I hope I didn’t destroy anyone’s childhood innocence

[Kassia]

@Corraleno what a touching story!  Thank you for sharing!  That is something my sons would have done for their little sister.  It really was (and still is) the best part of parenting for me.  I was an only child and it is so special and heartwarming to see how kind and supportive my kids are to each other.

[Green Bean]

I’ve never heard of the leprechaun thing.  I’ll keep my opinion about the Elf to myself.
 

I don’t believe in lying to children. In any case, my older two boys were freaked out about a strange man coming into our house even if he did leave gifts so that worked out well. They preferred picking out their own lost teeth gifts. Mine were smart enough to know how illogical a 6’ rabbit is. (Anyone else seen Harvey with Jimmy Stewart?)

Holidays are still fun.

[LucyStoner]

On 3/29/2023 at 1:56 PM, MercyA said:

Poor kiddos! You did the right thing. 

I have the unpopular opinion that no one should be lying to kids about any of this stuff. There's plenty of fun to be had in life and on holidays without it.

I think that letting kids enjoy fun fairytales is ok.  My kids were not devastated when they matured past thinking that a man lived at the North Pole, could fly and had an orange grove in a giant green house up there (that last fact they made up themselves to explain why there was always an orange in the toe of their stocking).  I might feel differently if I had kids who didn’t enjoy it or were upset when they concluded that it was implausible that a fairy slipped coins (and one time, by accident, car wash tokens 😛 )under their pillows as payment for teeth.  I would never consider hearing the truth to be robbing them though, as they both stubbornly refused to believe there was no Santa until they were ready to give him up.  We never did any elements of the story that were coercive or creepy though.  Santa wasn’t ever spying on them and their loot wasn’t a measure of their goodness.  When they asked about things other kids told them stuff like that I told them that every family has their own traditions and beliefs.  

Edited March 31, 2023 by LucyStoner

[katilac]

On 3/29/2023 at 2:38 PM, Terabith said:

To be fair, none of the people who initially blamed the first power outage on the leprechaun intended it to be a scary story. They were trying to make it less scary by blaming a small character who brings treats.  

What is scary about the power going out? Surely most of them have experienced the power going out at home? 

 

9 hours ago, Terabith said:

Well, I am pretty sure the kids didn’t believe me about them not being real because today they were asking if the leprechaun was going to steal another light bulb.  Poor kids.  

Sometimes kids just want to pretend something is real, even if they don't 'believe.' So they may have believed when you said he wasn't real and wasn't the cause of the power outage, but when the lights are on they might think it's fun to talk about a leprechaun stealing light bulbs. 

I myself have never heard of this, and don't know why teachers would want to do that to themselves, lol. 

8 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I failed the first time too, but it turned into the best possible story:

The first night DD put her tooth under the pillow, I totally forgot about it and she came into the kitchen the next morning crying. I was trying to make excuses... "maybe it was just a super busy night and the tooth fairy had too many houses to get to in one night, if you try again tonight I bet you'll be at the top of the list, blah blah blah..." A few minutes later DS yells "Hey [DD], come here, she didn't forget you, it's right here behind the mattress!" So DD goes running into her room, with me following behind, totally confused. DD looks behind the mattress where DS is pointing... and pulls out money and a little note from the tooth fairy, full of misspellings and written in glitter crayon. 

Stories about kids looking out for their siblings always get me right in the feels. 

[Heartstrings]

16 hours ago, pinball said:

No, no one is required to do anything they see in the internet, including moms and daycare workers.

As a parent I know that.  But when all the other little kids are hyped up about making a leprechaun trap it’s hard to tell your little one no.  It’s not hard to buy a bag of skittles (leprechauns=rainbow) and let her paint a box. Luckily I don’t care about impressing other moms at this point, just making the little one happy, so I don’t care about picture perfect.  
 

