In preparation for your child's first lie

Precluding predictable problems
Post Reply
Gabby
Site Admin
Posts: 455
Joined: Sat Mar 26, 2005 11:24 am

In preparation for your child's first lie

Post by Gabby » Fri May 06, 2005 1:39 pm

Let's begin with you the reader. It's possible that you have not been acknowledged for your very first lie. In communication coaching jargon we use the word acknowledged rather than "caught;" caught carries a negative connotation. Your mother may have asked if you brushed your teeth and you said, "Yup." Unbeknownst to you that lie, that unacknowledged lie, is still affecting your outcomes to this very day. Not that that lie was terrible or bad, but that its karmic consequence has been compounded by thousands of other "successful" lies since then. You discovered that most adults are not conscious and that they truly don't deserve your full respect.* Why? Because none have been sharp enough to catch you in your daily lies, omissions, withholds, trash-talking, condescensions, pouts, and petty/gross deceits and abuses. It's almost certain that there is no one with whom you are completely open, honest, and spontaneous with, zero significant withholds (yes, the word "completely" is redundant).

If you make your child wrong for lying, and admonish and punish him/her for lying, your child will have no choice but to emulate your behavior, that is, he/she will most likely grow up to lie/deceive others at least as much as you and, lacking empathy.

  • For example: The vast majority of parents teach their child to deceive them evidenced by the fact that most dating couples con each other into deceiving both sets of parents about the fact that are thinking about/having sex.

Let's go back to your first lie to your mother. At the time she had so many unacknowledged withholds, lies, and perpetrations herself that she either didn't hear the lie or she heard it and because she was not committed to being complete (and having you be complete) she let it slide, for reasons. It's unethical to ask a child a question in which the possibility is they might lie. To do so is to set up the child to lie. Children are supposed to lie about tooth-brushing. That's just what's so; and, you, when you're awake, know this.

We need to go back to just before your first lie, to when you were virtually innocent. If you recall, you actually believed that your mother could tell when you were lying. And for a while, when you were very young, this may have been true. She was so relatively conscious, so awake, she could simply experience that something was out or wrong. Early in her marriage, and your life, she may have had relatively few unacknowledged perpetrations. She may have begun her marriage communicating openly and honestly with your dad. Most married couples promise each other to never go to sleep upset. That becomes one of their first lies, which later begets many undesirable consequences. Just because one is unaware that they are lying doesn't alter the fact that they lied to each other. The significant difference between conscious lies and unconscious lies are the consequence—because you say so, not because I say so. Consequences are how we wake ourselves up.

I mention all this to bring to your attention that had your mother been conscious, had her mind not been so cluttered with thoughts withheld, (judgments, criticisms, white lies, upsets with your father, all stuffed for reasons) she would have heard (gotten) your lie, as she had so many other times. "H'm, looks like somebody needs to stand closer to the tooth brush." A nice clean acknowledgment without a make-wrong.

What we're getting at here is that it's important to keep in mind that children are supposed to lie. That's what kids do. The experience of lying and what happens when they lie is all part of the learning process, getting to the place where they actually have a choice each time, to the point where it becomes second nature to tell the truth. They'll get it if you get out of the way. It's called discovery learning. Children lie and grass is green; making grass wrong for being green is not very masterful.

The point being—you must intend your child to lie when he or she is lying rather than resist it. Intend that they do it until they have no need to do it any more. Children lie because you have yet to learn how to be a safe space for the truth to be told. If you make your child wrong for lying then they have to do it all over again. You have to handle your child in such a way as to allow them the space to experience the experience of a lie; on their own, without you piling another experience (of shame/guilt or thought's of worthlessness) on top of their created experience. They must then discover their own self-created consequence. As a matter of fact, if you and I got into communication with each other we could remember that right after your toothbrush lie you didn't feel good. You were out-integrity. In truth the lie affected your sleep that night; it wasn't quite as restful. You half expected your mom to come into your bedroom, wake you up, and give you one more chance to tell the truth. Me, I learned to wet the toothbrush. https://www.comcom121.org/phpBB/posting ... &f=5&p=158#

If you get in the way of learning, with self-righteous admonishments and make-wrongs, then your child grows up either being a self-righteous truth-telling machine or someone who abhors lying but lies a lot. The problem with turning out either way is that one doesn't have a choice. Worse yet, a truth-telling addict will hold another in disdain or even contempt once they catch them in a lie. Seldom does a deceived person have the awareness to see that they were not a safe space for the truth to be told, and so they blame the other.

FYI: Over the past 44+ years, as a communication-skills coach, I have facilitated hundreds and hundreds of three-hour consultations. Only one person in all that time completed the entire three-hours without me hearing a single lie. The point being, most everyone lies. The problem is that most have done it so often, and have not gotten caught (acknowledged), that they can no longer hear their own lies, they are so unconscious they cannot hear many of the lies others tell, so clouded has the mind become.

Once you teach your child to recognize and acknowledge lies they will, for life, remind you when they hear you lying; they will support you in being awake. It becomes a fun consciousness-supporting game.

To empty your mind of life's accumulated unacknowledged lies, perpetrations and withholds, visit The Clearing House and select The Clearing Process, one of four free communication processes in support if restoring ones integrity. Do one clearing per day for five days in a row. Afterwards, you'll notice that you can see and hear mo betta. With aloha, Gabby

* Most everyone reserves their full respect for a deity; few humans trigger an experience of love that automatically, consistently opens our heart, so most of us have to manually co-create love with thousands of conversations. Clearings co-create moments of blissful love—even with strangers.

More About Lies and Lying—lying from choice

Last edited 1/11/24
[/size]

Post Reply