Children are almost always forced to lie by adults. If they are not handled well, the consequences will be endless.

In a WeChat group, I accidentally saw a mother asking, what problem do you least tolerate in your child? Almost all of the mothers in this group have children who are about to enter elementary school, or have already been in elementary school for two or three years. I thought many mothers would answer questions about poor grades and weird personalities. One mother replied, \”I can\’t tolerate my children lying and cheating. It hurts my heart so much.\” Unexpectedly, a large number of mothers followed suit. I agree and feel sad together. I was lurking in the group and couldn\’t help but want to ask them, is it really so lethal if a child lies? American psychologist Robert Feldman once conducted an experiment. When people were having daily conversations, he brought a hidden camera to record the process. The statistical results are surprising. Everyone tells at least 3 lies every day! Please note that the subjects in this experiment are all adults. Whether we have the courage to admit it or not, the fact is that we lie every day. The targets of lies range from strangers to familiar people, from leaders to colleagues, from children to parents. Huang Zhizhong of \”Qi Pa Shuo\” even said that Chinese parents and children do not have the habit of telling the truth. So why are we so incompatible with lying to our children? Some people may say that lying by adults and lying by children are different and cannot be compared. Yes, some adults lie to take into account the other person\’s feelings, some to protect themselves, and some are forced by the situation… Anyway, there are always a lot of reasons for adults to lie, but there is only one reason for children to lie – character issues. Otherwise, as soon as the child is found to be lying, he will not be heartbroken, try his best to lecture and teach, and will not follow the example despite repeated orders, for fear that the child will go astray and become a person with questionable character and moral flaws. We seem to have forgotten that no matter how young a child is, he is still a person with his own thoughts. He will lie, and there are various reasons that will obviously depend on his growth characteristics. Elevating to the moral level at every turn, labeling and hating children, and educating them simply and rudely can easily have extremely negative effects. What most parents find intolerable is that their older children, who can already understand right and wrong, still have to make up a lot of lies to hide the truth about what they have done wrong. The child broke the vase and lied to you that it was not him; the child failed in the exam and lied to you that he had no results; the child forgot to do his homework and lied to you that the teacher did not assign it… Parents will be so angry that they vomit blood every minute and become suspicious. In life, I lamented that my life was miserable and I gave birth to a naughty child. But if the child tells the truth honestly, and we ask ourselves, can we really accept the disasters that the child has caused with peace of mind? Lying is a survival instinct. If a child thinks that telling the truth may mean \”death\”, who would tell the truth? We don’t give our children room to be honest, so don’t blame them for lying and hurting our hearts. Parents who cannot tolerate mistakes are not worthy of hearing the truth. I still remember once reading a classic story about a child who lied, and it lingered in my mind for many years. A boy came home from school and played basketball in the living room. Basketball doesn\’t have eyes, so it knocked a vase off the bookshelf and broke a large piece of the bottle mouth. This is not a decoration, it is an antique passed down from ancestors. childHe hurriedly glued the pieces together and put them back in place fearfully. In the evening, my mother noticed something was wrong with the vase. During dinner, she asked him: \”What happened to the vase at home?\” The child had an idea and said: \”A wild cat jumped in from the window and couldn\’t get rid of it. It was on the floor in the living room. He jumped up and down and finally knocked over the vase on the shelf.\” The mother knew very well that the child was lying. Because she would close the windows one by one before going to work every day, and then open them when she came back from get off work. She said calmly: \”Oh, I was negligent and didn\’t close the window.\” It wasn\’t until before going to bed at night that the mother called the child to the study and gave him a piece of chocolate. Is it weird to let children eat chocolate in the middle of the night? The child, who was originally worried, became confused. The mother said: \”This chocolate award is for you, because you used your magical imagination to invent a cat that can open windows. In the future, you may be able to write a good detective novel.\” Then she gave it to the child again. Putting a piece of chocolate: \”This piece of chocolate is awarded to you. Because you have outstanding repairing ability, but the glue is for repairing paper items. Repairing the vase not only requires glue with stronger adhesion, but also requires higher professional skills.\” Tomorrow, we will take the vase to the artist and see how they keep a handicraft intact.\” Mom picked up the third piece of chocolate and said, \”The last piece of chocolate represents my deep apology to you. You shouldn\’t place vases in places where they can easily fall, especially if you have a boy who is keen on sports at home. I hope you didn\’t get hit or frightened.\” How about that? Isn’t it amazing how this mother neither scolds nor condones her mind? At first, she did not use the inductive question \”Did you break it?\” but asked lightly, \”What happened to the vase?\”, leaving room for the child to think about telling the truth. She did not expose the child\’s lie on the spot. Instead, a few hours later, she straightforwardly stated that she had seen through the lie and did not bother to force the child to admit the lie. She could also find the child\’s shining point in this incident. It seemed like a reward, but it made the child feel spontaneously guilty for breaking the vase and lying. It was self-evident that it was right or wrong. She also did not forget to mention that the vase must be sent to an artist for repair, so that children can learn to make amends for their mistakes. You know, most parents are too obsessed with making mistakes. In fact, letting their children learn to bear the consequences of their mistakes correctly also gives them the courage to tell the truth. In the end, she stood from the child\’s perspective, giving her the greatest understanding, acceptance and love, and protecting the child\’s self-esteem. Would her child have the heart to use deception to hurt such a mother again? Teacher Yin Jianli once said: Many people are accustomed to blaming their children\’s behavioral problems on the children themselves, so they are used to blaming their children, but in fact, children\’s behavioral habits are so dependent on their parents\’ education methods. We cannot accept that children deceive us, and only criticize, reason, and punish blindly, without ever exploring the reasons why children do this, nor can we calm down and listen to children\’s voices. The child\’s heart gradually closes to us, and we throw away the key ourselves. In fact, in the face of a child’s deception, how to create a situation where he “can be honest”\” space, rather than insisting on \”finding lies\”, is the most worthwhile educational art for every parent to learn. It seems difficult, but it is even harder if you don\’t learn.