You go to a party and your friend bakes a tort for the birthday child. The tort was reallly good but not suitable for children’s palate. It had a chocolate glaze and your child says Why didnt you just buy a cake. Luckily you are good friends with said person. And she replies and says next time I will buy one.
But what do you do? I keep telling Avasha not to say things out loud. Stuff which spares people’s feelings is called a white lie. We(Nk, Avasha and I) had a big talk about it the next day. She claims a lie is a lie. If something isnt good, we should say it. I was telling NK if she said something like in India at some one’s house, people would say bigade NRI ke bache(spoilt rotten foreign kids) . I told her to say No thank I dont care for it instead of saying its disgusting or eww or something else. What do you teach your kids?
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ETA:I was chatting with a friend and I remember this
2 evenings after this party, the mom threw a party at an indoor inflatable place. As we walking into the playground, Avasha turns to me and says”I hope R bought a cake this time” I just laughed and said Avasha..do not repeat this inside!
I always believe that any truth can be said in a way that does not hurt anyone’s feelings.
The only truth in this incident was “Avasha does not like tort”. The “why did you not buy a cake” does not fall under truth / facts category. So maybe asking Avasha just to concentrate on the not liking tort part would justify to her that she is not lying about anything.
What you did was the right thing….asking her to politely refuse.
It is refreshing to see kids being kids! She will definitely learn the art of while lies S. Until then it is nice if she stays a kid…no?
I will surely teach my kids(as and when I have them) to say the same thing. I have noticed that quite a few adults also believe in being out-rightly honest and end up hurting other people’s feelings. Of course there is a difference in a child being naive and an adult being rude !
I recently chaperoned a friend’s kid to a party and something similar happened. Since I was in-charge of her for the evening and night, I had to step in and console the parties involved. In the end I gently told her that if she was asked for her opinion and she voiced her opinion politely (that she didn’t like something), then that’s fine. But if she wasn’t asked for her opinion, then she should be careful to not voice it. I asked her if she would like it if someone came up to her and said ‘Eww’ to her new shoes just because they felt like it. That pretty much seemed to drive home the point.
I think it will be few more years, before Ashwina will start appreciating the effort / intention gone into the end product … agreed the result may not always be exceptional !
What I encourage Cantaloupe would be to speak her mind with me, but unless probed specifically I wouldn’t want her show his dislike to others’ efforts.
Still to get there, but when I do, I want to teach him, that its OK to be honest, only as long as it does not hurt people. As they say its perfectly fine to lie, if that prevents hurting someone, and as was applicable in this case………. every truth does not have to be TOLD, it would not be dishonest if she had not said it, but by just not saying it, she would have spared someone’s feeling, and that is ‘real’ honesty. I wrote a post on this recently, and I was the same as Avasha as a child, and it has taken me 30 whole years to reach where I am today. But being here now, I hope I can help the BB get there sooner. And yes, you have to tell her honesty is not just words, but the emotions that govern the words, if the words are serving a bad purpose, then its not honesty!
Kid’s aren’t able to distinguish between ‘lies’ and ‘white lies’ even after you explain it to them. I found this out quite surprisingly while in court. oh man, children make interesting clients.
My mother always said “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. I lived by this as a child. It made things much easier for my parents.
But nowadays I just bitch and moan all day. haha
I’m a firm believer in the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”
Gosh! She sounds like me!!
I still have a problem with shooting my mouth off. I still have a long way to go before learning to be polite.
S, while I agree that kids need to learn to reword these things, it’s easy to forget that they are but just kids. I’m saying this because I have myself given a couple of such moments to my mom. She tried her best to get me to understand the exact same thing, but guess what, it only served to make me even more rebellious.
I think you should just lead by example here, which I’m sure she’ll pick up. Also, just try and make it a by-the-way lesson rather than a serious sermon, when she’s not on the defensive.
Personally, I think the girl rocks
There’s plenty in life you’ll be mandated to learn after these wonder years.
What you are saying is what I would do too. It is very important to learn when to speak. Even if its the truth, the timing and context has to be appropriate. Imagine a kid calling his/her mom – “hey, baap ki biwi”. It’s the truth, but you just don’t say that, simple.
And like Tammy said above, it is just as important to know when to stay shut, something I am still learning.
In principle this is what I believe in, but I don’t know how much I’ll succeed in teaching my kid that!!!
Ashu went “candyland again?” loudly when a friend gave her a present. I told her later to just say thank you and save the comments for later. Its a long process to teach them the difference between lies and white lies. I think some kids are naturally tuned to peoples feelings and some kids take time. I was amazed when I saw a 5 year old being so diplomatic while Ashu does nt understand the concept at all. She just speaks her mind. I asked her how she ll feel if she showed me her drawing and I went “yuck”!!! She sort of got the point. I think.
I would not label them as lies… cause then the whole black and white and grey come into picture. I like what Tammy says above.
It takes time to teach them…now adays I just tell my teen to bite her tongue! lol
Goofy Mumma said it so eloquently!!! Perhaps I’ll take her advice into consideration before I shove my big fat foot in my mouth next time! hahaha Although, I did copy and paste her response and sent it to my teen….lol
No wonder they say “You get to be a kid just once”!
..Since I dont have kids it would be hard to advise . But maybe you can go along of the lines of what Boo said or what you yourself said to Avasha, that to be polite and refuse. But kids must find it so hard to understand right especially since moms constantly breathe down us:) never to tell a lie. Also maybe you could tell her that R liked it but Avasha may/may not like it and give her an example of how R doesnt like something that Avasha likes! My mom always made it a point for us to appreciate a person’s food wherever we went for Dinner because usually alot of hard work is put into it. You could also use an example that if her friend’s came over for her b’day party and didnt like what her Mamma had made for them then Avasha’s Mamma will cry:) ..Take Care S..Dont sweat over the small stuff..And as for R , I hope she took it as kiddie innocence:D
i think she is still young and what you told her was right! i guess she wont realize the importance of little white lies and diplomacy till someone talks to HER like that. and not intentionally either! just the way her intention was not to hurt the other party.
all in good time!
cheers!
sometimes its better not to say anything at all…