The right age to tell your children the truth about Santa, according to experts
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Warning: Spoilers. It's a family story they can chuckle about now. But Lisa Highfill wasn't laughing that December day almost 20 years ago. She had just parked the car in the garage when her then-eight-year-old son let loose with something he had found out while at school.
![[The Truth About Santa?]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/05/US--The-Truth-About-Santa.jpg)
“My son looks at me, he goes, ‘There’s no Santa. You’ve been lying to me,'" recalls Highfill, 56, of Pleasanton, California. “He caught me red-handed, I didn’t know what to say.”. Welcome to the holiday season. It's that time of year filled with Christmas cheer, presents, and the ever-present parental question: Do we tell the kids the truth about Santa Claus? (And if you don't know what that truth is, you shouldn't be reading this!).
![[Handlers guide a Santa Claus balloon down Sixth Avenue during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/05/The_Truth_About_Santa_00213.jpg)
There's no getting away from Santa Claus, the jolly, bearded old man who's been celebrated for the better part of two centuries for bringing presents in a one-night, world-wide giving spree. He's been the subject of poems and stories, movies and songs, invoked as the judge of naughty or nice, the recipient of countless cookies and glasses of milk to sustain him on his journey.
![[The Truth About Santa]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/19/05/The_Truth_About_Santa_23204.jpg)
For a lot of parents and other adults, perpetuating that Santa Claus is real is a chance to give young children a bit of holiday magic, a brief, precious time before the realities of life sweep the illusions away. Others, though, are more skeptical, raising concerns about some of the messaging in Santa's story, such as the constant surveillance over behavior, and in an era where we're all worried about disinformation, misinformation and parents lying to children.
