Shoud I be honest with my children?

Aaha, that is a very tricky question. How much truth do I tell my children?
From early childhood your child might ask many embarassing questions in front of people or might ask questions the truth of which you might not want him or her to know. It is a natural reaction either to tell them the truth, a half truth or a lie.

We parents want to portray ourselves as the ideal, truthful and honest beings in front of our children, many a times hiding facts from them.  What could be more humiliating and distressing for a parent than to fall in their eyes? But, I have always followed the philosophy of  being an "open book".

ARE WE HONEST WITH OUR CHILDREN?

Very often we try to portray a nice picture of ourselves. A student of mine once came to me with a swollen lip and when I asked her, she said her mother had slapped but also told her to tell everyone that she had fallen down! She found it strange and asked me as to why her mother had forbidden her to tell the truth. I could not gather enough courage to tell her that her mother did not want anyone to know that she had hit her child.

This made me ponder why we tell our children to speak the truth but we ourselves lead double standards in life. It is not always easy to be honest with children because the moment we tell them the truth we become the villains and no parent can stand looking bad in their eyes.

Is it that difficult to be honest with them? Why don’t we make them understand that parents are, after all, human beings too and they are sure to make mistakes. Parents have a lot of experience of the age at whihc theri children are and that is why we try to be the perfect ones, telling the children that they have had a lot of experience and know things better. However, many a times, the children are correct and more honest.

It definitely is not easy to be honest with children. Once they know the truth you obviously are in a position when your child might remind you of that specific incident and that is something you will have to bear or say you are sorry about that. Because once they start to understand that parents are honest with them, life is much easier and bonding is strong. They learn to respect you. They confide in you and vice versa. If we have erred then we need to take responsibility for that and admit it as our mistake instead of pretending that, merely beacuse we are parents, we are always right.

Your child might ask for something which is beyond your budget, be honest and tell him that you cannot afford it. That answer obviously is not going to be liked by the child but sit and talk to him, expalin that there is a budget and you yourself have to let go of certain things. We want our children to understand these things but not make them feel that money is the most important thing in life or that unquestioning fuliffilent of their demands alone proves our love for them.

It is not that difficult nor too late to be honest with our children, they are ours and we show them the right direction to be taken in their life later on.