Don't Lie: Craft (or Postpone) the Answer
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To get an expert's take on those little lies we tell our kids, Wondertime's Jeff Wagenheim talked with Stanley Greenspan, a member of our advisory council. Greenspan wrote the book on raising great kids — in fact, he wrote (or co-wrote) 20 of them — which makes him our go-to guy for these all-important questions.
(Read a mom's take.)Wondertime: There's a memorable line in the movie A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson says, "You can't handle the truth." Are there truths kids can't handle at certain young ages?
Well, let's say there's a hurricane in a far-off place. Your 4-year-old sees a bit of it on TV before you can turn off the news and asks, "What happened?" You might say, "Well, there was a big storm and it knocked down lots of trees and houses."
You leave out the part about grown-ups or children losing their lives. Now that's not lying, and it's not changing the truth. It's adapting the facts to a level that the child can deal with.
Wondertime: How do you know what they can deal with?
There's no substitute for knowing your child, knowing their intellectual and emotional comprehension. Also, understanding how children think at different ages needs to be a part of every parent's learning curve; it's essential for making these judgment calls.
Don't assume a child thinks like an adult. Most 4-year-olds, for instance, are still learning cause and effect; they know a storm can cause a tree to fall down. But they still are prone to magical thinking too. So if a storm can hurt children in a far-off land, they'll worry it could hurt them or Mommy or Daddy too, because they're not yet able to think in terms of time or space, that the hurricane didn't happen here.
Wondertime: Sometimes, though, a kid can ask very specific questions, so much so you think he really knows what's happening. That's when we parents often are tempted to fill them in on everything.
The paradox is that between 4 and 6 there's a tremendous burst of wonderful curiosity where children are asking questions of everything. But that burst is also a sign of how confusing the world is to them; they don't yet have the full logical structure to understand it. They're getting information in bits and pieces and they can't put it all together yet.
Wondertime: So overexplaining is like feeding too much information into a computer that doesn't have enough memory yet.
Right. If your child is asking questions and you can't figure out a way to explain them without overwhelming her, you've got to be comfortable saying things like: "Sweetheart, I'll be able to explain more to you as you get a little older," or "I just can't answer that now."
Feel free not to give an explanation for everything. Just like you don't give children all the ice cream they want, you don't have to give all the information they want either.
Wondertime: Okay, say we haven't followed your advice. We've told an outright fib — and our child has caught us. What now?
You say, "I had a good reason for not telling you, but I should have told you the truth." If you have a good relationship, it will be no different than a good friend who tells you a little white lie. You're going to forgive him because the context of the relationship matters more.
Children are contextual beings. Is the relationship one of trust and warmth? Or is it one of constant shifting sands? The relationship is what the child takes with them, not the one event.
About Stanley Greenspan
Stanley Greenspan's most recent book is Great Kids: Helping Your Baby and Child Develop the 10 Essential Qualities for a Healthy, Happy Life (Da Capo Press).
Plus: A mom's take on lying to her son
