Santa Claus Truth or Lie?

Oh you better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town

Truth or Lie?

Okay, we all know Santa Claus is not True. Like not really true. Like, --not really, really, actually true. But it is a symbol of something else, isn't that right?

So, let's see now. You clearly admit that you lie (or lied) to your children about Santa Claus.

But you never admit to them that you lie. Correct?

Yet YOU expect them to always tell you the truth, right?

Does this actually make sense to you?

We start them young, don't we?
We teach them that the easter bunny hid the eggs. Truth or Lie?
Or we tell them that the tooth fairy came. True?

Our kids, when very, very young, believe everything we tell them.
Yet, clearly, we have lied to them over and over.

But these were just little white lies, isn't that so? --another lie.

And then we wonder why they have problems believing adults at school.
For example, is doing homework necessary, as the teacher says, truth or lie?
"You should respect others." Truth or lie?

Do your kids know, from experience at home, that the rules at school are fact (truth)? Or fiction (a lie)?

Isn't it interesting what we do to our kids?

We teach them that truth is true only part of the time:
"You'll be grounded for a week if you don't eat every bite of dinner...."
"Okay, alright, you can just finish your vegetables and leave the meat...."
"Okay, okay, just eat a few bites. Eat at least two bites...."
"Look, you didn't eat a bite of your supper. I don't know what I'm going to do with you!"

If you've ever said those kinds of things to your child, you have unwittingly taught them that what you say to people doesn't really matter, that truth is optional and lies are okay under certain circumstances. They learn that stretching the truth is normal and threatening people is acceptable behavior. And then later in their teens, you wonder why they don't trust you anymore.

Many of us lie when telling the truth would be easier to do! And when we say anything less than the truth to our kids, they learn to do the same. Who taught YOU to lie like you do? Are you going to continue the family-chain of speaking untruths to your children and others? Will your actions today affect your child's future? Yours?

Consider how we adults lie to each other:
"Yes, dear, I'll only play cards with the boys until eleven."
"Okay boss, I'll try harder from now on."
"Officer, I will never break the speed limit again."
"Yes, Judge, I promise to stop drinking."

Some of us lie more than do others. But I'm not making a moral judgment here. I am simply pointing out that we seem to have a double standard, when it comes to our children, about telling the truth. Maybe we should recognize that this is simply another human weakness and try, daily, to do better. And that we ourselves have taught this behavior to our children. So when we catch our kids in a lie we will, hopefully, be quick to forgive, knowing that we, too, have the same difficulty with telling the truth 100% of the time.

Bottom line:
MY ADVICE is to teach the little ones early about honesty and integrity by your example; go back to the kids, as often as necessary, and admit that that you did not tell them the truth about it (whatever it is) and that you will work on telling the truth better each day.

xoxo
Dad