28. A Heavy Burden- when kids lie pt.2

"To make your children cap able of honesty is the

beginning of education"

-John Ruskin

If you want kids to tell the truth you have to be able to hear the truth.

Trust and honor are pillars of society that need to be carved out at a young age. Every parent at one point or another had dealt with a child that is not behaving honorably. That's not saying that we are doing something wrong or that were bad parents. It is just phase of childhood. The way parents address the issue determines how long the phase lasts.

Be it sneaking, lying, cheating, or any other variation, if you're like me, you may find it hard figure out how to stop the behavior and to instill good values in our kids. A lot of times, the way we think we should respond backfires. The harder we try, the more the behavior persists. We can ask them to tell the truth a million times but what is it that truly influences their behavior?

So my 3 year old cut her hair yesterday.

Old me would have exploded.

Yelled and looked for somewhere to place blame. On the big kids for leaving scissors in the bathroom or on the little one for climbing over the baby-gate at bed time. But I paused just

a split second to see that she was scared and embarrassed. I also knew that she had just seen me cut her sisters' hair earlier this week. In her three-year-old mind, she saw the opportunity to practice her cutting skills like we have been practicing in preschool. She thought I would be proud of her for doing it "all by her self" like "such a big girl" as we always say.

Obviously I was not thrilled and she recognized that as soon as she saw my reaction. She ran to me crying for a hug. There is no need to add additional shame and punishment when they know they did wrong. I want my kids to come to me when they make mistakes, not hide them from me.

One time when my older daughter was six, a girl at the park cut her hair as a prank. Because she thought that I would be mad, she hid it from me for days. It broke my heart when I found out. I wasn't mad at her that it had happened, of course, I was upset that she thought she couldn't tell me. We ended up confronting the girl's father and I've been working hard since then to repair the relationships I have with my kids. Luckily hair grows back. It could have been much worse.

Usually, as in the cookie situation (from part 1), there are two versions of every story. When we put too much pressure on our kids, our grown-up expectations and pride are likely to extinguish their budding confidence. They need self confidence if they are going to stand up to bullies in this world. We adults, are capable of re-framing our own mindset to use these experiences as a positive learning opportunity instead of a tragic one.

In teaching kids to be trustworthy we have to be able to not use the truth against them. If we continue to treat our kids like they are not trustworthy then they will continue to live up to our expectations. In THIS post I made about Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset I explained how kids will continually live up to your expectations of them because they don't want to disappoint us. Young kids who lie are seeking to avoid further disappointment from their parents or peers. They likely already know right from wrong, they may just need encouragement and a boost in self confidence.

When my kids lie, I'm upset, naturally. I think I've failed in some way and that fear of failure is projected onto them. I thought that I had done a good job in teaching my kids to be honest, but they failed. Now I want to punish them to show them that I'm in charge and I know whats good for them. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that. We are only pushing them further into their lying habit. Our brains, at a very young age, are programed to avoid discomfort. The book, To Train Up A Child, demonstrated this perfectly with Blanket Training - a cruel method of teaching infants that you're in charge by "hitting them with a ruler" when they reach outside of their boundary.

Sorry, not sorry, I won't raise my kids to fear me that way no matter their age.

Respect Is More Powerful Than Obedience.

Replacing punishments with natural consequences is the first step to repairing the relationship and your child's confidence.