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Home
and Family
Stories or Lies?
by A. Ross, M.Ed.
An articulate three-year-old comes home from nursery with
some fantastic story which he has obviously invented. Mother
enters into the spirit of the game and enlarges on it. E.g.
"And then the elephant drank up everybody's milk and flew
away, yes?" The child might deny this fact but in the end,
they will both agree that it was fun. "Now tell me something
interesting that really happened."
Up to the age of about five, some children have great
difficulty in differentiating between imagination and real
life. They might announce cheerfully and very plausibly that
Mommy got a new baby in the night. Perhaps several of their
friends had additions to the family recently, and it is
wishful thinking. Whatever the reason, neither the teacher
nor the parents are going to accuse the child of telling
lies. They will ask where the new baby is, and then explain
that next time s/he thinks up a good story, s/he just needs
to add, "I dreamt," or "I imagined." In this way, next time a
`story' occurs, the teacher can ask, "When did you imagine
this? It's a good story."
Children with a fantastic imagination do not outgrow the
skill. But with encouragement, they do learn the difference
between truth and fiction. It does not happen suddenly, and
if the child is still telling stories at the age of six,
there is no need to despair and think that there is a
potential criminal in the family. On the whole, children are
honest, guileless, ingenuous and truthful. Those children who
are so fond of fabrication may grow up to be the most
wonderful writers of fiction, and forget their mendacious
ways.
However, there are some children who even at a fairly young
age tell lies to save themselves from trouble. They might
appropriate another child's property and claim that he gave
it to them. First and foremost, a child must know that lies
are worse than any other crime. If he tells the truth, his
parents will try to help him get out of the scrape. If he
took the icing off the beautiful birthday cake prepared for
another sibling and owned up to it, explain that you are
proud of the fact that he confessed. Then continue that
another time, he should just think how he would feel if the
icing had been licked off his cake. It very much
depends on the child and his age whether that should be the
end of the misdeed, or whether further punishment is needed.
If a child is so afraid of punishment that he lies
habitually, his parents have to sit down with him to discuss
what makes him lie.
It might happen that the child is caught in a monstrous lie
and has to continue his fabrication to cover himself. He is
obviously unhappy and doesn't know how to get out of the
tangle. One has to help him and give him enormous
encouragement. Yes, it is hard to admit to the truth, and
you don't usually tell lies. This time, it has grown on you
and is hard to shake off. Confess to what happened, and then
let's try to solve the problem. Sometimes this works,
sometimes it doesn't.
Parents who trusted their children implicitly, suddenly get a
phone call from the school. The child of ten or twelve has
large sums of money to spend and claims he finds them under a
tree. Although the class teacher has wisely confiscated all
the money before contacting the parents, he would like their
cooperation in this matter. It is an amazing, almost
incredible, fact that there are parents who will question the
teacher (and principal who is often called in for the
consultation) and ask who gave him the right to take away the
child's money. "If he says he finds it under a tree, then he
surely does. My child never tells lies."
How can we try to prevent our children from departing from
the truth? First of all, scrupulous honesty from parents. If
a father, eating his dinner, asks his son to tell the man at
the door that he is not at home, how can he expect the son to
tell the truth at all times? Tell him that he can't come to
the door at the moment, but keep to the truth. White lies are
not really an excuse, as children cannot tell the difference.
On the other hand, there are occasions when a white lie is
appropriate and suitable.
An old lady comes to the door just as Mother was preparing to
go out. Some people are incapable of making the old lady
welcome under these circumstances, but others can say in all
sincerity, "Do come inside. I was just making myself a cup of
coffee and would be delighted with the company." This
wonderful mother will surely be able to explain to her
children why she bent the truth, and that only good had come
out of the white lie. Teachers or parents who make a promise
and do not keep to it, for whatever reason, are teaching
children that this is a permissible lie. It is so much
straighter to say, "I am not promising, but perhaps, if..."
Make quite sure that the child, old or young, understands
exactly what you mean, and keep to it!
There are some adults whose stories one is never quite sure
whether to believe or not. How many of us have been told by
seeming shomrei mitzvos that they would be at the job
the next day, or that they would return the borrowed item by
the morning, and that was the last we saw of the debtor?
True, there are always extenuating circumstances, and one has
to judge one's fellows favorably, but this article is about
the ones who have defaulted numerous times, and are teaching
their children, the next generation, to do the same. When
reprimanding a child, they say, "I've told you a million
times," when both sides know that `several times' would be
nearer the truth. Children have large invisible antennae
which observe and internalize exaggeration, bending of the
truth, not being altogether scrupulous in business dealings,
lying to a spouse -- everything.
When the child was small, it was easier to interrupt and
remind him that it was just a story he was telling you. An
older child will not admit to this and will embroider the
traffic jam into a major incident, which is very far from the
truth. Experts vary in their opinions about whether this way
of seeking attention is called lying. It is, after all, just
exaggeration; does it matter if he tells his friends that he
gets fifty shekel pocket money a week? He is not doing any
harm and it is just self aggrandizement. Talking to this
child and asking him why he feels the need to do this might
solve the problem, but it might not! Getting him to promise
that he will not do it anymore is asking him to lie. He
cannot overcome this in one go!
The child who takes money from his mother's purse or `finds'
money in any other way and then lies about it, has two
problems. Shouting at him and calling him a liar, perhaps
heaping up some of his more recent crimes for good measure,
will not cure him. It will make him more careful next time
not to be caught. When they first find out, irate parents
will need a great deal of self control and discussion on how
to deal with the phenomenon, which, unfortunately, is fairly
common. Their first aim is to deal with the lie. They should
ask the child to choose a time and a place in the house where
he feels most comfortable and then, if possible, get the
child to tell them in his own words, exactly, what happened.
By admitting to the truth, the child himself will know that
he has committed a further crime of stealing. If both sides
have given themselves a chance to cool down and discuss the
misdeed calmly, they are more likely to succeed in preventing
a future occurrence.
It is unrealistic to suggest that if the child tells the
truth he will never be punished. The older the child is, the
more accountable he is for his actions. However, if a child
knows that when he tells the truth he has his parents'
backing, however heinous the crime, he is more likely to be
honest. Parents will have to explain that the punishment
would have been far more severe if he had continued to lie
about it. Most children tell lies at some time or other in
their lives. As we mature, yiras Shomayim reminds us
to be honest.
Dissimulation, deceit, duplicity, cheating, even if only in a
game, are all part of the family of lies. If we teach this to
children from the time they learn to communicate, and pray
for them at the same time, we will hopefully succeed in this
very difficult and complicated field of parenting.
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