HAVE you got children or grandchildren of the age when they still believe in Father Christmas?

If you have, you will probably have very mixed feelings about the latest research from two academics writing in respected medical journal Lancet Psychiatry which states that letting children believe in Santa Claus does more harm than good.

Their reasoning is that, when a child discovers the truth about Santa flying in to deliver presents, he or she will no longer trust their parents. One of the researchers, psychologist Professor Christopher Boyle – who doesn’t have any children – stated: “The morality of making children believe in such myths has to be questioned. It’s also interesting to ask whether lying in this way will affect children in ways that have not been considered.”

Bah humbug to all that!

So there is no Santa Claus (probably), so what? Creating this lovely fiction is something that delights all young children and allows adults to keep the true magic of Christmas alive. And the idea that Santa judges you as naughty or nice is helpful to parents trying to instil better behaviour into children

It’s true that youngsters often find out from another child or through playground gossip that the white bearded generous old gentlemen who comes each Christmas Night to your home bearing presents isn’t real.

Yes, it may be a bit of a shock but, no, it doesn’t blight their lives in any meaningful way and is a gentle right of passage that everyone must go through. Today’s children already become sophisticated very early. They get mobile phones and iPads from an early age and are exposed to a much broader world than previous generations. In fact, trying to keep children young and innocent for as long as possible is a tough job for parents. TV images are often too grown up for them, they can become sexually precocious too soon and their introduction to the reality of the world is too easily on offer.

Children need to maintain the simple fictions of childhood for as long as they can, and the myth of Father Christmas is an important one. Every parent can remember their own feelings at witnessing the unadulterated delight of getting a gift from Santa on Christmas morning. The fact that he delivered it himself makes it all the more magical.