Don't Lie to Me! A few thoughts for parents and teachers (maybe grandparents too)

Lying. As a parent (or teacher), the worst thing you can do to me is to lie. I can hear myself saying, “You’ll be in more trouble if you lie about it!” To this day, nothing hurts my feelings more than to have someone lie to me. When a child lies, it is a plea for help. Please read on.

I saw an article on a Facebook page today that caught my attention. Sliding Doors STEM & Dyslexia Learning Center has a very informative Facebook page, and I learn something new every day. (Full disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors for this startup non-profit – and am wildly enthusiastic about it!) If you mistakenly think Dyslexia is just transposing numbers, check it out! Here is the link. Kids who struggle with Dyslexia face an uphill battle, but once fought, their educational experience (and therefore the child) is transformed. I have never seen anything like it!

The article actually deals with kids who have ADHD – and the reasons they lie. If you have ever had a child lie to you (ok, that’s everyone!) then read this with an open heart. Kids don’t lie to be bad. They lie because they think it’s their best option. Often we back them into the corner and make them double-down on a lie, and then the punishments get almost intolerable. When the child feels like there is no way out – no way to earn back your trust – then they just try to lie better the next time! Not a good scenario leading up to the teen years. So read the article and look for yourself in it.

As a teacher for eight years, and an elementary school principal for seven, the thing that bothered me the most was the conundrum that is faced at almost every difficult parent-teacher conference. The teacher tells the parent what is happening in the classroom and the parent says, “Well, that’s not what my child says.” Case closed. The teacher must be mistaken. In fact, the real throwing-down-the-gauntlet comes when the parent says, “And I checked with five other parents, and they say their child says the same thing.” So what is happening here?

As parents, we love our children. We trust them. We protect them. So we defend them. A parent-teacher conference is not meant for attacks or defenses. It is meant for collaboration. Aren’t we on the same team? If a child is caught in a lie, he faces something he is not equipped to do -- spinning the truth in such a way as to make both his parents and his teacher proud of him!

I am reminded of this little gadget that we got at the fair as kids – we called it Chinese handcuffs, but Wikipedia calls it a Chinese finger trap. It’s a little toy made out of braided bamboo. You put your fingers in either end of a very small cylinder, and then try to get free. The harder you pull, the more you are stuck! The only way out is to push inward – relax their grip, and then your fingers will be set free. The finger trap is a good analogy for what we do in these situations. Do we dig in deeper and try to “fix” the problem of lying? Or do we relax, regroup, and try to help the child fix the underlying problem. Do we play the Blame Game and try to find fault in the other adult in the picture, or do we focus on the child and what he/she is trying to hide?

I am not going to summarize the article because I think you should read it for yourselves. Everyone will see something different – a different piece of the puzzle. As parents and teachers, we have to meet our children where they are. That takes time, and the first step is reading this article!

Note to teachers and principals: These finger traps are a deal – check out Amazon and Oriental Trading Company. You can hand these out at conferences and get the real conversation going...

Blessings,

Barb