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Good News
April 1961
Vol. X, Number 4
Does Your Child LIE?
You may be neglecting to train
your child to tell the TRUTH. He
could be learning the SKILL OF LYING!
by Jack R. Elliott
YOU as a parent should be ACTIVELY
TEACHING your child that
ALL LYING IS UNPROFITABLE. But first YOU must become convinced
of this yourself.
ALL lying is wrong and MUST be eradicated! If
YOU are not strictly adhering to
the truth, you are probably
teaching your child to tell lies.
From your EXAMPLE your child
learns and from your NEGLECT he
will grow up untrained in
truthfulness.
The Scriptures show clearly, and
especially Proverbs 19:5,
that A FALSE WITNESS SHALL NOT BE UNPUNISHED. Who ever speaks
lies will not escape, but will PERISH in the lake of fire!
Society of Liars
We live in a land so full of lying and
liars that an
individual who refrains from
lying in all forms is often
considered ODD. Movies and
novels portray these individuals as
causing endless trouble because
they refuse to tell even "the
little white lie."
They are often made the brunt of jokes. The
author of such stories usually
ends them in such a way that the
reader is convinced that lying
is not only profitable but TO
REFRAIN FROM IT IS FOOLISH!
But, all lying is WRONG. It is merely another WAY which seems
right to man, but which ends in death (Pr. 14:12).
What is a Lie?
In order to teach your child NOT TO LIE,
you must first
determine when he is lying and when he IS NOT. For maximum
success, you must discover when he first BEGINS to lie. You must
also learn to discern WHAT A LIE
IS and be able to distinguish it
from imagination.
While LYING IS EVIL and needs to be
stamped out, IMAGINATION
IS NEEDFUL and is one of the
chief characteristics of a bright,
potentially capable young person.
LYING IS AN ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE or to BEAR
FALSE WITNESS with
selfish or evil intent.
As a child develops in his ability to use
a language and
matures to the point to where
he's able to communicate detailed
information, he of necessity has
also developed the ability to
imagine. This skill
begins to be apparent at about three to five
years of age. Parents
often have a hard time determining the
difference between this active,
imaginative use of the child's
new talent in speaking, and the
deceptions which are sure to
follow.
We have all witnessed cases such as the
following: Little
Billy dashed in the house to
where his mother was busily washing
dishes and exclaimed excitedly,
"Mother, Mother, I saw a bear in
the tree outside!"
"Aw Billy!" she said.
"Oh yes, yes! He had great big eyes, and big white teeth,
and
he growled!"
"Now, Billy," said mother,
"there are no bears in this country
and certainly not up in the trees!"
"Well, maybe it was a squirrel
then," said the child, still
inclined toward excitement.
"No, I wouldn't think so," said
the mother.
Then comes the child's response with firm
conviction, "Well,
Mother, I just KNOW I saw a
branch shake in that tree."
As hard as it may be for some to
understand, THIS IS NOT THE
TIME TO SPANK HIM FOR
LYING. The child, in an attempt to
break
the humdrum and the boredom of
being alone with nothing to do,
had allowed a shaking branch to
trigger his IMAGINATION into an
exciting experience which he attempted to share with his mother.
THIS IS THE TIME TO TRAIN him
how to express his imaginations
(without loss of the excitement
and the suspense of telling) in
such a way that NO ONE IS
DECEIVED into thinking there really was
a bear.
Nevertheless, Junior IS ON THE THRESH-HOLD
OF LYING and if he
is a bright youngster, he will
soon be trying out his skill -- BE
ON YOUR GUARD.
Parental Vigilance Necessary
If a parent is vigilant and wakeful, it is
POSSIBLE to even
discover the very first lie their child tells. Certainly, before
he establishes the HABIT, a
vigilant parent will know that his
child has begun to lie.
One crucial day you, or someone else, will
ask the important
question, and your child, in
order to avoid trouble or to get
what he wants, will answer FALSELY.
This is the ZERO HOUR in training! He MUST learn that LYING
DOES NOT PAY. It will take more than the few words
possible in
this article to show you what to do. You will have to employ THE
ROD OF CORRECTION in love, with
patience and consistency, not
only in this situation, but those which will surely
follow. You
will need GOOD JUDGMENT AND THE
SOUND WISDOM THAT ONLY COMES FROM
GOD.
Before you can be FULLY SUCCESSFUL in
training your child, you
yourself must also be convinced that LYING DOES NOT PAY. If
there's still a lingering doubt
in your mind, you WON'T CONVINCE
YOUR CHILD! You had
better leave off carnal reasoning and
BELIEVE GOD when He says,
"ALL LIARS WILL GO INTO THE LAKE OF
FIRE" (Rev. 21:8).
To fail to teach and learn this important
lesson is a tragedy
indeed. Nevertheless,
most fathers and mothers of this nation
are failing just that.
Many parents believe since their child
HASN'T LIED BEFORE,
that he DOESN'T LIE.
They refuse to CHECK UP on the child's
statement to FIND OUT. They
have some foolish notion that
children who lie are INHERENTLY
BAD, instead of realizing that
ALL CHILDREN LIE until
taught. When they hide their eyes from
the problem the situation worsens and their child goes
unaided.
Blind Leaders of the Blind
Other parents, when they come to realize
that their child
really is lying, attempt to excuse it by saying, "Oh,
he's only
going through a stage and it will pass with time."
NO!
He's going through a period when he NEEDS TO LEARN not to
lie, and HIS PARENT IS FAILING
HIM at the moment that parent is
needed most. Such a
child will probably NEVER emerge from the
"lying stage," but
will continue to tell lies, at least "little
white lies," the rest of its life.
Yes, your child instead of LEARNING NOT TO
LIE because lying
is UNPROFITABLE, will be daily
GAINING IN THE EXPERIENCE OF LYING
while you sit idly by excusing
yourself saying, "He or she is
going through a cycle."
All lies, whether they're little and
white or big and black, have to be ACCOUNTED FOR.
Your child will FAIL TO DEVELOP many
character traits if it is
a liar. One of
these traits is TRUE TACTFULNESS. The
person who
lies believes that to be tactful
you just simply tell a (little)
lie to avoid embarrassment.
The person who does not resort to
this CHEAP and EVIL way out of a
situation, learns to rely on the
important principles of
DISCRETION, SOBERNESS, POLITENESS and
PATIENCE. These are unfeigned and irreplaceable in Christian
character.
If you are awake to your child's needs on
lying, you will also
be awake to his needs in other directions. Tendencies
toward
DISOBEDIENCE, SELFISHNESS and
CRUELTY, show up early in the lives
of children. A
parent who keeps a child close enough to know
what that child is doing, WILL
BE ON HAND to help in the time of
need. The parent who
turns the child out to go where he pleases,
or for the "neighbors to
raise" while GOING ABOUT OTHER THINGS,
is indeed a SLOTHFUL and a NEGLECTFUL parent. He or she is
sinning against their child, and against the CREATOR.
If you have been failing to rear your
child properly, DO NOT
FAIL ANY LONGER but begin
immediately to repent and to do all you
can to correct the situation. Read Mr. G. T. Armstrong's
articles on child rearing in The
PLAIN TRUTH, study your Bible
for God's direct instruction,
and pray fervently for the wisdom
you need. God will
not fail you (read James 1:5). YOU
QUIT
FAILING HIM AND YOUR CHILDREN.
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