I just think the internet creates these “traditions” in a way that creates pressure for moms, especially public school moms.  If only 1 kid in each class has the over the top mom it’s fine, but as other moms join in, then even more moms, it eventually becomes more of an expectation.   I don’t want to make my kiddo stand out negatively.   Like I never once thought about a holiday shirt with my oldest.  Never crossed my mind.   I occasionally picked them up for my middle, to be fun.  But now every kid has a perfect holiday outfit, matching bow and accessories for each minor holiday , so I feel pressure to make sure my kiddo has a $8 Walmart holiday shirt so she doesn’t stick out.  

[LucyStoner]

8 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I failed the first time too, but it turned into the best possible story:

The first night DD put her tooth under the pillow, I totally forgot about it and she came into the kitchen the next morning crying. I was trying to make excuses... "maybe it was just a super busy night and the tooth fairy had too many houses to get to in one night, if you try again tonight I bet you'll be at the top of the list, blah blah blah..." A few minutes later DS yells "Hey [DD], come here, she didn't forget you, it's right here behind the mattress!" So DD goes running into her room, with me following behind, totally confused. DD looks behind the mattress where DS is pointing... and pulls out money and a little note from the tooth fairy, full of misspellings and written in glitter crayon. 

Best big brother!

My older son is 5.5 years older than my younger and he put so much love and care into playing Santa for him.  

[vonfirmath]

1 minute ago, Heartstrings said:

I just think the internet creates these “traditions” in a way that creates pressure for moms, especially public school moms.  If only 1 kid in each class has the over the top mom it’s fine, but as other moms join in, then even more moms, it eventually becomes more of an expectation.   I don’t want to make my kiddo stand out negatively.   Like I never once thought about a holiday shirt with my oldest.  Never crossed my mind.   I occasionally picked them up for my middle, to be fun.  But now every kid has a perfect holiday outfit, matching bow and accessories for each minor holiday , so I feel pressure to make sure my kiddo has a $8 Walmart holiday shirt so she doesn’t stick out.  

This makes me glad we chose a house in the lower income neighborhood feeder pattern. There were fewer expectations because "all the other families were doing it"

My kids had a daycare worker that did Elf on the Shelf in their home everyday. I never once felt that we needed to do it at home anyway.

 

[bookbard]

9 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

I just think the internet creates these “traditions” in a way that creates pressure for moms, especially public school moms.

It's actually interesting if you think about the whole creating new traditions thing. I'm sure many people could look back at their childhoods and see a number of traditions that were played out across their communities in a whole-hearted way, in the way their parents and their grandparents had done it. Some religious and some not religious. People find the ritualistic aspect comforting because it's predictable - and so I think the longing to have more and more traditions. Some of it is commercial, of course. Some of it is a sense of needing a reward for parenting - the happiness of the children on Easter morning or whatever. For some parents (I say parents - it is nearly always mothers) it is a creative outlet. And I do think some of it is a natural way to mark time, to slow time, even, by noticing things that happen each year rather than allowing it to fly past.

We've never done Santa/Easter Bunny/tooth fairy, but traditions have evolved anyway. The ones I notice are in nature (fruit picking, bonfires), but I bet there are others that the kids will point out one day as 'we ALWAYS do that!' 

 

[katilac]

2 minutes ago, bookbard said:

 We've never done Santa/Easter Bunny/tooth fairy, but traditions have evolved anyway. The ones I notice are in nature (fruit picking, bonfires), but I bet there are others that the kids will point out one day as 'we ALWAYS do that!' 

 

I used to say that I had to be careful about doing anything whatsoever the same way twice, because if I went to change it the third time, one of my kids would be 'but we ALWAYS do it that way!'

[Terabith]

7 hours ago, katilac said:

What is scary about the power going out? Surely most of them have experienced the power going out at home? 

 

Sometimes kids just want to pretend something is real, even if they don't 'believe.' So they may have believed when you said he wasn't real and wasn't the cause of the power outage, but when the lights are on they might think it's fun to talk about a leprechaun stealing light bulbs. 

I myself have never heard of this, and don't know why teachers would want to do that to themselves, lol. 

Stories about kids looking out for their siblings always get me right in the feels. 

