On Lying

A parent mentioned in the final minutes of our weekly video conference that he observed his 6 year old lying about some things that didn’t seem to be worth lying about - no consequence whether he had done the thing he had lied about or not. Had we been reading a book during our read aloud time that included a story arc about lying? Why now? What should he be prepared to talk about when lying comes up in conversation?

I told him the story of Dagmar from Donna Bryant Goertz’s Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful. When caught in a web of lies about penning a threatening letter to a child in another class, Dagmar denies any involvement or wrongdoing. Her own teacher confronts her and reports back “It wasn’t Dagmar. She didn’t write the letter. I told her to tell me the truth and not to lie, and she swore she didn’t write it.”

So where does the adult go from here? In Dagmar’s story and in the story of our conversations with children who have found themselves in a tough spot. Do we wear them down with our insistence that in our omnipotence and omnipresence we already know the truth and all they have to do is admit it? That they’ll learn something about the honor of telling the truth? That there’s nothing to lose and everything for a child to gain by going down the road that ends where all that has gone wrong will land squarely on their shoulders?

DBG asks her own additional questions, and proceeds with the child:

What should I do? Risk talking to [Dagmar], knowing what she’d just been through [with her teacher]? If she had written the letter and said she hadn’t, surely she would be in turmoil, and one could only imagine how defended she might be. If she hadn’t written the letter, surely she would be leery and invested in protecting herself from further undue suspicion. How beneficial to her development could a discussion be at this time?

Then again, every child deserves to be included in a model for exploring truth that works, one that simply removed fear and dead and leaves plenty of time and space for comfortable introspection.

Because of their galvanizing charge, I consciously avoid using certain words such as “truth,” “lie,” “liar,” “admit,” “confess,” “blame,” “ashamed,” and “guilty.” I think of the child as being in process of developing a relationship with truth and of coming to distinguish it from and prefer it to secret, wishes, expediencies, and self-gratifications. Every experience a child has and every behavior he exhibits can be deployed to assist him along his individual path of development, if adults use calm, clear thinking, deep respect, and loving feelings and are committed to an alliance with the child’s spirit. In alliance with the child, all things can be accomplished. Through her, with her, and in her, all things are possible. Everything a child thinks, says, and does makes perfect sense in the context of her own interpretation of her experience.