CLAUSE FOR CONCERN

A new study suggests lying about Santa is not only 'unethical' but also bad parenting. Charlotte Cripps finds out if telling a festive fib should really earn you a spot on the naughty list

- Charlotte Cripps

In my house, Father Christmas is real. So is the Elf on the Shelf - it's a new addition to our festive make-believe world this year.

It hangs on the bannisters, or off the side of the bunk bed looking cheeky with its hands stuck together with Velcro. I have to secretly move it every night to a new location, or else my children complain that “it’s not doing anything”.

Six-year-old Liberty, though, has been getting suspicious lately. When she saw an identical elf in our local supermarket, I could see her begin to question it. And I have my own suspicions that Lola, eight, already knows the truth despite her claims otherwise – some of her friends, at least, definitely know Santa and the elf aren’t real. I say nothing, of course, even if it makes me feel uncomfortable. But now I’m questioning the whole thing: new research claims lying to our children about Santa – and presumably the elf – is a form of bad parenting.

Dr Joseph Millum, a philosopher at the University of St Andrews, has been researching the ethics of lying to one’s children for a bigger philosophical project on the ethics of parenting. Last week he argued in The Conversation that enabling children to believe in Father Christmas is “unethical” and “manipulative”, that it “breaches their trust” and is an example of “parenting by lying” – meaning being deceptive in order to control a child’s behaviour or emotions.

“If a parent says, ‘If you don’t behave, then Father Christmas won’t bring you any presents,’ that’s ‘parenting by lying’,” Dr Millum tells me. “I think controlling a child’s behaviour with a lie like this is manipulative. There are other ways to teach children how to behave, so we shouldn’t resort to this sort of manipulation.”