What to you when kids lie? There is no secret that sometimes they can lie for all sorts of reasons and without it. The cause can be different: avoiding punishment, bonding with friends, gaining a sense of control. How does this habit develop?
Po Bronson has answer on the question: Kids are just copying their parents. He wrote: “I always believed that no one has to teach a child to tell a lie. He or she is born with the ability to manipulate the outcome or to change a situation simply by telling a lie. I have more than 25 years of working with children, youth, and young adults about living a life that is honest and truthful. I discovered from my informal observations and from listening to the young people that their parents are their primary teachers when it comes to lying. Parents often used terms like “white lie” or “hald truth to simplify there schemes. A lie is a lie and parents and children need to accept that fact. Children and adults tend to lie to cover up something, to avoid something, to protect someone or something, and to fabricate the experiences. We all remember the student in school who had the biggest, tallest, fastest, strongest, and most expensive toy or car money could by. Parents must teach their children that a lie is a deception and it is not acceptable. We must teach them to tell the truth and live with the consequences or rewards. I teach my daughters to women of integrity and honesty. I also told them the worst thing they could do is lie and steal from me or anyone else. As a society we must be honest with ourselves and past those values on to those around us. Believe that you can make the difference. If everyone is lying, then you be the one where truth resides. Be known for your positive words. Establish a legacy that no one can find fault with. Lying is wrong and we must be the change we expect others to see in our homes, schools, communities, and government. I want my daughters to see me as a man of truth, honesty, and integrity. What they see will have a long term effect on their development and trust for men in the future. Learn to attack the problem not the person.”
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Once there were three little pigs who lived together in mutual respect and in harmony with their environment. Using materials that were indigenous to the area, they each built a beautiful house. One pig built a house of straw, one a house of sticks, and one a house of dung, clay, and creeper vines shaped into bricks and baked in a small kiln. When they were finished, the pigs were satisfied with their work and settled back to live in peace and self-determination.
But their idyll was soon shattered. One day, along came a big, bad wolf with expansionist ideas. He saw the pigs and grew very hungry, in both the physical and ideological sense. When the pigs saw the wolf, they ran into the house of straw. The wolf ran up to the house and banged on the door, shouting, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”
The pigs shouted back, “Your gunboat tactics hold no fear for pigs defending their homes and culture.”
But the wolf wasn’t to be denied what he thought was his manifest destiny. So he huffed and he puffed and he blew down the house of straw. The frightened pigs ran to the house of sticks, with the wolf in hot pursuit. Where the house of straw had stood, other wolves bought up the land and
started a banana plantation. At the house of sticks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted,
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”
The pigs shouted, “Go to hell, you carnivorous, imperialistic oppressor!”
At this, the wolf chuckled condescendingly. He thought to himself:
“They are so childlike in their ways. It will be a shame to see them go, but progress cannot be stopped.”
So the wolf huffed and puffed and blew down the house of sticks. The pigs ran to the house of bricks, with the wolf close at their heels. Where the house of sticks had stood, other wolves built a time-share condo resort complex for vacationing wolves, with each unit a fiberglass reconstruction of the house of sticks, as well as native curio shops, snorkeling, and dolphin shows.
At the house of bricks, the wolf again banged on the door and shouted, “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!”
This time in resp?nse, the pigs sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters of protest to the United Nations.
By now the wolf was getting angry at the pigs’ refusal to see the situation from the carnivore’s point of view. So he huffed and he puffed, and huffed and puffed, the grabbed his chest and fell over dead of a massive heart attack brought on from eating too many fatty foods.
The three little pigs rejoiced that justice had triumphed and did a little dance around the corpse of the wolf. Their next step was to liberate their homeland. They gathered together a band of other pigs who had been forced off their lands. Their new brigade of porcinistas attacked the resort complex with machine guns and rocket launchers and slaughtered the cruel wolf oppressors, sending a clear signal to the rest of the hemisphere not to meddle in their internal affairs. Then the pigs set up a model socialist democracy with free education, universal health care, and affordable housing for everyone.
Please Note: The wolf in this story was a metaphorical construct. No actual wolves were harmed in the writing of the story.
excerpt from J.F.Garner’s book “Politically Correct Bedtime Stories.”
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