teaching our kids to lie

Nothing distinguishes a person more than honesty! There is no such thing as a "little white lie!" Would you tell your child, "Its ok to steal money from my purse as long as you never take more than $5.00? Teach your children honesty and integrity by being Completely honest yourself, and never forget that "little white lies" teach your children to be dishonest!

Hi Pomwango and welcome to my lot. No I am always honest to them I just plain tell them I am not in the mood for their company. I think it is better to tell them that way you don't ever have to lie to them again. I know how it is when someone just shows up that is why we put up a gate so they don't show up without calling first.

I don't make my children lie for me. I don't want them lying to me as well so why should i let them lie for me? I may say that, if you want to teach your children good values you should start to show it to them. Our children adopts the values that they see to us. We may always tell or teach them what is good or bad but if we don't live on what we teach then they might get confused on what is really good and bad. :)

I don't think little white lies like that are really going to have a horrible impact on our children... I think we have all done it as parents before. Technically yes it is a lie, but it's a white lie and we all do it.

I don't think if you do it once in awhile, it isn't going to crush them as kids. But telling them such as lies to avoid responsibility, or illegal activity then it will. For example a friend of mine (well ex now), told her kids it was alright the steal to get personal gain from it.

Just tell your children to say, 'My mother is not available to talk to you now' - then your children are not lying, they are actually telling the truth. You are not available to talk to whoever is at the door. My husband and I taught our children to say that to telemarketers or someone we just didn't want to talk to on the phone. It is a polite way and it is acceptable way. If you don't want to see someone at the door or you don't want to talk to someone on the phone, then you are not available. You are not prepared in your mind or soul to deal with that person at that time. So, you are not available for that person at that time. It is not lying, it is telling the truth. That way, you are able to still teach your children values. It is OK to not always be available to every person at their calling. You can say when you are available when you are ready to deal with others. It is an important lesson to teach children. You can teach children they can have boundaries and respect for themselves.

I try to do it in a different way. I tell my children home is private. I also tell them there is no need to answer the door bell or Phone if I am busy. That I do not need to open the door, let people in if I don't want to. I also tell them they are not allowed to open the door unless I am there (since it can be dangerous as well) or their elder sister (22) is home/asked/there. I don't let them say I am not home but I do tell them not to say I am taking a shower or am on the toilet if this is the truth since this is not of anyone's business. Sometimes I do tell them not to stay if some people come to visit them so they don't get in trouble if questions are asked they can not answer or do not like to answer or feel they should lie about. BTW I doubt parents do learn their children how to lie. It's proved that children start telling lies themselves. Nobody knows why. Might be it's a kind of way to survive, it's not Always because they are afraid of the what you/anyone else will do if the truth comes out. I Always tell my children it takes courage to say the truth and it makes me angry if I know they lie (I know it from all my children) and keep telling me they are not. If they say the truth it's fine with me but I also admit that most people don't like to hear the truth at all.

I do what my mom does she answer her door and says that she isn't home even when she is home. She just tells the person that she is the house sitter or baby sitter and that it's not her mom and the home owner will be back later the same when someone calls the house.

You shouldn't do that, even tough is kind of funny to tell your kids to tell someone you're not home when you are . It would be better if you wouldn't answer the door at all. We are models for our kids, but they have the habbit to learn from us all our bad things . Try to hide all your bad habbits, all your bad moods, at least when they are little. When they will grow up(adolescents), they will lie sometimes, and then they would feel guilty about that, because they never saw you lying. That is my advice.