1/26/11
It is quite a difficult pill to swallow. . . my kids lie from time to time.
Yep, it's true, even of a teacher's kids.
When my almost 20 y.o. daughter was 4 or 5, she was very jealous of the new baby brother in the house. So, to get our attention,she began a series of lies until we caught her in the act, red-handed as they say, and approached her with a story.
We told Clair the story of the boy who cried wolf and how he told lie after lie until the townspeople didn't believe him when the real wolf came. She wasn't buying it. She really could have cared less about the wolf and that boy.
So, we had to think of a different tactic to get her attention, something that would directly affect her. She loved going to McDonald's on Fridays because it was a treat for a good week at pre-school and so we told her for a solid week we would take her to McDonald's on Friday.
Friday came, and an excited pre-schooler was jumping for joy about the trip to McDonald's. We buckled her into her carseat on Friday afternoon after pre-school and when she began asking about McDonald's we told her "Nope, we lied. No McDonald's today."
Needless to say, this didn't make her very happy and she was quite frazzled with lots of crying and drama by the time we got home. After a while in time out, a sniffly girl got to process why her horrible, mean, cruel, and unreasonable parents promised her something then didn't produce what they promised.
So, we asked her if she liked being lied to and she said very adamantly, "NO!" Well, we calmly explained that we didn't like it either,when she lies to us. Mainly, it's dishonest and no one likes to be lied to, but in some situations, it can even be hurtful to others, including family members. We also explained, that at some point, somewhere, somehow, lies always have a way of catching up to you.
Yes, we have had problems with Clair and with our son, Ben, who is 15, lying to us. It's one of the ways adolescents manipulate their reality. It's a lot like when they are toddlers.....they paint the picture of their life the way they THINK it is but in reality, it's not the truth as we know it.
Our kids know that we, as their parents, never raised them to lie and that their choice to lie isn't a direct reflection on how they were raised. But, the fact remains, the lying never pays off and eventually they get caught, perhaps not now but at some point in their lives they will.
So, even though it's definitely a difficult pill to swallow, admitting that my kids have lied, I feel confident knowing that they have had to deal with the consequences of their actions.....eventually. My husband and I would much rather them find this out at this time in their lives than when they are older, stakes are higher, consequences more severe and the legal justice system is involved.
Poor little not-totally-formed-pre-frontal-cortex-adolescents....they just maneuver their reasoning--what little they possess---into thinking they can get away with just about anything and some actually do get away with some things. But, as the saying goes "Lies are like chickens, they always come home to roost." As far as I am concerned for my own two kids, the sooner they got that into their little heads, no matter how young, the better.
All that my husband and I can hope for is that the consequences we imposed upon our kids for the lies they told, will be something they remember when and if they decide to try and tell untruths to us in the future. We dream of them turning out to be kind, caring, productive citizens. Our kids know we love them, no matter what, but they also know we don't love it when they lie and we don't love it that people get hurt in the process of lying.
And, there's always the fallback story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
