Experts urged the parents to stop pretending Father Christmas is real in case the long time lie damages relations with their kids.
Two experts said that spinning stories by parents about Santa Claus risks undermining a child’s trust to their mother and father.
In their journal The Lancet Psychiatry, Psychologist Professor Christopher Boyle and social scientist Dr. Kathy McKay wrote their arguments on the tradition of some parents who let their children believe that Father Christmas really exists.
The experts argue on the ground: “If parents are capable of lying about something so special and magical, can they be relied upon to continue as the guardians of wisdom and truth?”
They also suggest that parents may not be motivated by thoughts of their children but a selfish desire to re-live their own childhood.
According to Professor Boyle from the University of Exeter in England, said: “The morality of making children believe in such myths has to be questioned.
“All children will eventually find out they’ve been consistently lied to for years, and this might make them wonder what other lies they’ve been told.
“Whether it’s right to make children believe in Father Christmas is an interesting question, and it’s also interesting to ask whether lying in this way will affect children in ways that have not been considered.”
On the other hand, Dr. McKay from the University of New England in Australia, insisted that there was a clear evidence from the world of make-believe in movies and TV that adults looked for a chance to be children again.
“The persistence of fandom in stories like Harry Potter, Star Wars and Doctor Who well into adulthood demonstrates this desire to briefly re-enter childhood,” McKay said.
In an article entitled A Wonderful Lie, the authors wrote that perhaps the biggest moral breach of the Christmas lie comes with the fact that the day will come when the truth comes out.
“Children must all find out eventually that their parents have blatantly and consistently carried on a lie for a number of years. Children may find out from a third party, or through their parents getting bored of the make-believe and making a mistake; both might affect the trust that exists between child and parent,” they said.