I heard a caller on the radio this morning who kind of got me thinking...she was asking opinions on how to talk to her son about the Colorado movie theater shooting. Apparently she had been sheltering him from watching the news, etc because she didn't want him to hear about it, and then yesterday he went for a play date with friends, and heard about it at their house.
She said he came home asking her about it, and she didn't know how to talk to him about it.
How about talk to him honestly? Why do parents have such a hard time being truthful with their kids? It amazes me that so many parents try to deceive their children, but then are baffled when their kids lie to them. Kids do what they see their parents doing....that's pretty simple.
My son also asked me about the shooting...and no, it's not easy to have a conversation with your child that you know for a fact is going to chip away at a piece of their innocence. But, I would much rather be the one to have those convo's than let them hear things from other people, like this person experienced this weekend. The hard talks are always uncomfortable, and you do have to be cautious to only divulge as much information as their maturity level allows for, but I think there is a fine line between protecting them and just flat out being dishonest. And when they get older, they will look back and understand whether you were lying or just trying to protect them by only giving the amount of information that they could handle.
Our kids know if they ask us a question, they are going to get an honest answer. Sometimes, this makes for a great deal of comedy...like when my son asks questions about circumcision at the dinner table, while his sisters have friends sleeping over...or when he sees a box of tampons in my shopping cart and decides to ask (very loudly) what they are for in the middle of walmart.
In those embarrassing situations (although I gotta say, they embarrass the girls a whole lot more than they bother me. I find them funny most of the time...), I will sometimes tell him that this isn't an appropriate time and place for the conversation at hand, and to remind me later when it's just us so we can talk about it. But, I don't lie to him.
It just begs the question, how can we as parents expect our kids to do as we tell them and always approach us with honesty if we don't lead by example?
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