One of the hardest things about parenting is explaining
children the grey areas of acceptable behavior in the eyes of a complex society.
Since they are little, we teach them to always tell the
truth. However, there are limits to that truth that needs to be told and in
some instances needs to be silenced or omitted. How then are they supposed to know when it is ok to
really tell the truth?
Not once, but twice recently I’ve had to lay out the rules
of society when it came to omit the truth to a beloved friend to avoid hard
feelings. Not an easy task!
A couple of week prior to Valentine’s Day, B had come home
talking about a friend at school that had difficulty with Math. She asked me if it was still ok to hang out
with her in spite of her trouble at school. We had in the recent past talked about not hanging out with friends
that were troublemakers at school all the time. Only that I later realized I
had not defined what “ trouble” really meant (again another grey area!) . I then explained that I did not
mean " that" kind of trouble, but rather someone that was disrespectful with the
teachers or mean to other kids. And further, if she had a friend that was
behind in Math, she actually could show how to be a good friend by helping her
friend. It was because of this conversation that she decided to write the note
below.
It was arduous but I finally convinced her not to send the
Valentine card as it would likely hurt her friend’s feelings. " Hope you do better at Math" was a well wish no one needed to be reminded at Valentine's!
More recently, she sat next to a Kindergartener named Maggie at the school bus that had lost a
lot of blood through her nose. The situation was serious enough to awarrant the removal of the little girl from the bus. This was rather impactful to B as she was sitting next to the girl and was the one who alerted the bus driver. B had been shocked with the amount
of blood she had seen. This story was recounted and digested throughout the entire weekend.
Finally, she decided to write a get well card to Maggie. She wrote her
beautiful card with thoughtful words to comfort Maggie, but chose the margin to color entirely indicating the high
amount of blood she had lost!!! Oh no! When I told her it was not a good idea, she
argued that at the top of margin she had put a positive note. Regardless of
that, I explained that her friend would certainly not want to be reminded that she
had lost so much blood!!!
These two are only recent examples. Have a kid always tell you the truth regardless of the
consequences is a hard task in itself. Now, teaching a kid when it is ok not to
tell the truth is nearly impossible. I hope that at least she processes the bit
taught that it is oknot to tell the truth if you are going to hurt someone’s
feeling unnecessarily. Still a grey area even when hard feelings are involved,
but we will leave it to the next lesson hopefully at a much later time!
