The "Today Show" had a segment on parents lying to their kids. One of the ladies said that 84% of parents on a poll admit to lying to their kids, and she paused and said "I think that number is more like 100%", to which the expert responded "Or they are lying to themselves." Really? The examples they used ranged from "Don't suck your thumb or it will fall off" and "If your seatbelt isn't on, the car won't start" to "That's really chicken you're eating (not fish)". Funny, I've never lied about stuff like that. In fact, her first grade teacher told all the kids in Kaylee's class that if they picked their nose and ingested it, their teeth would rot and fall out, and she brought a picture of a kid with a mouthful of diseased teeth to school to "prove" it. I told Kaylee that wasn't true and why the teacher said that. If I wanted her to put her seatbelt on and she was reluctant, I said "Please put on your seatbelt", and when she got old enough to complain about it, I told her it was the law, kept her safe, and I wasn't moving until she was in. If she doesn't like fish, I tell her she's going to eat some of it anyway because that is what is for dinner. Is that so hard? They claimed that if Daddy is laid off, you don't want to scare the kids and tell them that they might end up homeless, pulled from all their schools/activities, and put up for adoption, but should stick with either a lie or maybe basic info like "Daddy's office closed." Really?? You don't think that maybe that second thing, the basic, simple truth might be the best idea after all and that it doesn't have to terrorize them? They said that when you're caught in a lie, you just tell them that you were telling them that to protect them or for their own good. Does nobody remember what it's like to be a kid, totally trusting the adults in your life and 'knowing' that they have the answers and are the people you know will tell you the truth? Why on earth lie? "Expert" approved or "everybody does it" or not, I can't do it, I can't look at her looking up at me completely trusting and lie to her, even about stupid stuff, even about hard stuff. I want her to know that if she asks me, I will tell her the truth. Kids will some day realize that the car in fact will move whether the seatbelts are clicked or not, that their thumbs will not fall off no matter how much they suck on them, their teeth won't rot out if they eat snot, and that this is in fact fish they are eating, not chicken. And they will wonder, if you lied to them about all that silly stuff, what else are you lying about? Rightfully so, too. Kids are not stupid, and they need somebody to tell them the truth, somebody they can trust to do that in this world, somebody who respects them enough as people to tell them the truth. Carefully and thoughtfully. The expert said "I call it (something else) instead of lying, because I don't like that word." Well, guess what? That's what it is, and I don't like it either. Not 100% of parents are regularly lying to their children, or themselves if they deny doing it.
And people get up in arms about "kids/teens these days" lying. Huh, I wonder why. After all, it's okay as long as we think it's harmless or silly and it's done to make parenting/life easier, right? If we can't handle the parenting challenge of getting them to put on their seatbelt without lying to them about why, if that's too hard of a conflict to face, how are we going to handle the real issues later on? Bigger lies? When you tell your now teen that they have a high likelihood of devastating their lives if they become sexually active, that they could end up with an unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases etc, and you mean it this time, they might not flash back to "if you suck your thumb for too long it will fall off" or "the car won't move without seatbelts" or "eat that and you'll lose all your teeth", but do you really think things like that aren't a foundation leading up to a point where they now say "Right, ma, gimme a break, I'm sure it's not that big of a deal"?
It's not enough to tell kids not to lie if we are going around lying to them and justifying it to them as for their own good. That's almost as logical as spending our way out of debt. ;)
2 comments:
What about Santa, or the Tooth Fairy or...Deenie the Elf?
I told her the truth about those, too, when she asked me if they were real, and I never insisted to her that any of them were real in the first place. Deenie is the only one she hasn't asked about yet, but she knows, just like she knew about Santa since she was 3.
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