August 20, 2009 -AVOID SELF INCRIMINATION

Well, here is a situation I have observed over the years and caught myself doing at times including just a few weeks ago with a grand child. Then I watched as Todd did the exact same thing. That was when I decided to write about it. It kind of ties in with teaching children honesty. First, children are honest by nature. They learn to be dishonest and they learn it by realizing they can gain something from being dishonest. Our job is too not put them into situations where they will obviously gain something from being dishonest. In other words, don't temp them. The situation is when a child does something wrong and we ask "What did you do?" We ask the child to testify against himself. When he is young he will be honest but how long will he be honest as he realizes that he gets in trouble when he is? We should not ask a child to tattle on himself because, if we do, he will eventually start lying to protect himself and lying becomes a bad habit very quickly. If the child did something wrong, then we should just mete out the discipline while explaining why. In most cases they already know it was wrong but, we should never ask a child to tattle on themselves first. If you really don't know what happened, you should never assume the child did something wrong. Never take sides against your own child. If you did not see what happened, all you can do is alleviate the problem without laying blame at all. In other words, comfort the crying child or take away the problem toy from both parties, etc. without blaming either child. If you persist in asking what happened, you can expect that eventually the child or children will learn to blame the other or lie to protect themselves and if you try to lay blame without actually knowing the situation, 90% of the time you will be wrong or partly wrong, and kids learn very quickly to manipulate situations like that. So, as much as possible, don't take sides, don't lay blame, and don't ask a child to incriminate himself (and if you do, don't punish the child for being honest) August 20, 2009