• Replies 182 replies
  • Subscribers 28 subscribers
  • Views 29176 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Is Santa silly?

Arran

I'm writing this as someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas in either a religious or cultural sense. From a young age I was told that Santa doesn't exist and is just a silly hoax that parents play on their kids. It never affected me in any bad way and neither was I expecting to find wrapped presents mysteriously appear on the morning of the 25th day of December. If anybody in my family received a Christmas gift then it was usually opened on the same day. A downside to this is that even from the age of 4 or 5 I went round telling kids at school "Father Christmas isn't real, it's all made up, your parents buy Christmas presents from the shops" which often resulted in me getting into trouble whenever they got upset. I once had to report to the head teacher after completely reducing a classmate to tears.

Is the concept of Santa a silly nonsense or is it part of the joys of childhood? Do you tell your own children the truth or would you prefer to go along with the cultural norm? Is pleasing one's classmates more important than knowing the truth? What about children at school who follow different religions so do not celebrate Christmas - where do they fit in?

Parents

  • I found the NAS to be useless and unhelpful when I was a young teenager. I have advised many families with children of average to above average intelligence with Asperger syndrome to avoid the NAS at all costs if they do not require residential care services and find the NAS schools to be unsuitable for their children's needs. There are better (and cheaper) sources of support elsewhere.

    Criticism of the NAS almost always falls on deaf ears. Another regularly occuring criticism is that the NAS is dominated by a small cabal of parents and carers who's main interest is how much money they can obtain from the government. Rarely are they interested in helping or supporting children if it doesn't bring in money to the NAS or local authorities are unable or unwilling to hand over the cash.

    The fact that criticism of the NAS seems to be from separate and independent sources rather than a collaboration and it isn't stoked up by the mainstream media further reinforces that the NAS is doing lots of things wrong and not in the interests of the people it is supposed to be helping.

Reply

  • I found the NAS to be useless and unhelpful when I was a young teenager. I have advised many families with children of average to above average intelligence with Asperger syndrome to avoid the NAS at all costs if they do not require residential care services and find the NAS schools to be unsuitable for their children's needs. There are better (and cheaper) sources of support elsewhere.

    Criticism of the NAS almost always falls on deaf ears. Another regularly occuring criticism is that the NAS is dominated by a small cabal of parents and carers who's main interest is how much money they can obtain from the government. Rarely are they interested in helping or supporting children if it doesn't bring in money to the NAS or local authorities are unable or unwilling to hand over the cash.

    The fact that criticism of the NAS seems to be from separate and independent sources rather than a collaboration and it isn't stoked up by the mainstream media further reinforces that the NAS is doing lots of things wrong and not in the interests of the people it is supposed to be helping.

Children
No Data