I don’t lie to my kids but I know plenty of people do. I don’t understand why parents feel the need to be less than honest with their children. As a parent I feel that telling my kids things that are not true will affect our relationship in the future. I want my kids to know that they can always count on me to be 100% honest with them in all things. We all have people we don’t trust, and when you think about why you don’t trust these people it is generally because they have been less than honest in the past. I don’t want my kids to have any reason to not trust me to be truthful with them at all times in all matters. Life is already hard enough and kids need to be able to face life without having to sort out the truth from the lies.
The thing that puzzles me is that parents spend years lying to their kids about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and other stuff and then they have a complete meltdown when they find out they have raised perfect little liars. Parents who lie to their children really have no right to be upset when their kids lie to them. Children learn from example and when you lie to your kids you model behavior that appears to be acceptable. Every lie you tell your children enforces the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to lie.
David and I have had several situations in which life may have been easier if we just lied to our kids. However, we decided that the truth is always best. Here are some hard truths we have told our kids:
- Madilyn knows she is adopted. While at her young age she does not know what it means she is already learning the truth about how she came to join our family. I have had many people tell us life would be better if we lied to her and let her believe she is biologically our child. I know people who adopted and have not and don’t plan to tell the child. I feel sorry for the children being raised not knowing the truth.
- Caleb knows that he was not easily conceived and that he is our miracle baby that was born after several years of fertility treatments. I have had people tell us that he did not need to know that. Maybe he did not need to know it but it is part of his truth and history.
- Our kids know and understand our financial situation. We are mindful in letting the children know that living within a budget is important and that sometimes you have to say no now so that you can say yes later.
- My kids know that I lived in a home for children for several years. This is a hard one to talk to them about because it brings up hard questions and difficult answers. I can not omit this from my history because the people and experiences I had there changed my life and influenced the person I became.
- There is No Santa
- There are losers in this world, not everyone can be a winner all the time.
- Life is not fair.
- Nothing in life is free even if the government tells you it is.
- Hard work is what is needed to be successful in life.
- People get divorced and many times they do so for selfish reasons without even trying to work out their issues.
- People get married for the wrong reasons, which often times leads to a divorce which could have been prevented if they had not married for the wrong reasons.
I could go on and on with the things our kids know that we could have lied about. I can not help but wonder how different would life be if everyone just told the truth even with the hard questions and situations.
Tags: honest, lies we tell our kids, lying