going to see that as like an endearing quirk. They are going to experience some social blowback as a result of expressing that belief to people in their life. And finding out about Santa too late, doesn't? You're not going to get the benefit of that pride or the sense of maturity. It becomes a point of shame.
Jon @wholeparent :So that leads us to kind of the final point in this episode, which is when is the right time to spill the beans and in the view of some parents some of my listeners I'm sure murder your child's sense of innocence and Christmas magic. I think every parent has to answer this for themselves. It can't be too late, as we've just highlighted, but it doesn't you don't have to do it when they're four either. I think it depends on the kids. For some kids, santa is just never going to work and I think parents who press it when it doesn't work actually wind up going to more harm. This is kind of what happened to Daniel Tiger.
Jon @wholeparent :The thought of a person coming into your house in the middle of the night, regardless of what they're bringing you, can be unnerving, especially for highly sensitive kids. For other kids it's that kind of underbelly of the tradition. He knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness sake. That is going to bother a lot of kids and if you are unable to divorce that from the myth itself, you may have to kind of end the myth earlier than you might like, because that's a really difficult piece and a lot of kids have trouble with that. That was the piece for my son. Once he had heard that he was like no way, no, no way, jose.
Jon @wholeparent :For some kids the tradition is fun and whimsical and later, once their brain develops, the facts catch up with St Nick and you know it's a pretty natural. Oh yeah, that was just a for fun thing. And yes, for some you're going to have to have a hard conversation that they may not want to have, but for them it is the kinder option than allowing them to kind of keep perpetuating in this way. And one last note on the when here it's not always a clear line for our kids or for us.
Jon @wholeparent :Kids often reflect later that they knew, but they chose to keep up the charade. But that might not even have been a conscious choice. For them, the magic was just kind of worth perpetuating. So with that in mind, I want to end this episode a little bit differently. In our house we have three boys who have very different views on Santa. I interviewed two of them and I'm going to play that for you now. Okay, you can start by saying your name and yeah, just for people who are listening to say your name and say how old you are.
Matt and Ollie:My name is Matt and I am eight.
Jon @wholeparent :Okay, matt, I have called you here with a really important set of questions. My first one I've already kind of told you what we're going to talk about, but my first one is what do you think about Santa Claus?
Matt and Ollie:I think that I don't think he's real because I don't like the idea of someone just sneaking to our house every year. What do the kids at your school think about Santa?
Jon @wholeparent :Most of them, yes, about like 2% of them think that Santa isn't real, so you're in the minority. There's not very many people who think what you think. Yes. What do you think about your brothers? Do you think that your brothers believe in Santa or do you think that they don't believe in?
Matt and Ollie:Santa, I've never asked them.
Jon @wholeparent :If you had to guess.
Matt and Ollie:Probably Liam believes in and Ollie's like not so sure.
Jon @wholeparent :Can you say your name and how old you are?
Matt and Ollie:Um what's the name? Um my actual name or my nickname?
Jon @wholeparent :Whichever one you want.
Matt and Ollie:Okay, oliver, and four years old.
Jon @wholeparent :You're Oliver and you are four years old.
Matt and Ollie:Actually I'm four and a half years.
Jon @wholeparent :Oliver, who's four and a half years old, can you tell me about Santa Claus? Tell me what you know about Santa Claus?
Matt and Ollie:Him give presents to somebody.
Jon @wholeparent :He gives presents to people. When does he come?
Matt and Ollie:At nighttime.
Jon @wholeparent :He comes at nighttime. What do you think about Santa Claus coming into our house while we're all sleeping?
Matt and Ollie:How he get into the house. He goes in the chimney.
Jon @wholeparent :Do you think that's okay that he comes in our house while we're sleeping To leave us presents?
Matt and Ollie:What.
Jon @wholeparent :Yeah, that doesn't make you nervous or anything.
Matt and Ollie:Well, that's because his head not goes upstairs.
Jon @wholeparent :Oh, because he doesn't go upstairs where we sleep, so it's okay.
Matt and Ollie:Well, because our tree's not upstairs it, because he doesn't go upstairs where we sleep, so it's okay. Well, because our tree's not upstairs, it's downstairs.
Jon @wholeparent :He just comes out and he goes to our tree.
Matt and Ollie:Right, and then he puts the presents under the tree.
Jon @wholeparent :Nice. So do you think that it's okay that grown-ups do Santa with kids, or do you think, do you wish that grown-ups didn't do Santa?
Matt and Ollie:I wish that grown-ups didn't do Santa. I wish that grown-ups didn't do.
Jon @wholeparent :Santa Really why?
Matt and Ollie:Because it's like, if you're good, you get presents, if you're bad, you either get coal or nothing.
Jon @wholeparent :What if that part of Santa was gone? So what if we took away the good and the bad part? What do you think about Santa then?
Matt and Ollie:A little bit better, but still not the idea of someone sneaking into your house. He can give everyone presents in the whole time war, or because everyone in the world and the house is all over the world does he care if kids have been good or bad?
Jon @wholeparent :Um, or do you think that he just gives presents to everyone?
Matt and Ollie:Him, him this, those that one is good.
Jon @wholeparent :He just gives presents to the good people.
Matt and Ollie:Well, I'm a good person so I say silly things like the poopy stuff.
Jon @wholeparent :I say yeah, you are a good person. If we decide to do Santa this year with Ollie, are you going to help us do it or are you going to tell him that Santa's not real? What do you think?
Matt and Ollie:I'll help him.
Jon @wholeparent :Do you think that Matt believes in Santa Claus?
Matt and Ollie:What does he believe in? Santa Claus? I like playing along. I play along with my friends next door all the time, like if they see like Mom would pull in and it was like really dark, they would think, oh no, there's a monster sneaking into your house. I'll just be like oh no, even though I know it's my mom.
Jon @wholeparent :Do you think that it's okay if other kids believe in Santa, or do you think that that's?
Matt and Ollie:Anyone can believe what anyone wants to believe thank you for being on the podcast, matt you're welcome thanks again for listening to this episode of the whole parent podcast.
Jon @wholeparent :If you enjoyed it, please go wherever you are listening to it and rate and review. Make sure that you are subscribed so that you get updates. If you'd like to learn more about whole parent, get a copy of the book. You can go down to the description below. There should be links there to all of the things, but especially the audiobook, for my upcoming book, punishment-free Parenting the Brain-Based Way to Raise Kids Without Raising your Voice. Make sure that you get your copy pre-ordered. It helps me incredibly when people order before the release date. I cannot state that enough. Best of luck to you and your family this holiday season, whether you're celebrating Santa Claus or not. And just remember, in the end you are the expert on your kids. You can adapt your parenting to fit their needs and I think that you are doing an amazing job. Till next time. This has been the Whole Parent Podcast.
