Tuesday, March 9, 2010

How much do you tell the kids?

With a couple of young kids I've found myself becoming increasingly conflicted about just how 'truthy' I am with regards to those little white lies most parents see as normal.

I'm thinking of things like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and, yes, even God.

Every parent likes to think of their progeny as being intelligent and I'm no different. And with that comes the respect I have and my desire to be always honest with them and let them make their own decisions.

But it's hard. Hard because my innocent babies think the idea of Santa Claus giving them presents for being good is wonderous. And the pain of losing a teeth is overcome by the satisfaction and excitement of knowing that a coin awaits the next morning.

So what exactly should we tell our kids and what shouldn't we?

The most common way I've found of not dealing with this is deflecting the question back to the child in question.

"Does Santa exist, daddy?"

"Hmm. What do you think?"

But I can tell this is only going to get me so far. My eldest is just too inquisitive to let it stand. And they're both able to use my iMac to use the internet and I suspect it's only a matter of time before they try and find a cool Santa website and stumble on the truth.

(For what it's worth all proper parental controls are on to ensure they can't get to dodgy websites but I suspect belief in a jolly fat man with a white beard and sack of presents isn't filtered by this.)

So what do I say when my "Hmm. What do you think" is finally batted back to me with "It's a yes or no question, daddy. Does Santa exist?"

I suspect my skepticism will win through and I'll just confess. Probably out of earshot of the younger one so he can find out the truth for himself.

But is the right way to deal with it? Should I have told them the truth as soon as they understood the concept of the Tooth Fairy?

Or is little while lies to our kids acceptable? I'd be interested to hear from others what they would do, or have done, in similar circumstances.