Kids Pretend To Believe In Santa Because They Don’t Want To Disappoint Us

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Considering this fact is going up on Christmas day, we’re not holding out much hope of it being popular, but we really wanted to give you few people reading something cool to learn today. Mainly that children, adorably, continue to believe in Santa because they think we enjoy it.

To explain, the average age a child supposedly stops believing in Santa (even though we all know he’s real) is noted as being around 7-8. If that sounds a little young, well researcher, Dr. William Damon thought that too.

When he quizzed 500 children to discern when they’d stopped believing in jolly old St Nick and he ruled out “just now when I screamed about it into their tiny little child face”, the average age Dr William got back was 7 and a half. Curious about why the parents he quizzed expressed that children often stopped believing at a much later age, he asked the children why they, quite ironically, had lied to their parents about believing.

The answer he got back was that this cross sample of kids had kept up the charade so they wouldn’t disappoint their parents. Yes, even at an age as young as 7, kids still realised how much joy their wonder and happiness brought to their parents, so kept up the illusion and pretence for a few years longer until their parents felt it was time for them to learn the truth. The truth obviously being that Christmas is radical.

Of course learning that the child-like spark of innocence in your child that allowed them to believe that an obese man from the North Pole with a rockin’ beard was bringing them presents every year is a tough pill to swallow. So to sugar that pill, just realise that before you tell your child, they probably (statistically if you don’t tell them on their 5th birthday or something) already knew and wanted you to both enjoy Christmas a little while longer too.

If that’s not a heart-warming fact, you’re either a monster or the kind of person who doesn’t think Die Hard is a proper Christmas movie. Eiher way. Merry Christmas, everyone!