Wise people always say that everything happens for a reason. After all, it is the cause-and-effect relationship that rules the world. The same holds true in the case of children as well. If you smile at a kid, you are most likely to get a smile back. But if you snap at your little one, do you think you’ll be getting back the giggles? No, you might get back screams and cries and sobs and tears. Likewise, if your child is choosing to lie, there must be a story behind it, and most often, it is related to a punitive disciplinary style.
Why do children prefer to lie over being honest?
Many times, it so happens in our daily lives that parents choose to resort to a punitive style of discipline in an attempt to teach the kids a lesson for their wrongdoings or mischiefs. But do you really think suffering always guarantees realization? It instead instigates the children to hide themselves up under a blanket of lies.
At Delhi Public School, Sushant Lok, positioned among the Top Schools in Gurgaon, we believe that making children realize their errors and work on improving them is far more important than making them suffer for what they have done. Consider it this way – Suppose you break a glass by mistake, and your family members shout at you for being extremely irresponsible for handling anything; how would you feel? Or else, if you burn some dish while cooking and your spouse asks you to eat the burnt dish to repent for the mistake, what would be your reaction? You would find that abusive and won’t feel good about it, right? Won’t you find it to be a better idea to cover up your mistake somehow? It is just the same for your kids!
If you instill in your kids the fear of being caught and punished for their mistakes, they won’t ever be able to understand the importance of honesty in life. Instead, they will find lying as an easy hideaway. They will find being honest a bad option and prefer wrapping up their misdeeds with sugarcoated lies. This is nothing but a very basic instinct of self-protection every human is born with.
When honesty does not pay, children choose the opposite
Generally, most children have a tendency to fabricate situations and incidences and present them as vividly as they can. This is either an outcome of their inherent capacity to imagine or is often a repercussion of a punitive environment as well. When kids grow under a punitive disciplinary style, they find honesty less acceptable.
At DPS Sushant Lok, we have seen that when children admit their faults but still get punished for it, instead of being patted for their courage to speak the truth, they despise the idea of honesty altogether. This is the reason why children reared up in a punitive environment seldom adopt the traits like compassion, honesty, truthfulness, and empathy. They learn to solve everything through punishment. And this is surely not a constructive way of looking at things.
What should be done to make kids choose honesty over lying?
If you want your child to grow into a sensitive and truthful person, you will first of all have to get rid of your punitive disciplinary techniques and instead get hold of positive parenting methods that focus on character building and not just punishing. Choose to show empathy and kindness instead of irritation and anger when your child comes to you to accept his/her faults.
At DPS Sushant Lok, recognized among the Top Schools in Gurgaon, we firmly believe that compassion is the best gesture one can show when it comes to kids. After all, warmth and love is the best language that children can understand. When your kids sink in the feeling that no matter what the mistake is, they can always come to you and discuss with you about the same, there won’t remain any need for resorting to lies, and they will then naturally switch to honesty.
So let the path of redemption and rectification go through empathy and compassion in place of punishments and scolding, and you will soon see how not only honesty takes over the lies, but also your bonding with your child improves and strengthens.