Lying has always come naturally to me especially when I was a kid. I used to steal in the first grade, which I think I mentioned in a previous blog post. I saw so many things that I wanted and I was afraid to ask for them and risk hearing the word “no” and face disappointment.  So instead of running that risk, I snuck into people’s desks in the first grade and took scratch ‘n sniff stickers from the grocery store. Today, I consider myself a pretty honest person and I try very hard not to lie. I think the temptation to lie still exists within me though. I hate not knowing things and sometimes feel like I would rather have the answer to something than not, so there have been times when I’ve given my best guess and sold it as fact (usually to my husband). I am very good at the game Balderdash.

Now that I have kids, I am faced with the temptation to lie to them all the time. “No, we are all out of macaroni and cheese, sorry”, has been a common one, nevermind the fact that we have a Costco size box of boxes in the garage. In my attempts to keep them from throwing a tantrum or pestering me on end, I have said stuff like, “we are out of it” or “yeah, I don’t know where the scissors are” when both statements were untrue. We call this telling “white lies” but I have often wondered what damaging effects these little lies have on kids. What happens if I lie to them about being out of macaroni and cheese and then they stumble upon it in the garage? They then learn that lying is okay or worse yet, they can’t trust their mother.

When I was little, my mother told me that peanut butter was the “cause of all the troubles in the world”. I think I had pestered her because I wanted more and instead of saying “no” she told me that. I don’t know what kind of psychological damage this did to me, but I grew up not liking peanut butter. In fact, I hated it. To this day, she thinks that her statement caused me to not like peanut butter. While I hate to blame my mother for my dislike to the nutty spread, now that I am a mother, I couldn’t help but wonder if I need to be more careful with what I tell my children.

The other day, when I picked Olivia up from school, she had a bracelet that I had never seen before in her cubby. She grabbed it and wanted to take it home, but then I asked her where she had gotten it. She said that it was hers but had that look in her eye when she said it that told me she knew that I knew that it wasn’t hers. I asked her who it belonged to and she told me and put it back in their box so they could find it. I was really proud of her for telling the truth and her teacher, who witnessed it, gave her a certificate for doing the right thing and for being a good friend.

Last Thursday there was a book fair at my daughter’s school. She had brought home a flyer and asked my husband and I if we could take her to get a book. We both said, “Yes”. By the time the book fair rolled around I was really hoping that she was going to forget about it so that when I picked her up we could just sail out of there without going. Before I went to get her, I called my husband for moral support. I was worrying about the outcome of her freaking out later if we didn’t go. I remembered thinking to myself, “Oh, man, I am afraid of my four-year-old…this is not good”. When I got to the classroom everyone was buzzing about the book fair. There was no escaping it. Her teacher was even handing out stickers that said “Book Fair” on them. Doh! I thought about saying “no” and preparing myself for a fight, but we had told her that we were going to go. I rationalized that they were books not Barbies and ultimately, I decided that I really wanted to model keeping my word to my children. I called my husband to let him know I had decided to take the girls. We went in, picked a couple of books each, and left without any fuss or fighting. Then we came home and read together.

I don’t want my kids to become liars. I don’t want them to learn that in order to get what you want you need to take it without asking. I want to have the courage to stand up to my kids and not be afraid of their responses when I say no. Lately, I have been practicing saying “no” to them a lot more. I really don’t like it and I wish I could give them everything their little hearts desire but I think it is very important to have boundaries with my kids. I think having children who get everything they ask for is a little more frightening than dealing with some fussing. So, I pick my battles and I don’t say “no” just to say “no”. But when I do say “no” I want them to understand why and not just make up an answer. I have had to wait out the pain of enduring a tantrum before I can help them understand. But afterwards I have felt so glad that I stood my ground and didn’t lie to them. I want them to understand why eating macaroni and cheese every day isn’t a good idea for their health and not just because “mommy said so”.