When your child is frightened of Santa

This is ordinary, not a problem

Wariness of an unfamiliar adult in an elaborate costume is a young child doing exactly what they should. It is most common somewhere between about two and four, which is also the age at which parents most want the photograph.

Children who are not pushed usually come round on their own, sometimes within the same visit. Children who are put on a lap while crying tend to remember it, and the following year is harder rather than easier.

What helps in the moment

• ·Stand where they can watch other children go first, from a distance they choose
• ·Wave from where you are, and treat leaving without a meeting as a perfectly good outcome
• ·Let them hold something of their own — the meeting is easier with a familiar object in hand
• ·Go early, when the queue is short and the room is quiet
• ·Take the photograph with you in it, or skip the photograph

What makes it worse

Handing a crying child to a stranger for a picture, however brief, teaches them that saying no about their own body does not work. That is a much bigger thing than a missed photo.

So does teasing about it afterwards, and so does trying again immediately with a different Santa. If the first attempt did not work, the second one on the same day will not either.

Meeting Santa without meeting Santa

Some children are entirely happy with Santa as an idea and only frightened of the man in the queue. Books, films and letters all give them Santa with no stranger attached, and that is usually the version that builds the confidence.

A message from Santa watched at home works the same way: familiar room, no queue, no lap, and they can stop it whenever they like. For a child who is not ready for the grotto, it is often the first version of Santa they enjoy.