Yesterday, my son told us that “All parents lie to their kids”. Me and my wife saw each other and blinked. Neither of us was prepared for this conversation. Here is how it went.
- Him: I know all the parents lie to their kids.
- Me: No we do not.
- Him: Yes you do. The other day when Riya asked for gummies, you said, we ran out of them. But we had gummies.
- Me: Yes. But that is not a lie.
- Him: So what is it?
- Me: She is a baby and she doesn’t understand things yet. So we have to tell her that we ran out of them after she eats a few.
- Him: That is a lie. Right
- Me: 🙄
Most parents I know tell some lies to protect their kids. Either to get them to do what is good for them or to stop them from doing bad things. I call them parenting lies. But what do you tell your kids when they find out about it? How can we justify our lies?
It was funny to read this article 25 Little White Lies We’ve Told Our Kids. Later I realized we tell not just a few lies but a ton of them.
Do you tell parenting lies? If not, how do you handle things when they get out of hand?