Think I Just Broke My Son's Heart :(

Thanks, L....thanks a lot. sniff, sniff.......

5 moms found this helpful

Bless his heart.
I always answered with "What do you think".. Then let our daughte express what she was guessing.

Turn this around by asking him if he would like to help other children by being their Easter Bunny? Maybe a younger sibling, a cousin, a child in need at the hospital.. You will think of something.

Our mother, oops I mean the Easter Bunny did not give us a basket one year when we were teens, We asked "Hey, where are our baskets?" She said, "I thought you 2 were too old." We kind of pouted, so she said. "I will make you a deal. The Easter Bunny will visit you, if the Easter Bunny visits me"..

We LOVED putting together her Basket, her Christmas stockings.. every year. Maybe your son could do the same for you and dad? Give him some money and let him pick out things at the Walgreens, He can pay and then get it ready to surprise all of you Easter morning..

5 moms found this helpful

I am surprised he made it to 8.5 without knowing! (I didn't get out of kindergarten without all the other kids spilling the beans...)

It is ok he found out, and it is better that he heard it from you than someone else. My worst fear with both Santa and The Easter Bunny was that all the "fun" of Easter was over. If you can, explain to him that you'll still have fun at Easter, but now that he "knows" the big secret it is his new job to help all the younger kids have fun and get into the spirit! When he realizes that he is now on the "grown up side"- maybe it will lift his spirits. If you don't have other kids, go to local Easter egg hunts and have him buddy up with a toddler- he will get to know the excitement of spreading a little "magic" to those kids!

Good Luck!
-M.

4 moms found this helpful

Oh dear. Poor baby. My sister and I were older even though we had our suspicions but I am glad my mom still lied to us.
Keep Santa a secret still no matter what because boy oh boy does it ruin the magic. Keep it going for as long as you can mama. Little sweet tyke will have plenty of time for "reality" later in life. :)

3 moms found this helpful

I think you handled it well, but I'm sorry he's so upset. I know it must be breaking your heart as well as his.

We didn't ever tell our oldest son, now 13. He told us when he was about 11 that he had figured Santa out. He was very sweet about it, like he didn't want to ruin the fun for us. He said he had figured it out long ago, but had been playing along. We told him that the idea of Santa embodied the spirit of kindness and giving during the holiday season and throughout the year, and he quickly said he would continue to "believe" for his brother, now 7.

I hope your little guy feels better about everything soon!

3 moms found this helpful

what do you mean there isn't an Easter Bunny?!!! I get a basket each year!!! :)

I don't know - my boys are 11 and 8 and still believe - at least I think they do - they've not asked the question - I've told them before not to ask questions they aren't prepared to hear the answer to!!!

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Im 25 and I still get an Easter basket at my from door from the Easter Bunny! Im pretty sure my dad drops it off for me and the kids before work :) I think its fine that you told him, adn better from you than a schoolmate :)

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You were a lot nicer than my cousin was to his son. His son was 10, and he took him outside and said "do you really think a fat guy in a red suit comes down a chimney we don't have and gives you presents. I don't think so. And while we're at it, you really can't still believe in a 6ft tall white rabbit dropping off candy?" that was 5 yrs ago and i still cringe when i think about it :). i think your boy is old enough to know. my kids 6 &4 ask me every year if there is a santa and i ask them "what do you think?" and they say yes, and i say "ok, then, as long as you believe than he'll keep bringing you stuff" i would not do anything different than you did if they told me they thought my husband and i brought the stuff for them. my mom never told us kids that there wasn't a santa or easter bunny it's something that we figured out on our own, and we were about your sons age. i'd ask if he still wanted an easter basket though :)

2 moms found this helpful

it sounds like maybe his friends know its mom and dad doing it. i would just talk with him and say that he is a big boy now and just because he knows doesnt mean he wont get anything. tell him you dont like to see him so upset. give him hugs and love and he will get through it. also remind him not to tell his friends because they might still believe

2 moms found this helpful

I see no need to confess. Let them feel proud when they're old enough to figure it out that it has to be mom or dad. My parents denied it to the bitter end and I remember thinking it was so great they never fessed up. We felt so PROUD when we figured it out and told them to drop the charade. :)

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Could you tell him that you misunderstood him and forgot to tell him that there are 2 Easter bunnies? You could say that everyone's parents pretend to be Easter bunnies, but there is still the real Easter bunny that he will see on Easter, and you are sorry that you forgot to mention that! Hopefully that will work! And hopefully he won't figure out the truth about Santa and the tooth fairy!

