The Lies We Tell Kids

Filed in archive Parenting on March 17, 2006

"My dad always told me the Ice-cream van was the manure truck and he told me "wow isn't it so nice of them to play music for the kids and bring healthy manure for everyone's gardens?" I didn't know otherwise until I moved to the U.S and a friend of mine told me they sold ice cream."

Above was submitted by Puck and is the featured belief over at i used to believe.

I know that we have to answer the whys and wherefores our kids ask. And there are times when we, adults, do not even know how to explain everything. However, I do not think a lie such as the above is the way to do it. Especially when you let your child believe that this lie is the truth for a long time.

In my opinion, if our kids need us to explain something, we should. Sometimes, we have to be creative so that they could understand better. And other times, we have to simplify things. But to give our kids BS answers such as the above example is just plain irresponsible.

What about you? What do you think?