So what are you trying to say? We should believe in everything we think up to be fact because proving it otherwise would be too difficult, and by by difficult I mean having to use a minimum of one nueron to apply towards critical thought? Is that what you are saying?
If you want to use that argument then that is your personality flaw. I for one am not going to let a speck of truth keep me from seeing a mountain of lies.
Is that what you read from my post, or is that what you WANTED to read from my post? It's about parenting, it's about psychology.
Parents who strongly believe that they are betraying their children's trust by sharing the Santa Claus tale probably do not need to tell them the story, says Robert Feldman, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who has conducted extensive research on lying and deception.
Keep in mind, though, that in the overall scale of deception, propagating the Santa myth is no worse than saying things like "You look terrific," or "You haven't gained weight," or "What a great dress," says Feldman, noting that people generally use lies as a social crutch.
"We actually teach our kids that deception is acceptable," says Feldman. For example, he says parents often ask their children to pretend they like gifts from relatives to spare the feelings of family members.
Children are also resilient and can usually overcome any negative feelings related to discovering the real Santa. "It's no worse than telling them about the three bears, or Goldilocks, or Cinderella, or anything else. It's a story and when they get older, they understand that it was only a fairy tale," says George Cohen, MD, FAAP, clinical professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C.
"Play is central to cognitive development," says Carolyn Saarni, PhD, a developmental psychologist and professor of counseling at Sonoma State University in California. "You can master the world through your ability to manipulate things in fantasy. Play allows you to kind of practice what you would do in the real world."
Tasha Howe, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif., says parents can use fantasy to encourage children's critical and independent thinking. When children ask questions related to Santa Claus, such as "Is there really a Santa Claus?" or "How do reindeer fly?" she suggests encouraging little ones to come up with their own explanations.
There is no scientific research indicating the Santa tale can be helpful or harmful to kids, says Howe. So when her students who are parents ask her whether or not they should promote the Santa tale, she simply responds, "It's a personal choice. Whatever choice you make, I don't think it's going to harm your child."
Jung, says that these archetypes represent "absolutes" in the human psyche. "The archetypes are both linked to the instincts and to spirituality; they are charged with intensity and works automatically from the unconscious". They have existed from the earliest record of human history. There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life, the endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic condition
Archetypes can be the father, the mother, the wise old woman, the magician, the hermit, the fool, the devil, the trickster, the lover, and so on." - And constantly new "archetypes" are being created from typical situations in our modern life and added to the list, such as ", "Santa Claus" "the mother in law", "the aliens", the terrorist", and soon.
The transition to a disbeliever usually begins around age six or seven, taking about two to three years. From a developmental psychology standpoint that makes a lot of sense. That's when children are moving from preoperational to concrete operational thinking, and that means in concrete operational thinking they're looking for solid evidence, and magic is no longer a reason to believe how something works. A child in the concrete operational stage will begin to ask questions like, How does Santa fit down the chimney? How does he get to all those houses in one night?'"
When children ask about Santa for the first time, no matter what their age, the important thing for a parent is to ask back, What do you think? Why do you ask that? "When children first ask, they aren't really looking for the right answer. They're just trying to make sense of the fact that there's a lot of ambiguous information out there."