1 mom found this helpful

I personally cannot wait until my kids find out all this junk is fake, so we can focus soley on the real meaning of the Holiday(s).

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My firstborn was horrified at 5 when we went to see the EB. THe girl took her bunny head off so some 8 month old baby would stop cyring My son saw that an just collapsed into tears. Needless to say the baby never did stop her fussing. I was mad.
I used it to say that we are all Easter Bunnies at Easter.
He still believed in Santa until about 3rd grade. But he helped me with the little ones after that, so he was "in on it".
I never admitted to the younger ones about either EB, Santa or the toothfairy. My youngest is 10. THey know but dont' say anything just in case.

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Mine don't want the Easter Bunny to come because my ss told them that the Easter Bunny bites. They are only 2 and 4, I am going to let them believe as long as they want to believe. I don't think I am going to ever tell them that I am the Easter Bunny. They will have to convience me that I am the Easter Bunny. But for now I have to convience them that the Easter Bunny doesn't bite.

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In the past few years, my older three (Now, ages, 12, 10,9) had been asking more and more about Santa, Easter Bunny, leprechauns, etc. I always would respond with, "Well, what do YOU think?" That would usually deflect the conversation to them and I could gauge whether or not I thought the knew. I would have kept going until they were in college.....

Last St Patty's Day, my (then) 11 year old was asking about the leprechauns that come to our house every St Pats Day. He kept asking and poking around, so I told him I was the leprechauns. The reason I did it, was because I was the oldest child in my family-my sibs and I were spread out quite a bit, my youngest brother being 12 years younger. I remember my mom and I setting out the Santa stuff for him. I loved it. I had a blast, helping my mom be Santa. I thought that my own son and I could share that kind of memory. He confirmed that he had not quite "believed" for awhile, but didn't want to hurt my feelings, by telling me he knew. HOWEVER, after I went to bed, I started BAWLING!! I realized it was over. No more Santa, Easter Bunny, nothing. I could never get it back. An entire phase of that childhood was wiped out in one, small comment. I mourned the little boy he used to be, and how much fun we had with all the Santa stuff. It was a very long night for me. Now, granted, I have 3 more kids, so it's not like I would never again play Santa/Easter bunny. But, he was my first baby....
So, just a week ago, my son helped me turn over furniture, color the milk green and sprinkle shamrocks around the kitchen. It was fun, in it's own way. I now have two kids who don't believe, one who probably doesn't, but hasn't let on yet, and a toddler, who will have many older siblings*ahem* I mean Santas and leprechauns come during the holidays. I guess I think that real life comes so darn fast. Kids are growing up earlier and earlier. I think that true, excited,awe-inspiring fanstasy that kids have at the notion of Santa and the others is so genuine and fun. I wanted to keep it for as long as I could. I knew they wouldn't graduate high school still believing in the Easter Bunny and that their friends were planting seeds in their little heads.

What's done is done. You can still make Easter special. He can still wake up to an easter basket and hunt for eggs. Heck, you could even hide the easter basket. That's what my mom did for us, once we knew. She would get pretty sneaky about it as we got older ..LOL! It will be a good Easter, no matter what.

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Funny as it is my 7 year old told his older brother and sister last year...but they ALL still "believe" we dont really talk about it I just let them think what they want and allow them to hold their innocence as long as possible...I think most kid know that the easter bunny and santa are not real, but its more fun to believe than it is to know the truth...I think 8 1/2 is a fine age to stop believing especially if your child has a younger sibling. Dont feel bad unfortunelty as a mother it is our job to make the call when its time to stop fooling our children

L., so sorry! My kids actually never believed in the Easter bunny. We did the eggs together because it was so much fun, they saw the bags of Easter candy, and the Easter bunny just never stuck.

They did believe in Santa Claus, and we never told them there wasn't one. I still put gifts under the tree from SC, and when they asked just a few times if there was really a Santa, I told them two things - if there wasn't a Santa, then there would be no gifts under the tree from Santa. And they had been reading "The Polar Express" and I asked them if they could still hear the bell. I hope they will do the same with their children.

