House of lies: Is fibbing to your kids ever OK?

Snowballing tales
The risk of telling the farm story, though, is that the child may then endlessly ask to go visit the dog on the farm and wonder why he can’t, says Talwar. “The problem with telling a lie is it’s not always as easy as you think.”

Lies have the potential to snowball and cause more problems, she notes. One of her colleagues, for instance, decided to replace a child’s dead hamster rather than explaining that it died. But the new model was thinner, leading to more lies about how the animal went on a diet while the child was away on a day trip, and on and on.

Every situation and every child are different, and there aren’t always simple solutions, says Jonathan Pochyly, a psychologist at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago who specializes in anxiety disorders and counsels youngsters who are grappling with issues such as moving, divorce, and death or illness in the family.

He recommends that parents ask themselves how much they think their particular child can handle. “Stop and think before sharing something questionable,” he says.

In many cases, Pochyly says, a simple response might suffice, and the parents won’t need to lie at all. If grandma has cancer, for instance, parents can say, “She’s sick and she’s being taken care of.” If the family is having financial troubles and the mortgage company keeps calling, parents can say, “Mommy and Daddy are taking care of that.”

As a mother and stepmother of four children, ages 6 to 22, Nancy Helton says she firmly believes in telling her kids the truth, though she acknowledges this isn’t always easy, particularly as they get older. Sometimes she’ll even delay answering one of her kids until she’s had time to think over what she’ll say so that her response is honest, informed and, for things of a sensitive nature, delicate.

“I believe a large part of building trust is to be there for them and to shoot straight with them whenever possible,” Helton, 46, of Leawood, Kan., says. “I know that I trust people who are honest and forthcoming so I have to assume if I operate this way, then my kids, too, will know it.”

Occasionally, though, she might stretch the truth, just a tad. “When my [8-year-old] son asks if his hair looks good when he has a bit of a bed head, I say he looks more handsome than anyone. Again, not a lie, because when I look at his ruffled hair and his expression as he asks the question, there is not a more handsome one in the world!”

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