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Monday, 6 December 2010
You Better Watch Out. You Better Not Cry. You Better Not Pout. I'm Telling You Why...
Posted by Jez at 04:48
I have ran out of inspirations for blogs. Hence - since it is December, in which Christmas is just around the corner - I read an article, from Yahoo Lifestyles, Who is Santa? that talks about how should parents explain the truth about Santa to their children. In the article, eight-year-old Jack told his mum, Susan Stoddart, that he was wondering if the presents under the Christmas tree came from his parents. "Ir was a very positive conversation." Said Susan, "We talked about the values Santa represented and the idea of Christmas spirit."
According to the article, Claude Cyr, a professor of pediatrics at the Universé de Sherbrooke, in Quebec, explains that kids began to have doubts at about age seven. This is because that younger children engage in magical thinking, whereas older children (seven years old or above) begin to be able to distinguish fantasy from reality. In other words, older children are becoming concrete thinkers, in which they become more concerned with right and wrong, with what is true, and what is a lie. "Children want [parents] to tell the truth when they ask if Santa is real," says Cyr. Moreover, he suggested that listening to children's response is more important than the answer parents might give because it encourages them to express hopes, dreams, and fears. As a result, instead of answering the question, parents may sand the question back - ask them what do they think.
Six-year-old Kevin came home from daycare upset, one day, because an older girl told him that Santa is not real. "This upsets him because he still wanted to believe that Santa is real despite the doubts he had," explains Sibley, Kevin's mother. Sibley always tells Kevin to believe in what seemed right to him. As a result, he became much relieved and said he still believed in Santa.
I, myself, have never believed in Santa when I was little. This is probably because he is generally not part of the culture in where I come from - Taiwan. Therefore, as I read the article, it was a bit hard for me to feel the disappointment of the children who have finally been informed that this friendly, generous, and grateful old man who gives out gifts to every good child in town on Christmas Eves, is not real. However, I could imagine how hard it might be for these kids to overcome with such daunting fact. Also, I could imagine how hard it is for parents to explain it to their children while still keeping them open to hopes, dreams, and imaginations. I did not believe in Santa. However, I did believe in magic, and souls. I remember that when I was little, I was told, by my parents, that tables have their own souls. And so, due to respecting the souls of the tables, I shouldn't clime on it. I believed in that. In fact, I remember that I apologized to a table because I accidentally give it a stretch; and excused myself from a table before I stepped on it to turn on the fan on the ceiling. Yet, all these beliefs faded away from me, regardlessly. Only, perhaps, the realization of that magic is not real was quite daunting. I remember I have had imagined that I am a witch when I was little, and that I could heal the injury on my mum's hand by my magic power.
Anyhow, the "myth" in which tables have their own souls helped to create my respectful personality. Also, the belief in magic contributes to my imagination. Moreover, though Santa is not real, according to the Yahoo Lifestyles article, studies shows that belief in Santa encourages imagination, kindness, and co-operation; promotes family bonding; and increases the awareness of needs of others - children's letters to Santa often contain wishes for someone else, including the poor and the sick. Before reading to this point, I thought I would never let my children - if I am going to have any in the future - to believe in Santa.
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