When my children have questionable behavior I enjoy surfing
different parenting web sites to see if the behavior is normal for their age
group. Usually I find what I’m looking for and because my children are pretty normal I walk away feeling better about the situation. Tonight’s topic of ‘learning’was on telling lies. My son is getting pretty good at it but I still don’t understand WHY he is telling the lies he is telling.
Telling lies is supposedly a part of growing up but so far Will’s
lies don’t seem very grown up.
Example number one: Will told me one of his friends from school
had been out for a few days with whooping cough. When I saw the child’s mother I inquired about her child and asked if he was feeling better. Puzzled, she told me he hadn’t been sick at all and in fact hadn’t missed one day of school the entire year. I felt like an idiot. I then spoke to his teacher and was informed that no child had been out with whooping cough. No one we know has had whooping cough and it hasn’t been a topic of conversation so I don’t know where that came from and what he had to gain from telling the lie.
Example number two: He told me that there is a new student in his class named Sid who blows up and tortures toys. This sounds a lot like the Sid character from Toy Story. Will claims Sid punched him in the stomach today but he didn’t punch him back even though he wanted to. He said he didn’t tell any teachers but that he did ask Sid to please stop and that Sid agreed.
Example number three: He told me there is a girl that he likes to sit next to at lunch and she’s allergic to mayonnaise so I should no longer put
mayonnaise on his ham sandwiches or she could have an allergic reaction. I’m pretty sure that isn’t true either, because a list comes out at the beginning of each school year and we are notified of any allergies in the class so we don’t send things that could cause issues.
Example number four: When I asked him why he took a toilet paper
roll in our bathroom and filled up the center with hair gel, he claimed that he didn’t do it even though his Superman Hair Gel was sitting on the bathroom counter with the lid off. He did offer some words of wisdom though and said that maybe it just squirted out of the tube and landed in the center of the toilet paper tube. How stupid does he think I am?!
Was today just a bad day?!
Did you know that there are twenty-eight different types of lies
listed in Wikipedia? The lies range from barefaced lies to fibs to half-truths or exaggerations.
Wikipedia defines a white lie as;
White lies are minor lies which could be considered to be
harmless, or even beneficial, in the long term. White lies are also considered to be used for greater good. A common version of a white lie is to tell only part of the truth, therefore not be suspected of lying, yet also conceal something else, to avoid awkward questions.
So maybe Will is telling little white lies. Regardless, I think it’s time for a big dose of Pinocchio and maybe singing “liar, liar pants on fire.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie
http://www.scholastic.com/resources/article/the-truth-about-lying
different parenting web sites to see if the behavior is normal for their age
group. Usually I find what I’m looking for and because my children are pretty normal I walk away feeling better about the situation. Tonight’s topic of ‘learning’was on telling lies. My son is getting pretty good at it but I still don’t understand WHY he is telling the lies he is telling.
Telling lies is supposedly a part of growing up but so far Will’s
lies don’t seem very grown up.
Example number one: Will told me one of his friends from school
had been out for a few days with whooping cough. When I saw the child’s mother I inquired about her child and asked if he was feeling better. Puzzled, she told me he hadn’t been sick at all and in fact hadn’t missed one day of school the entire year. I felt like an idiot. I then spoke to his teacher and was informed that no child had been out with whooping cough. No one we know has had whooping cough and it hasn’t been a topic of conversation so I don’t know where that came from and what he had to gain from telling the lie.
Example number two: He told me that there is a new student in his class named Sid who blows up and tortures toys. This sounds a lot like the Sid character from Toy Story. Will claims Sid punched him in the stomach today but he didn’t punch him back even though he wanted to. He said he didn’t tell any teachers but that he did ask Sid to please stop and that Sid agreed.
Example number three: He told me there is a girl that he likes to sit next to at lunch and she’s allergic to mayonnaise so I should no longer put
mayonnaise on his ham sandwiches or she could have an allergic reaction. I’m pretty sure that isn’t true either, because a list comes out at the beginning of each school year and we are notified of any allergies in the class so we don’t send things that could cause issues.
Example number four: When I asked him why he took a toilet paper
roll in our bathroom and filled up the center with hair gel, he claimed that he didn’t do it even though his Superman Hair Gel was sitting on the bathroom counter with the lid off. He did offer some words of wisdom though and said that maybe it just squirted out of the tube and landed in the center of the toilet paper tube. How stupid does he think I am?!
Was today just a bad day?!
Did you know that there are twenty-eight different types of lies
listed in Wikipedia? The lies range from barefaced lies to fibs to half-truths or exaggerations.
Wikipedia defines a white lie as;
White lies are minor lies which could be considered to be
harmless, or even beneficial, in the long term. White lies are also considered to be used for greater good. A common version of a white lie is to tell only part of the truth, therefore not be suspected of lying, yet also conceal something else, to avoid awkward questions.
So maybe Will is telling little white lies. Regardless, I think it’s time for a big dose of Pinocchio and maybe singing “liar, liar pants on fire.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie
http://www.scholastic.com/resources/article/the-truth-about-lying
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