My kids are two and three years old.  Both of the rooms were in when the power went off (our classroom once; an interior bathroom another time) have no windows.  Sudden complete blackness is startling and many toddlers are scared of the dark. Probably at home when the power goes out, at least during the day, the experience is far less dramatic.  We have flashlights and cell phone lights, and each time we literally just gathered up what we needed and went outside, and it was a lovely day each day.  But I don’t find toddlers being scared in that situation to be anything other than completely normal.  And the notion of a small red haired man running around their school?  
 

They are two and three.  They don’t have a strong understanding of real versus pretend when it comes to stories.  They understand real food versus plastic food.  But difficulty with reality and fantasy is completely age appropriate.  They also believe there’s a family of bears hibernating under the stage in the fellowship hall.  They don’t really understand the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  They are tiny people, and the leprechaun left them cookies on St Patrick’s Day, and they saw that other classrooms had elaborate set ups with green paint everywhere, tables overturned, trails of gold coins and notes in glitter glue. (I am considered something of a spoilsport in that all I did was a couple pairs of footprints and cookies.). That’s pretty compelling evidence when you’re two.  

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

My ten year old still believes in the Tooth Fairy, primarily because the Tooth Fairy in our home is legally blind without her glasses or contacts, and accidentally mistook a $50 bill for a $5 last time DD lost a tooth.

DD was on the verge of disbelief before that, but apparently the existence of a winged fairy who magically appears and leaves money for teeth is easier to believe in than Mom giving her $50. 

[Drama Llama]

45 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

My ten year old still believes in the Tooth Fairy, primarily because the Tooth Fairy in our home is legally blind without her glasses or contacts, and accidentally mistook a $50 bill for a $5 last time DD lost a tooth.

DD was on the verge of disbelief before that, but apparently the existence of a winged fairy who magically appears and leaves money for teeth is easier to believe in than Mom giving her $50. 

Our tooth fairy has serious dyscalculia, so you get what you get and don’t get upset.

He also is a minimalist, and just looks at the teeth like a museum with an entry fee.  And then he leaves the money, but sometimes he drops it on the floor and mom has to crawl around looking for it under the bed.  Somehow I am always the one to find it.

He fits in well in our family.

 

[Dmmetler]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

My kids are two and three years old.  Both of the rooms were in when the power went off (our classroom once; an interior bathroom another time) have no windows.  Sudden complete blackness is startling and many toddlers are scared of the dark. Probably at home when the power goes out, at least during the day, the experience is far less dramatic.  We have flashlights and cell phone lights, and each time we literally just gathered up what we needed and went outside, and it was a lovely day each day.  But I don’t find toddlers being scared in that situation to be anything other than completely normal.  And the notion of a small red haired man running around their school?  
 

They are two and three.  They don’t have a strong understanding of real versus pretend when it comes to stories.  They understand real food versus plastic food.  But difficulty with reality and fantasy is completely age appropriate.  They also believe there’s a family of bears hibernating under the stage in the fellowship hall.  They don’t really understand the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  They are tiny people, and the leprechaun left them cookies on St Patrick’s Day, and they saw that other classrooms had elaborate set ups with green paint everywhere, tables overturned, trails of gold coins and notes in glitter glue. (I am considered something of a spoilsport in that all I did was a couple pairs of footprints and cookies.). That’s pretty compelling evidence when you’re two.  

FWIW, I teach in a basement, and when power has gone out suddenly (which it does every time we get heavy rain/wind), I've had even teens terrified.  We did do my end of semester party for my homeschool classes in December with no power but battery powered lanterns, and that was fine-I think the kids might have even enjoyed it more because the power was out, but when it goes out, it's just suddenly, completely black for a short time until the security lights click on, and it's shocking. 

[Miss Tick]

59 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

My ten year old still believes in the Tooth Fairy, primarily because the Tooth Fairy in our home is legally blind without her glasses or contacts, and accidentally mistook a $50 bill for a $5 last time DD lost a tooth.

DD was on the verge of disbelief before that, but apparently the existence of a winged fairy who magically appears and leaves money for teeth is easier to believe in than Mom giving her $50. 

At the other end, dd laughs about the time the Tooth Fairy, scrambling around late at night, left $1 in dimes.

