Lying is the natural process like crawling, walking and speech. It is an important milestone in a child’s cognitive development. Fun fact, we should actually celebrate when our kids start lying. Punishing for attaining such important milestone is like punishing for taking baby steps. Having said this, we should also inculcate the importance of Truth, morality and Honesty. So, it is a challenge for parents, isn’t it? So, Get ready for important learning in parenting.
Let’s
proceed further with an imaginary situation.
Tomorrow is
your kid’s birthday. You are planning to throw a memorable party by inviting
all dear and near ones. Highlight of the day is going to be the Birthday Cake.
Hence huge effort & time had been invested in designing and getting the
cake to your house. To your dismay, your kid opened the cake box and tasted the
mouthwatering cake out of temptation. You found this now and furious about it.
Your kid lie to you out of fear. How do you handle such situation?
Before you
proceed reading further, what would be your reaction?
Why kids
lie? List of possible reasons:
1) To avoid fear of getting punishment
Solution: Acknowledge their feelings. Give them
sense of feeling that they can open up anything freely to parents so that they
won’t be prejudice and mad at them.
Eg: Yes! I understood that it is tough to
resist. Even I did this mistake when I was young. I hope you won’t be doing
this in future.
2) To avoid being accused
Solution: Describe what you see rather than
accusing them. Make sure that there is no room left to lie.
Eg: I see cake piece missing from the Box. I
and mom didn’t have it. So how this magically disappeared?
3) To avoid embarrassment
Solution: Feeling Guilty is the best punishment
one can give for their bad deed. Describe them how do you feel?
Eg: I’m upset that my plan has been collapsed. I
planned whole week for this event and I am extremely sad that this didn’t go my
way.
List of Pre-planning
to avoid such incidents:
1) Problem Solving: Expect the future
and plan accordingly
Eg: It would be very tempting to taste the
cake. You know very well that it should be opened in front of guests. In case
if you feel tempted, let me know. We shall plan something about it.
2) Adjust Expectations: Manage the
environment rather than the child
Eg: Bring the cake when kids are not around and
keep it out of their reach.
3) Give them responsibility:
Brief them the purpose of getting Birthday Cake and assign them
responsibility to take care of Cake.
Eg: We need to cut this cake in front of guests and you are going to
distribute pieces when friends come over. So I am putting you in-charge of
saving cake from others opening the box before the event.
It is very
hard to resist the temptation and expect kids to behave as adults is surreal.
It’s all natural process, be it telling lies, temptation to taste, yielding to
pressure/ pleasure and so on. So we as parents need to accept this natural
process and act accordingly without tarnishing their image or accusing them
when they do something ethically wrong. We need to help our kids to face this
tough challenge and let them know we understand how they feel and show them how
to make amends.
Having read
this, let’s be practical too. It is not easy to follow the above said points in
all occasions. We will be losing our cool at times when things go against our
expectation. But once we come back to our senses, it is essential that we need
to sit with our kids and explain why we lost our temper and apologize. Brief
them how you felt and be vulnerable. Kids learn seeing us and try copying us.
Let us be their role model rather than preaching them boring moral values.
It is easier to be courageous when there’s hope of redemption! Let me know in comments, how did you handle your kids when they lie to you? Happy Parenting!
Reference: Joanna Faber & Julie King
Good one, keep sharing your knowledge!
ReplyDelete“Being vulnerable” is an important attribute, especially for a parent. I have noticed this in my Appa. That quality makes one feel closer, to be open and comfortable in sharing anything to the parent because you know they are also not perfect since they share their true feelings! Even in Super heroes films, they are characterised not just with their power but they are shown with human emotions and not portrayed as perfect, which is what strikes a chord with audience!
Very true. But in reality, adults feel that they know all and own their kids rather consider them as another individual. Unless this perspective change, it is tough to realise the importance of being vulnerability. Good to know that your dad is really a super hero.
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