Parents Often Lie to Their Children

Lying is done either to benefit the parents or to protect the children.

SUMMARY: Parents often lie to their children, a new study published in the September issue of the Journal of Moral Education reveals. "Our findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying," said study researcher Kang Lee of the U. of Toronto.

Lee and colleagues say their work is preliminary and aren't sure of the implications of parental lying, but they think parents telling "tall tales" to their children give mixed messages at a crucial time in the development of their offspring. According to another researcher, lies can harm parent-child bonds, and they could prevent children from learning certain rules.

The scientists acknowledge being less than truthful with a child may seem okay in certain situations such as praising a young child's scribbles. However, alternatives to "telling a fib" should always be considered.

The research involved two studies in which parents and students commented on hypothetical scenarios in which parents lied to children either to shape behavior or to make the child happy. Parents were found to often lie in order to prevent tantrums or excessive talking. Lies were told to get children to go to bed or to eat certain foods. Sometimes the untruths were either to benefit the parent (such as to avoid embarrassment over a crying child while dining in a restaurant) or to protect the child (for instance, when considering news about a murder).

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COMMENT: Being a parent isn’t easy these days. Bad influences upon children coming from the media and from peers make it a real challenge for parents to raise their children to be not just their children, but even more important, children of God.

Yet, Christian parents are obligated to follow Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”). The way a child should go means keeping God’s commandments including the 8th commandment (“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”) which includes being truthful in all things. If children catch on that a parent is lying, the parent is being a poor role model.

As I see it, there are situations where children do not need to be told the whole truth. Parents may need to be creative in formulating responses that do not involve lying but yet will not inflame a situation. Some situations can indeed become very tricky. May God bless parents when they face such instances so that the Holy Spirit might put the right words into their mouths.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY

Why aren't older people a priority for the H1N1 swine flu vaccine?

Younger people who get swine flu tend to get sicker than older people because older people probably already have some immunity due to exposure to H1N1 viruses that circulated between 1918 and 1957.

Source: Bottom Line Personal (October 1, 2009)

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