The theory and reality behind Santaphobia

We may call him Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick, but when you talk to some kids you’ll find plenty are downright terrified of Santa Clause. But why?

I went to a psychologist to find out why children are scared of him and if it’s even a good idea to force a relationship.

Dr. Wendy Stone is a child clinical psychologist at the University of Washington. She’s the perfect person because she, too, is wary of costumed adults.

“I don’t know what it is for me,” Dr. Stone said laughing. “But I can tell you that for children there really are a lot of contributing factors. Children go through a stage at which time they’re wary of strangers. They’re just learning who is safe, who is not safe, who is family, who isn’t family and they start wanting to be around their moms more to the exclusion of other people.”

Children are either risk-averse, or they dive right into any scenario. The risk-averse would be the most resistant to Saint Nick whose outfit doesn’t help either.

“This character who is wearing a red – a weird suit – looks like a cartoon character yet is moving on his own,” Dr. Stone. In addition to that, he “may say things like ‘ho, ho, ho.’ They can’t see his face because he’s got this beard and it can be very confusing for children who are also at the point of learning the difference between real and make-believe.”

Santa’s scary because he doesn’t look like a real person. But we expect children to sit on his lap? I’d cry too. Actually, I did as a child. I was 3. My mom defends her decision.

“You were smiling at me and I was thinking ‘hurry take the picture’ all of a sudden you turned and looked and it was like ‘wait a minute who is this?’ and that’s when you started to cry,” my mom recalled.

It’s a story I hear every year as she takes out the long line of Santa pictures from my childhood. There I am in all my toddler glory with my mouth gaping open and tears streaming down my face. I wondered if seeing me go through a similar experience with my child had any effect on if she would rethink our Santa pictures.

“Well you weren’t crying,” my mother said. “You just started to cry the minute you realized who was holding you. So I just – quick, snap the picture and I’ll get her. The next year you were fine. You were older.”

The next obvious step for me was seek counsel from one of Santa’s helpers.

“I would read the kid immediately ‘OK, am I going to lap this kid right now or am I going bye-bye and putting the kid in the chair,” Benny Cukier said.

Cukier was one of Santa’s helpers at the Downtown Seattle Nordstrom for three years. He estimates he’s had at least 3,000 encounters with children.

“Believe me I was peed on, I was kicked, I was spit on, I was … everything. And you know you just tolerate it,” Cukier said.

Sure, he’d tolerate my tearful toddler. But should I force a picture?

“You know I don’t know if it’s good or not. To me the challenge of taking a kid that didn’t want to be on my lap and making him as comfortable as possible was a great challenge. Many times I would meet that challenge and it’s just the way that you do things. And we had props by our chairs which means we had little rocking horses and thinks like that so if they got really bad we put them on a rocking horse,” Cukier said.