Teaching kids how to be honest

For a long while we've had FHE, dinner conversations, individual discussions, a few I-am-going-to-get-really-loud-if-you-don't-stop-lying talks...all in the name of Honesty. Each kid, (well, except Brooke cuz she is truly unique) has had their turn being the spot light of the topic. Now Becca is the star ;) When I caught her in a lie the first time she displayed the appropriate amount of embarrassment and guilt. I thought I had a pretty good handle on what to say and what the response would be. The second (3rd, 4th, and probably 5th) time I caught her, I put my knowledge to work and had "the talk" with her. Well, she obviously didn't care for that because soon it became habit to tell her fib immediately followed by "I mean in my dream" or "I was just thinking about that, but not really". I even got a "I was just telling you what I would say if I was going to lie". She's 4 for goodness sake, she's not supposed to be able to make up excuses like that yet, right?

Well, we have progressed and now she only tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me. We were at the store today and in her very cute, high, clear voice she starts telling the truth all over the place. "Mom, that old guy is ugly. He has HUGE lines on his face." "Hey, she has really messy hair like you mom!" "It's not Halloween yet right? Because she looks like a witch." "EEEWWWW Gross! He smells like smoke! Thats not choosing the right!" "Look at all that chocolate she has. Thats a lot of candy. She's totally going to be sick tonight" (ok, that one made me laugh)

**sigh** I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Thankfully most people were grinning knowingly. They must have been parents or maybe they were remembering how tactful they were as a kid. Either way, I don't think I got any dirty looks :).

This has got to be the hardest lesson for me to teach (I know, my kids are young, there will be harder lessons). The older girls are staring to understand that sometimes even honesty isn't very nice. Even for adults it hard to know when to keep your mouth shut. I remember hearing quite a bit "there's more than one way to say whatever you want to say". So now that all the kids who are able to speak only speak the truth, we will extend our discussions to how to say the truth nicely. We even played a game on the way home from school on how many different ways you can say the same thing. You should try it, it was really funny. Pick any phrase...we used "what did you do today" stressing different words to change the meaning. Then we used "Fine." I was pretty impressed by how many different ways you can say one word and change the meaning completely. Hopefully after we do this a bit it will be easier for them to understand why and how to change what you want to say so you don't hurt others feelings...we'll see :)