I hope this isn’t a bad time to tell you aboutFather Christmas. The truth is… (actually, as a scientist I ought really to say that in the absence of any convincing objective evidence for his existence our working hypothesis is…) Santa may not exist.
But this causes us a problem because the vast majority of children do believe (Shtulman and Yoo 2015). And they do so because we lie to them. Perpetuating the Santa Claus myth has been a custom for many generations and it has rarely been challenged. However, Boyle and McKay (2016) have posed a challenge for parents everywhere by suggesting that lying to children about Father Christmas undermines their children’s trust in adults. When children discover they have been lied to they question other things parents have told them. If the parent–child relationship is already fragile, the authors suggest that discovery of a longstanding lie like this can further damage it.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
