An Elf-Less Holiday
November 25, 2021
It’s almost that time of year - the time some parents and teachers get excited about at first and then regret later because of the amount of work involved. You guessed it. It’s Elf-On-A-Shelf season.
If you’re not familiar with this tradition, adults adopt an elf figure and their children give it a name. The elf cannot speak. It stays in one place all day long, watching and recording all of the choices the children make throughout each day. At night, the elf leaves to report the behavior to Santa.
Each evening or the next morning, the adults create often elaborate new scenes for the elf to demonstrate that the elf left during the night while the children were asleep and moved to a new location to continue monitoring.
While it may seem whimsical and fun at first glance, please consider the underlying messages it sends to our children.
It teaches our children to make positive choices because someone is watching and there are gifts on the line. Instead, we want our children to make positive choices because it is the right thing to do.
The whole premise is based on an elaborate lie. We want our children to develop trusting relationships with us and this requires us to be developmentally appropriately truthful with them. I first thought differently about this kind of lie we tell children when our oldest lost her first tooth and panicked thinking about having a woman flying around her room while she slept that night. Our children believe what we tell them. And I want to keep that trust.
The concept is rooted in shame. Children learn that if they make a choice that is not positive, if they feel their feelings too strongly, if they don’t meet our expectations, their actions will be reported to someone else and bad things will come from it. In fact, I have seen letters parents have written to their children signed from Santa admonishing the child’s behavior and warning/threatening the child with coal at Christmas. This type of message can lead to fear and shame.
At its core, an elf is a way for adults to better control their child’s behavior during an exciting time of year. We can harness this excitement embracing the wonder of the season with them, allow them to feel their feelings and make mistakes, and use these times as opportunities to learn and connect with our children.
We have or can learn the skills as parents and educators to help our children grow from their mistakes and regulate their emotions. We can still have so much fun and be creative this holiday season and leave a watchful elf out of it.
