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From: rwh@aesat.UUCP (Russ Herman)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Truth
Message-ID: <356@aesat.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 22:39:20 EST
Article-I.D.: aesat.356
Posted: Sat Mar  9 22:39:20 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 00:10:11 EST
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Organization: AES Data Inc., Mississauga, Ont., CANADA L5N 3C9
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> We don't want to teach our kids to be fanatics about telling the truth.
> After all, sometimes lying is very convenient.  The trick is teaching
> the child to tell the truth to us, the parents, not that the child
> should necessarily tell the truth to everybody else all the time.
> 
> 		Frank Silbermann
> 		University of North Carolina
> 		unc!fsks

You, sir, are in for some unpleasant surprises. If your children see you
lying when convenient, you can be certain they will do the same. Except
it will be when THEY think it is convenient, not when YOU do. And you
can be equally certain that they will initially overestimate their
abilities to get away with it, which potentially can get them into DEEP TROUBLE.

Now, when kids are older, they can develop judgment around not blurting out
hurtful (to themselves or others) truths unnecessarily. But if you look
at developmental stages (viz. Piaget's _Moral Judgment of the Child_),
you will see that kids at first work only in clear-cut absolutes. So to
the child, until around age 10 (or more), lying is either OK, or not OK.
There's no such thing as a grey area.
-- 
  ______			Russ Herman
 /      \			{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!aesat!rwh
@( ?  ? )@			
 (  ||  )			The opinions above are strictly personal, and 
 ( \__/ )			do not reflect those of my employer (or even
  \____/			possibly myself an hour from now.)