Taking Away a Kid’s Christmas: Discipline or Abuse?

I've mentioned before that I am a Christmas-a-holic. I love the holiday and all the wonderful things about it, despite the fact that growing up many of our Christmases were not only unhappy, but disastrous! Somehow I escaped unscathed and still love the traditions, celebrations, decorations, music and magic that the holiday can and sometimes does hold.

Now imagine being a 10-year-old who has been threatened with having her Christmas cancelled. Granted the kid has been naughty, she apparently has stolen money from her parents, not once, but twice, to buy candy. Her dad insists on not giving her anything for Christmas, her mom is more conflicted and took to Facebook looking for input.

She posted on a School Mum Facebook page in Australia and the responses were numerous and passionate on, (as you can guess) both sides. Currently an ongoing survey is, (to my surprise) indicating that most people see nothing wrong with sending Santa packing this Christmas for this little girl!

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I tend to favor a different opinion. An opinion shared by Dr. Laura Markham, a child psychologist who commented to Yahoo Parenting that ruining a child's Christmas doesn't deal with whatever the root problem is and could actually make the problem worse. Instead of helping with and sussing out the issue, the child perceives her parents as saying they are punishing her with, "the worst thing they can think of".

Dr. Markham also suggests that since this issue has been made public, the child would suffer from public shaming in addition to having her Christmas destroyed, and that could be something she may never get over. She suggests trying to determine the underlying reasons for the stealing and then dealing with it without the trauma of cancelling her Christmas.