I don't think anyone's doing any harm giving the kids a little magic. They've got to grow up and be told that there's no such thing soon enough, and I sincerely doubt that it'll scar them for life to learn that just like Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and a dozen other mythical creatures, there are also no Leprechauns.

And/or that Leprechauns are not nice, whichever comes first.

Childhood is the only time you get to tell stories like that without having them branded with a big ol' "FANTASY" stamp. I miss that, and I think the unfair part in all of it is that at some point, someone is going to explain to these kids that grownups don't believe in magic, so they'll spend their early teenage years thinking that grownups are the most miserable bastards on the face of the Earth.

I suspect this will be altogether too Philosophical for me in the morning, but my favourite part of working with kids was their imagination, and watching it work. I always hated it when the older ones wouldn't make things up for creative writing because they weren't true :(