Ho hum - I meant modification!

R0bert, the thread has died down a bit since I last looked, but I thought I had better clarify a little.

I absolutely agree with you, and with Helen, that parents have a difficult time balancing the social issues around both lying and telling the truth. What concerned me was an apparent onset of over-intellectualising what can only be a relative, not an absolute.

We know we should avoid lying, but occasionally we have to. We know we should always tell the truth, but sometimes we must hold back. Trying to codify every when, where and how of this is not only a fruitless exercise in itself, but it also misses the point.

As human beings, we have to make judgement calls every minute of the day. If you as a parent judge that it is inappropriate to tell your child the whole truth (I'm upset because your mother is bending the rules on custody) or that it is prudent to lie outright (of course I don't mind if you visit your mother today), that is what you should do. If on the other hand you have the sort of relationship with your child where you can tell the unvarnished truth on every occasion, go to it.

Trying to implement absolute measures of truth and fiction can be destructive or instructive, but it will vary from one human being to the next. You can tell some people everything and they will take it at face value; at the other end of the scale are people who are so vulnerable that they read disaster into every little utterance. I cannot for the life of me see a single set of rules that works for both categories. Ones energies are better spent on assessing the individual, than applying rigid rules of "right" and "wrong".

To me, understanding the question is infinitely more important than having an answer.

I agree with you Pericles. The question is more important. By the way people. Here is the classical refutation to Kant. Kant argues we should ALLWAYS tell the truth. Imagine this. We live in a police state where the secret police gab some people to terrify the rest. Our friend comes to us one night saying "hide me the secret police are after me." According to Kant we should hide him. But if the police come 5 minutes later asking "do you know where your friend is?" according to Kant we should say "sure. I'm hiding him in the cellar." Does anyone agree with Kant on this? Wouldn't we all lie to this secret police to save our friend? Well sometimes, as Pericles pointed out, lies are necessary. Plato called them the noble lies. I agree with Plato on this one.

I agree with what you are saying Helen. I enjoy watching the Supernanny and wish I had of implemented some of her tactics into my routine when my children were younger. To teach my daughter why lying was bad I showed her what it would be like if she were not able to trust me. I acted out a scenario (I made up a story - told lies, I can't remember the details of this) where suddenly, if what I was telling her was the truth, this new information would have turned the world she knew upside down. Now I suppose you are thinking that is going a bit far, to traumatise my own child for her to learn to tell the truth. As far as I know she never lied to me again.

My children are not perfect angels by any means but what is most important to me is that we have an open and honest relationship. My daughter is now 18 and my son 16 and I believe the success of my method to nurture 'trust' through 'telling the truth' can be measured now in how good my relationship is with them and the lack of trauma I have gone through in their teenage years. I have seen many other parents and young people go through a lot of trauma because they have not experienced or understood the basic value of telling the truth and maintaining trust.

Trust is everything in a relationship. I knew I never wanted to loose the trust of my children and made sure I didn't do anything to jeopardise this. Sure I am only human and at times I know I did or said things over the years to diminish this trust at times and then I would work at gaining it back, thus I showed I was personally responsible and accountable for my actions and for what I communicated, and in so doing, role modeled how I wanted my children to respond when they also may have done things which lessen my trust in them.