{"id":18828,"date":"2014-12-15T09:40:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T16:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=18828"},"modified":"2014-12-15T09:40:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T16:40:44","slug":"elf-on-the-shelf-tradition-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/elf-on-the-shelf-tradition-under-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Elf on the Shelf Tradition Under Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The premise seems simple enough: a sometimes slightly naughty little elf<\/a> visits a child each day before Christmas<\/a> and reports that child’s behavior back to Santa<\/a> Claus. That is the crux of a growing tradition called “Elf on the Shelf”, a commercial<\/a> venture that has enjoyed tremendous popularity among parents with small children. Experts are now saying the tradition may lead to conditioning a child to accept “Big Brother”. <\/p>\n

Laura Pinto, a digital technology professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, recently published a paper titled \u201cWho\u2019s the Boss\u201d on the doll, saying the idea of it reporting back to Santa<\/a> each night on the child\u2019s behavior \u201csets up children for dangerous, uncritical acceptance of power structures\u201d. She says:<\/p>\n

When children enter the play world of The Elf<\/a> on the Shelf, they accept a series of practices and rules associated with the larger story. This, of course, is not unique to The Elf<\/a> on the Shelf. Many children\u2019s games, including board games and video games, require children to participate while following a prescribed set of rules. The difference, however, is that in other games, the child role-plays a character, or the child imagines herself within a play-world of the game, but the role play does not enter the child\u2019s real world as part of the game. As well, in most games, the time of play is delineated (while the game goes on), and the play to which the rules apply typically does not overlap with the child\u2019s real world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Elf<\/a> on the Shelf is an extension of the “naughty or nice” tradition associated with Santa<\/a> Claus in some cultures. In the USA, the tradition has been perpetuated by popular songs, such as Santa<\/a> Claus is Coming to Town<\/em>, which says “he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake”. But European cultures follow similar traditions with Father Christmas<\/a> or Sinterklaas bringing less-than-appealing gifts for naughty kids. The idea certainly did not begin with Elf<\/a> on the Shelf. <\/p>\n

Parents are likely the bigger part of the problem than the tradition inspired by Elf<\/a> on the Shelf. After all, parents control the elf<\/a> tradition. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re teaching (kids) a bigger lesson, which is that it\u2019s OK for other people to spy on you and you\u2019re not entitled to privacy,\u201d she tells the Toronto Star.<\/p>\n

She calls the elf<\/a> \u201can external form of non-familial surveillance,\u201d and says it\u2019s potentially conditioning children to accept the state acting that way, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you grow up thinking it\u2019s cool for the elves to watch me and report back to Santa<\/a>, well, then it\u2019s cool for the NSA to watch me and report back to the government,\u201d according to Pinto.<\/p>\n

Others concur with Pinto\u2019s theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little creepy, this idea that this elf<\/a> is watching you all the time,\u201d Emma Waverman, a blogger with Today\u2019s Parent, tells the paper. She also doesn\u2019t like that the story uses a threat \u2013 \u201cnice\u201d and \u201cnaughty\u201d lists \u2013 to produce good behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes the motivation to behave something that\u2019s external,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I\u2019m not around or if the elf<\/a> is not around, do they act crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren potentially cater to The Elf<\/a> on the Shelf as the \u2018other,\u2019 rather than engaging in and honing understandings of social relationships with peers, parents, teachers and \u2018real life\u2019 others,\u201d Pinto writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worth noting that Pinto doesn\u2019t object to the Elf<\/a> on the Shelf\u2019s Jewish counterpart, the Mensch on a Bench, which she characterized as \u2018benign.\u2019 Unlike the elf<\/a>, the mensch doesn\u2019t report to anyone at night but stays put, watching over the Hanukkah menorah,\u201d the paper reports.<\/p>\n

The websites associated with My Merry Christmas<\/a> that support Santa<\/a> tracking and interaction with the North Pole<\/a> are strongly opposed to the idea of Santa<\/a> spying. “Kids are concerned about being watched,” says SantaUpdate.com<\/strong><\/a> lead writer “Elf Ernest”, who answers actual questions from children and posts them on My Merry Christmas<\/a>. “We believe the active imagination of adults and children alike contribute to the magic of the season and it is mostly harmless fun. But the idea that an elf<\/a> or even Santa<\/a> himself monitors and arbitrates behavior is a theme we have to stay away from because in the thousands of emails we process every day we can see what a concern it is especially for the kids. It isn’t necessary in the traditions of Christmas<\/a>. Santa<\/a> can and does encourage good moral behavior without the sinister watchdog-like presence of having a spy.”<\/p>\n

Children can sign up to become a “secret spy for Santa” whose job is not to watch other kids but to watch for dangers to Santa<\/a> on his flight. “We have this feature expressly to teach an alternative to the whole naughty and nice theme.” <\/p>\n

Elf<\/a> on the Shelf has also come under criticism for the lengths and extremes parents go to in order to create fun. In so doing, many times the elf<\/a> ends up demonstrating unacceptable behavior — and getting away with it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The premise seems simple enough: a sometimes slightly naughty little elf visits a child each day before Christmas and reports that child’s behavior back to Santa Claus. That is the crux of a growing tradition called “Elf on the Shelf”, a commercial venture that has enjoyed tremendous popularity among parents with small children. Experts are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":22,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[178],"class_list":["post-18828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-features","category-christmas-news","tag-elf-on-the-shelf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}