(Original Post - May 2013)
Waking up is an interesting thing. Sometimes I wake up well rested, while other times I feel so sore I struggle to roll out of the bed. Sometimes I wake in a great mood, and other times I wake up disoriented and disturbed by strange dreams that linger in my head for the better part of an hour. Sometimes I’m awakened by a bright ray of morning light piercing the blinds, while other times it’s the left knee of a child crawling over me that quickly shakes me from my reverie.
Last week, I awoke early, to the voice of Yvonne Jones beside me.
Before you question my fidelity to my lovely wife, I’ll explain that I set the alarm so that morning radio wakes me up. On this particular morning, the news program was replaying a clip of Yvonne blasting Peter Penashue during a recent debate in the bid for the federal seat in Labrador.
So instead of waking up to sweet nothings whispered by our lovely Liberal, I hear this:
“Lies! Absolute lies and you know it’s lies! I’m not going to stand here and let him tell lies.”
I jump up, almost expecting Yvonne to be in the room. Norah sits up and rubs her eyes. She and her brother made their way into our bed at some point during the night, stealing blankets and kicking like potential major league soccer stars throughout the early hours. On the plus side (I guess), while I’m waking up thinking I’m next to a provincial politician, Tara is probably waking up expecting to find David Beckham next to her. No one, and I mean no one, kicks like a kid trying to move the sheets.
Hours later, I pick the kids up from the sitter’s house, and as we’re driving along, the news clip comes on again. Norah sighs, looking out her window, and says “Not again…”
“Not again what, Norah?” I haven’t even noticed the radio clip.
“Those guys on the radio again! You know, the ones that say, ‘Lies, lies, it’s all lies.’”
I hadn’t even realized that in those early morning hours, Norah was listening to what they had to say, be it honest or not. But it stuck with her.
“So, who are they anyway Daddy?”
I sigh. “They are the people who represent us, honey…”
I’ve seen my fair share of lies. I’m certain that through the years, I’ve probably told a few doozies myself. People lie for a multitude of reasons: to avoid harsh truths, to protect others in some instances, to protect themselves in most, and people lie to themselves to feel just a bit better about their current predicaments. Sometimes we lie because we feel we’re doing so in the best interest of another, or to spare feelings, or to avoid the effort of honest, albeit difficult, conversations. And people lie to hurt.
Some people will tell little white lies to kids because they know they can get away with it due to the naiveté of childhood. But sooner or later, kids will see through these lies and will ask the inevitable question of why they were lied to. We’re all role models, whether we’re parents, politicians, both or neither, and kids look to us to show them how they should act. And believe me, they pay close attention, as I saw with Norah’s subsequent questions about what Mr Penashue was supposedly lying about.
I know that there will always be dishonesty. Lies, fibs, and falsehoods will forever be a part of our, and I’m sure, every society.
What bothers me is how natural it can become for kids.
I’ve dealt with a few kids in my role as an educator and counsellor that were masterful in the art of lying. There are a few I can think of that would likely be deemed pathological. These were kids that learned at an early age that lying had immediate, short term benefits. They avoided trouble, got what they wanted, and in many many instances I’m sure, were never discovered in their dishonesty.
What also bothers me is how prevalent it is becoming. I know for a fact that if I ever told a lie to a grown up when I was a child, and got caught, my guilt and anxiety about it would have probably incapacitated me mentally for a week. I see students who will tell serious, disturbing lies straight to my face, and when found out, will simply shrug it off as if thinking, Oh well, you got me. Rather than seeing any remorse or acceptance of responsibility for what’s happened, you can almost see their little brains thinking, planning ahead to next time, reflecting on the mistake that gave them away so as not to make in again.
Which is why we all have to be careful in how we handle lies.
Young kids will lie, and this is a natural thing. To borrow from a CTV news article I read a couple of months ago:
“Psychologists Kang Lee and Angela Evans, from University of Toronto and Brock University respectively, have discovered that kids start figuring how to lie at the tender young age of about two years old. That’s much younger than experts had previously thought.
Prof. Lee, who specializes in the study of lying at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, says most parents hate when their children lie, but it’s actually an indicator that their child is developing sophisticated reasoning and problem-solving skills.
“Lying is quite a normal behaviour. Most of us lie at some point in our life,” Lee says.
“And actually, in order to lie you have to have certain ingredients to be able to do that. One of them is the ability to think of other people’s minds. When you realize, ‘I know something you don’t know,’ only then can you lie. So if a child lies, it tells you the child has reached a milestone in their development,” he says. So yes, it’s normal, but that’s not to say we should dismiss it as simply another step in development. As they note in the conclusion of the article:
“Yet while parents shouldn’t be alarmed by lie-telling, at the same time, they shouldn’t just let it pass. “We should use it as a teachable moment so we can talk to a child about what is a lie, what is the truth and what is your expectations for them.” I think that that is what’s happening with too many of our kids. They are experimenting with lie-telling, and they are receiving partial reinforcement, like the test rodents in labs that receive food after an unpredictable number of responses. (Interestingly enough, it’s the honest kids that get labeled a ‘rat’ on the school playground.) With this type of reinforcement, it’s hard to extinguish such behavior (to use another Intro to Psychology term). These behaviors continue, are often corrected less and less frequently, if at all, and grow in severity. It’s a slippery slope.
I decided to write this blog post because I’m seeing so much dishonesty in school-aged kids. Invariably, I lead our conversations to the topic of trust, and I stress to them how they can so easily lose the trust of those around them, but it will take a long time, years in many cases, to earn back that trust. Some kids seem to consider this, furrowing their brows as they reflect on the consequences of their lies. Some just smile.
I also decided to write this post because I’ve seen the behavior in my own children. That’s not to say my kids are pathological liars, but they have ‘experimented’ with truth-bending, you can be sure. What I’ve learned, as I’ve mentioned in so many previous blog posts, is that we have to look at our own behaviors as well.
Quite often, the truth-bending is of a ‘fun’ nature with my kids. In our house, like many, you’ll see kids trying to fool their parents by misleading them with mistruths. In cases like this, my wife will usually playfully chase James until she catches him, and snatch him up in her arms while asking, “Are you tricking on me, buddy?” (Trickin’ on me is a phrase Norah coined a few years ago.) Similarly, Norah will often try to do the same thing, and I’ll pin her to the floor and tickle the truth out of her, asking all the while, “Are you fibbin’? Are you sure you’re not fibbin’?” However, all fun aside, myself and my wife have noticed times when the fibs went a little farther than innocent fun. Getting ready to go outside, we’ll ask the kids if they’ve cleaned up the disastrous messes in their rooms. We’ve often been told Yes, only to find that this was not the case. While Norah is beginning to fully appreciate the difference, James still blurs dishonesty with funny fibs. And rightly so. He's three. However, it’s important to have the conversation with him, and explain when and where telling the truth is important. It’s a fine line, no doubt, but one that has to be drawn.
My point is, we need to pay attention to the nature and frequency of fibs and lies, and be ready to teach the difference between them and the consequences for them. If these conversations are not had, the distinction may not be made. That slippery slope, while fun and easy in the short term, quickly turns into a mountain of trust that too many people, unfortunately, can never climb back up.
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
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