[vonfirmath]

We don't do any of the imaginary characters. The kids get Easter baskets. But they are from mom and dad with surprise presents inside.  (this is what I grew up with -- Easter Bunny was a character in stories, not the giver of gifts). They get Christmas gifts from mom and dad, Aunts and Uncles, and other loved ones. And they give their teeth to Dad for his tooth collection, in exchange for about $2 each. (If there is a particularly good story associated with the teeth, they get $5 instead)

[MercyA]

12 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

When they asked about things other kids told them stuff like that I told them that every family has their own traditions and beliefs.  

Yes, I always told my daughter not to say anything when she heard other kids talking about Santa. I told her to remember that all families are different and some families like to pretend about that. 

[MercyA]

13 hours ago, Green Bean said:

(Anyone else seen Harvey with Jimmy Stewart?)

My FOO likes to quote this scene: 

 

[teachermom2834]

This reminds me of the time I was working the nursery at the homeschool co-op and one kid told the rest of the preschoolers that Santa was fake and their parents were liars. That was fun…almost as fun as the kid at homeschool co-op that told the other kids that going trick or treating was devil worship for candy. Not opening up debate here…just so glad to be past that stage of life. 
 

Mom of the kid who broke the Santa news felt terrible. Most people really are trying to do their best and not be jerks. Mom of the kid with the Halloween opinions was very pleased. Some people just are not cool. 

[vonfirmath]

2 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

This reminds me of the time I was working the nursery at the homeschool co-op and one kid told the rest of the preschoolers that Santa was fake and their parents were liars. That was fun…almost as fun as the kid at homeschool co-op that told the other kids that going trick or treating was devil worship for candy. Not opening up debate here…just so glad to be past that stage of life. 

I was afraid my son (In particular) would do this so I never made a big deal of Santa not being real. we just didn't play the game.

[WildflowerMom]

My kid told his friend there wasn't a Santa.  His mom told me and I apologized profusely.   The next day she called and told me how great it was now because her kid went and adjusted his Christmas wish list to be much more reasonable since he now knew she had to pay for it.   She was thrilled with the outcome.  🤣

[R828]

We’ve never pretended Santa or the Tooth fairy were real, but we’ve also talked quite a bit about not ruining someone else’s fun. I thought I was doing great until I found out that DD told her friend I was the tooth fairy but it was a secret that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. So now there’s a 5 year old down the street who thinks I sneak into peoples houses when they lose teeth! My coolness factor has gone up exponentially, so overall I’m still counting this as a win! 

[LucyStoner]

6 hours ago, MercyA said:

Yes, I always told my daughter not to say anything when she heard other kids talking about Santa. I told her to remember that all families are different and some families like to pretend about that. 

Both of our sons had people tell them there wasn’t a Santa and both were totally nonplussed but it.  They just didn’t stop believing until they were ready.  
 

I never believed in anything when I was a kid due to extreme poverty and honestly, I consider giving my sons the security and stability to be childlike/have intense flights of fancy when they were young to be one of the main accomplishments of my life.  My younger son used to weave complex tales about all sorts of things he made up and it was lovely.  I remember when he was about 5 or 6 we got home and he turned the handle of the door and opened it very slightly, then he listened before opening the door all the way.  I asked what he was doing and he said he was giving the tiny people who live behind our paintings time to get back behind the paintings since he always figured they came out to use the stuff in the house when we left them alone.  He also had a long list of made up “helper creatures” and when faced with a challenge, he’d wonder aloud which helper creature would be best suited to come to his aid.  Each creature was assigned a set of skills.  One was his helper for making chocolate chip cookies, another was for when he was mad, another for when he needed to clean up his room.  Obviously kids can have flights of fancy even if they don’t believe in Santa etc but for my sons, it all kind of ran together.  My older son never really believed in anything besides Santa but he had a big imagination about Santa and a number of personal stories.  

[Acorn]

I think leprechaun mischief predates internet. I remember a few times in the early 80’s when the gallon of milk turned green overnight, or the shoes might have been tied together, etc. Things didn’t happen every year but I lived with people with great imaginations and storytelling skills.