Has anyone ever heard a case where a kid was deemed naughty and received no Christmas presents? I have heard of real people getting a lump of coal, but as a gag gift in addition to their normal presents. Never instead of presents. I don't know a lot of kids, but from the kids I know. Hypothetically, if a kid is consistently a brat, and is denied Christmas presents one year. I do not believe he or she will internalize the lesson "I should reform my behavior so I don't lose my presents next year." I believe a child denied Christmas presents will get worse. If anyone knows someone who experienced this, let me know. As many details as you can do. I want to know what the fall out.
I never experienced it myself but I heard that it happened to someone once. A friend of my uncle. Must have been in the 60s IIRC. Whether it would change a kid's behaviour or not, or in which direction depends on too many factors to be able to tell.
I think the lump of Coal notion goes back so far in the past that no useful lessons are there for us. Did good children from back then get a full stocking stuffed with Coal? (...because plenty of coal keeps a poor peasant kid thawed for awhile? but one lump = one day? IDK.)
Yeah, i don't think it has ever really happened. Coal for X-mas is like the the Boogeyman… an hollow (and sometime futile) threat to keep the children in line. ...and since we're on topic...
I don't think it has happened; its more of a threat than an actual practice. Is it damaging to tell your kids that santa claus is real when they are little, only to reveal to them that you are actually lying to them later on? Yay for marketing! Also I heard this song for the first time: I AM SANTA CLAUS: ..he's so full of cheer, only works one day a year...!
I am still mad at my daycare instructor who told us about a witch in the building. My father was a university employee though he was not a professor. My pre-school was in a university building with a lot of professor's kids on campus. The day care area took up most of one floor of a building. There were classes on the other floors. They didn't want little kids running around disrupting classes, so my main day care supervisor told elaborate stories about a witch that haunted the stairwells, so we'd never go near them. I had mild unease around brown brick stairwells for years to follow.
If we are looking at this from the "modern and correct" side that is being preached these days, then we are scarring them for life by doing this. Just as they preach that you should get approval from a baby to change their diaper so you don't invade their privacy... Personally, I do not believe any child will take any damage from believing in Santa Claus for a few years while they are small. It is tradition, and looking how much my kids are looking forward to Christmas, and for Santa Claus to come and fill their stocking and leave a present. I think that the few years a kid believe in this, we should allow them to believe.
Agreed with The Red Devil. I don't think it's scarring to a child to tell them Santa Claus is real. I know a parent who chose not to maintain the Santa myth, but she never said Santa Claus was scarring. What I wanted to know if any parent withheld Santa presents because their child was naughty. It seems that that is the myth.
I outright told my children that there is no Santa and no Christkind, that it is just a tradition based on some old story that some people choose to believe, and they still look forward to Christmas. Children are not dumb, they know what believe and traditions are. Telling them that Santa isn't real will most likely not scar them. I guess most of them aren't even surprised.
Of course not. Children innately understand imagination and playing by pretending and make-believe... ...at least the healthy well adjusted ones do. They eventually wise up to it, and then cheerfully change sides (now that they are IN on it) join in the conspiracy, and help perpetrate it on their little toddler siblings and tiny cousins.