I have no advice for you about the Easter bunny. I guess you could just tell him that we love the Easter bunny, even as adults, and we make the Easter bunny come alive every year because we love him so. Btw, "reasonable" has nothing to do with it. The North Pole was never reasonable, but it doesn't matter.

D.

My mom always just said she was santa's helper etc... we never got our hearts broken, and we never were mad that she had "lied". just an idea.

I only told our 9 year old because some mean little girl would not quit telling her last week that Santa is fake. It isn't even Christmastime. I should have kept it up one more year. She cried herself to sleep.

By 8 years old, most of the kids at school have it figured out so it would be better to tell him the truth than to let him get teased because he still believes. It's OK to cry when we are disappointed.

My youngest brother was disappointed when he found out there was no Easter Bunny so we let him be the official family Easter Bunny to give him something to look forward to instead. He hid chocolate eggs every year after that.... til he went away to college!

Tell him he should stop crying because NOTHING has changed. You still love him, Easter isn't about the bunny anyway, and he will STILL get a basket with candy and presents. Maybe your son is more sensitive than other kids. He'll get over it. Talk to him about what Easter really is, and get him excited about that.

And I think you did the right thing so don't feel bad. At his age, most kids already know the truth, and you don't want him getting teased at school for still believing.

I am sorry your son is upset, I think you handled well. I didn't to much for the Easter Bunny but we did try to extend the believe for Santa as much as we could, she figure it out around 8, and she was mad. I couldn't believe that she could be mad but she was, she said we lie to her. She didn't last mad for to long though.
Before she figured out any time when she ask us we always said, it is real as far as you wanted to be real, and it was.
The fairy tooth was a whole different story, I was awful!!!!!!
I sometimes forgot to put the money, or take her letter, I always came with a story (maybe you need to brush your teeth more?) but finally one day she found her letter and her tooth, sigh. I feel awful still by that.
The good thing about having 2 kids so apart is that now she is very exited to help us with all of these magical things with his sister, so we finally can be "The 3 kings"! Yay!!

My children know they don't "really" exist. We believe more in the idea of them and the spirit that they portray vs. the way our commercial society depicts them.

So for Easter, we talk about all the returning life to the world and that is what the bunny represents. If you go back far enough, the origin of the bunny giving eggs is that it was once a bird so wounded it couldn't be helped so it was turned into a bunny that could still lay eggs. It was so thankful that it laid the most beautiful egg it could. The egg was so beautiful and so appreciated that the bunny was asked to share them with the world every Spring to remind people that life was returning and to treasure it.

Although I do admit that an egg does beautifully represent the resurrection story as well. My kids like that version too. :) It's still life returning so it doesn't matter how it happens or what story you believe. :)

My kids get so excited every year when we decorate our Spring season table. They LOVE putting their little treasures on there. All they talk about is decorating their eggs and what they'll be using (we always do ours with natural items such as onion skins, cabbage, grass, etc. because it's so much fun and they're so beautiful and one of a kind) or where Papa Stu & Daddy will hide the eggs for them to find. They will also usually discuss how long it will take Burke, their Aunty Sarah's great dane, to find one before them and eat it.

So they love Spring for what it is and for what the bunny represents. And if someone really in truly does believe in something with their whole heart, to them it really does exist (think of The Velveteen Rabbit here) so who are we to tell them they're wrong even if that's what we believe? I really think it's how you handle the whole situation from the beginning, when they're very small and first start hearing of these mythical beings that deliver beautiful baskets of eggs or can fly around the whole world in one evening delivering gifts to all the boys and girls. It's an especially good thing that my kids believe in the spirit vs. an actual being otherwise I would have had very put out children after they realized the Santa at the mall was Grandpa Stu. :D

We do not do the Easter Bunny, Santa Clause thing at all. I know it can be fun for both parent and child alike but in the end it is lying to your child. I do not want to out right lie to my child or give her any reason to think I am trying to pull one over on her or be upset later on that we made it all up. We honestly say that it is fun to pretend, we do take pics with the easter bunny and santa clause, but for fun and my daughter knows they are people just dressed up. In the end she still thinks it is fun.

I don't think I ever actually admitted I was the easter bunny and santa. My kids just figured it out on their own eventually and we left it at that.