Do Children Always Tell The Truth?

They say that children always tell the truth. We raised our children to be honest and truthful, but watch out it is not as simple as you may imagine.

How do you explain to a five year old that sometimes telling the whole truth is not the thing to do. I have vivid memories of visiting my mother in law for Sunday lunch, an experience that none of us looked forward to because it was always a bit of an ordeal. Cooking is a skill that my mother in law has never mastered. We were all seated around the table when my son’s voice broke the silence like the sound of shattering glass, just three words were enough to make my heart stop beating. “This is disgusting” the words echoed around inside my head and it seemed as if time stood still. Suddenly my husband took charge, he stood up apologised to his mum and took my son out of the room. He explained that telling the truth had hurt Grandma’s feelings and that he should say sorry, they returned to the table, my son said sorry and the meal continued.

We always looked forward to parents evening at school. While we were waiting to speak to the teacher we had a chance to read through the child’s exercise books, to see what they are working on in class. On one occasion the colour drained from my husband’s face, my son had written in his exercise book that his dad had taken him to see naked women at the theatre! We were dumbstruck. My husband had taken him to the theatre, but it was to see the stage version of Postman Pat, it was intended for very young children and there were no naked women! My husband was still in shock when we spoke to the teacher, she laughed and said that my son’s picture had given her a clue to what my son was talking about. The theatre had a beautifully painted safety curtain that was lowered between performances as a precaution against fire. Towards the top of the curtain the painting contained two cherubs, these according to my son were the naked women!

On another occasion when my son was a little older he wrote in his school book that we had skeletons buried in the garden, but he wasn’t allowed to dig them up because they would be smelly. He forgot to make clear that the skeletons were those of a pet rabbit and a pet hamster that had died a couple of years before!

My daughter loved to go to the nursery group close to our home, she was a confident and chatty three year old. When I went to collect her one day the group leader told me that she made all the adults laugh by insisting that daddy had a vacuum cleaner. Several people suggested that maybe mummy and daddy used it, but she was adamant that only daddy used the vacuum cleaner. He did use it, but only to clean out his car!

So yes, perhaps kids usually tell the truth, but they have their own unique angle on reality.