Deception and Lies

As parents, I think we live in a state of deception with our kids. Not that we deceive them to be mean, but more out of necessity to protect their innocence. We deceive them about all kinds of things (Santa, tooth fairy, what is REALLY in "Monmy's drink").

Our children, on the other hand, are expected to tell the truth. Especially to their parents. Especially in this house. Lying to me or lying to Caton is not tolerated.

The little ones are really too young to understand lying, but Kade...he is standing at the fork in the road. One path, down a road of constant deception, constant lies. The other, the path of truth.

Lately, his lies have revolved around his behavior at school. On Wednesday, he came home telling me that he had gotten a yellow frog (meaning he only "messed up" once during the day). The frog colors go green, yellow, red, blue, black.

So later on that night, he was helping me empty out his folder, and I noticed that he was trying to hide a certain note - all while slinking towards the trash can.

When I asked to see what he had, it was a note from his teacher. He immediately started to cry saying that he had gotten a red frog and that he didn't want to get in trouble.

Without saying a word, I read the note. It said, "Kade will be receiving an AR (accelerated reader) award on Tuesday. Hope you can be there!"

I had to stifle my laughter as I turned back to Kade to dish out some discipline. About that time, Caton walked back into the room. He asked why Kade was crying a I made Kade tell him what was going on. Kade said that he had really gotten a red frog and that his teacher had sent a note home. I then handed Caton the note, making sure that only he could see the smile on my face.

Caton read the note and realized that Kade had no idea what it said. That it was actually a note about something GOOD that was happening.

So Caton sat down to talk over Kade's punishment. And to talk about the consequences of lying. In the end, Kade has had video games taken away until further notice.

After the kids went to bed, Caton and I got a good laugh about the whole note situation. But I am still very concerned about how easily Kade can lie to my face.

So of course I did what any good parent would do....I googled solutions to getting your kid to stop lying. And one of the sites that I hit suggested implementing a course of action where the child will NOT get in trouble as long as he tells the truth.

And upon thinking about it, I think for Kade, for now, this may be a good tactic. We can implement a "truth only" relationship (and hopefully the lying will stop if he knows that no matter what, as long as he tells the truth, he won't get in trouble.)

That is, until he gets the hang of telling the truth... Then we will have to address the behavior that is getting him in trouble.

But at least we will know about it, right?

This parenting stuff...especially with the first born...is like a crap shoot. Who knows of what we are doing is right, or good. If what we are doing is going to make our kid into a truth telling adult.

We sure hope so.

That is until he has to deceive his own children!