Honesty in Kids

As a therapist, I meet many children in my clinic. The children tell me things that they do not want their parents to know. Their narrative includes experiences like, “I did not go to my school today, I threw my medicine down the flush, I fell down from my cycle and hurt my head, I drink or smoke, I am sexually abused, I tried to commit suicide since I felt worthless”. All these children had one common request to me, “Please don’t tell this to my parents”……

When I ask the reason for not telling parents, I get variety of answers 1) my mother\father will overreact, my parent may get sick, I will be not be allowed to go to school in cycle, what my parents will think of me?, I have brought disgrace to my family” etc. Though the reasons vary, the underlying theme is that children feel very vulnerable at such moments . They are scared, feel guilty, ashamed and angry and experience many mixed feelings towards themselves which they are unable to share with parents. They are managing these mixed emotions all alone. It’s like standing on a hot pot and unable to tell what they are going through.

I certainly believe orienting children to the values of honesty and integrity. It is important for their personal growth and I also see it as a social responsibility. Children grow in a family system and this system has an influence on value orientation of the child. If a child is lying or stealing money from home, it is not enough to only see the child as the wrong doer. Many times children hide or lie due to the fear of losing love from parent or fear of being punished. Neither does our school system permit honest expressions. Once a 14 year old boy told me that, when he was studying 4th standard he had told his school principal that, he did not like the school for which the principal answered “then go find another school”. The school principal did not make the effort or take time to understand why the child did not like the school. It was honest child expression but was not heard with respect. So if a child is not behaving honestly there are various factors involved in it. Patience and understanding is required towards new comer of the human race.

“when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also”. Kalil Gibran.

When a child exhibits a dishonest behavior the family and school need to ask themselves in their silence,” what if we do will the child be able to shape himself and behave honestly?”. In the tender hearts of children honesty can become a heavy weight if the family, school and society thrust it without providing support. All of us need to understand that honesty in children is a developmental task and not a rigid rule to be followed or preached.

What is honesty? Is it being true or not taking others property or things? A boy who was caught stealing a toy in school said, “I did not steal, I did not have this toy, my friend had it and I took it.” For the child it was not a dishonest act. Sometimes when your child may ask you “are you angry”? Even though you may be angry you may say no. Ask yourself are you being honest about your feelings? For an adult this answer of saying “no” is not being dishonest. Similarly, what is honesty for you may not be honesty for the child. So from time to time, context to context, children, parents and teachers have to understand honesty as a developmental process and not a one thumb rule to be followed.

Parents too feel vulnerable when faced with an inappropriate behavior of the child. Feelings like fear, anger, shame and guilt grip them too. At such times, both children and parents are feeling vulnerable. Parents need not blame themselves as not good enough and having failed in their upbringing. Neither is it advisable to blame the children and take them to task. At such times some parents connect all past mistakes the child did to the current event and add fuel to the fire. These are testing moments for parents. How does one handle such situations? All of us can give ourselves permission to feel vulnerable and also remember that we need not have all the solutions. None of us have all the solutions but what we have in hand is the ability to create a climate for solutions to evolve.

In today’s world of technology and options children face variety of situations which is very new for the child as well as for the parents. Some actions of the child may break the rules or even sometimes law. Many times children get into further trouble when they try to hide their mistakes. Parents may have to learn to step in the children reality to see what makes them do what they and see how both can learn to co-create solutions along with ethical thinking.

Children in the process of forming their identity need to feel separate from the parental figures and will sometimes deviate from the agreed rules. At such times, children may take money from home without parents knowledge , lie or want to keep some information private. In this process also they may break some rules. Trust they are learning from life. Don’t brand them as a bad person. Make the rules for honesty and draw it on sand so children can explore, play and understand the importance of honesty. If we carve these rules of honesty on a hard rock, then children’s heart too will be hardened and where in the chaotic world today may have very little options to live by. This can create havoc in individual minds. Children belong to the kingdom of God. They are authentic by nature and when we learn authenticity from them we will be able to build the value of honesty along with them in them.