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My cousin's 9 year old set me straight about lying to kids

I was about to feed my nephew the whole Santa thing last Christmas, and his older sister just looked at me and said 'he knows, we all know, stop pretending.' It hit me that kids don't want the fairy tale, they want us to be real with them, and I've been doing it wrong for years. Has anyone else had a kid call them out on a well meaning lie and completely flip how you talk to them?

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the_eva27d ago

My niece did the exact same thing to me about the tooth fairy when she was 7, and I remember feeling so dumb for pushing it. I used to be the adult who thought every kid needed the magic, like it was some kind of childhood requirement. But after she laid it out so plainly, I realized she was right, they want honesty way more than a story. Now I just ask kids directly what they want to believe and go with that, it saves everyone the awkward pretending. Still makes me laugh how a 7 year old had better people skills than I did at 30.