To Tell the Truth

Another day, another parenting challenge.

My son has an amazing imagination. Every day, he regales us with stories about the dinosaur he played with in the park, the train he rode into the sky, and of course, snowmobiling with Barack Obama. On Sunday. This is the sort of pretending I'm used to, and it's something we encourage. Unfortunately, "pretending" has an ugly cousin called "lying", and this what's starting to creep in.

This morning, my son dropped his bottle of "yogurt to drink" on the floor. Of course, it spilled everywhere. The blast radius included the carpet, the table and the couch. When I asked him what happened, he looked at me with those big blue eyes and said "My Daddy spilled it."

"Daddy is upstairs sleeping. What really happened?"

He looked around, and saw our dog, frantically trying to lick up all the yogurt before I could wipe it away. "Toby knocked-ed me." Again, totally untrue, as Toby was sleeping peacefully under my chair.

"It's okay if you spilled it. Accidents happen. But it's not nice to tell lies about your friends."

How do people teach their kids about the nuance between lying and pretending? Seriously? I am trying to emphasize "nice" pretending instead of "not nice" pretending, but I don't think he really understands the difference. He's learning now that bad behavior has consequences, but he's also learning that it's possible to try and deflect those consequences through "pretending" that someone else was the culprit.

I know he'll get it...eventually. As they say, don't cry over spilled yogurt. The knowledge that our reaction to these situations is ultimately going to shape how he deals with and reacts to challenges as an adult is what scares me. Our coffeemaker came with a 30 page instruction guide, but I can't say the same about our kids. We won't really know if we're doing it right until it's too late to do anything else.

Pardon me while I hyperventilate into a paper bag, and pass out under the weight of my own expectations.