The tooth fairy effect: Parents lie to instill good behavior in children

I don't care what other people do in regards to the "Santa" lie. Do what you wish.
I tell my kids because i remember as a child the excitement and magic of it all. I figured it out when i was roughly 8 and do NOT hold any ill feelings towards my parents. When confronted they fessed up and said that they also remembered the magic of it all. Man they were fun times!
When my kids figure it out, I will simply tell them that santa is a legend in our culture that makes people happy.

I am not religious either, but when my son asked me if we go to heaven when we die, i said "yeah i think so" purely for the fact that i could never tell him what i really think.
Imagine telling a 4 year old that maybe when you die, you dissolve into the earth and there is nothing?

I do not think people understand how hypocritical they are when they tell their children not to lie, while lying to them. What kind of influence is that?

Lying is a skill that needs to be learned. For instance, if your best friend asked you "am i ugly" what would you say?
Maybe some would be completely honest, I salute you
See there is a fine art in lying. There are the obvious bad lies and those little white lies. Telling a little fib to save someones hurt feelings is fine in my opinion, especially since they may not handle the truth.
Parents need to teach their children all kinds of skills and appropriate lying may be one of them.

reply to post by nixie_nox


Well, first and foremost, I never said that.

Second, because I teach my children not to lie and do not lie to them means lying doesn't exist...? Strange logic...

Pred...

Originally posted by predator0187
reply to post by nixie_nox

 

Well, first and foremost, I never said that.

Second, because I teach my children not to lie and do not lie to them means lying doesn't exist...? Strange logic...

Pred...

Do you tell them that there is no case where lying is ok?

reply to post by predator0187


I still can't believe you consider letting them believe in Santa and the Tooth Fairy etc is a "lie"

Technically, it's false information so you could call it a lie. But do you call story books a lie? They are bound to read a story book and probably believe it's amazing and might be true!! Do you tell them before they read it "it's not true, don't get your hopes up?"

I don't know. I just think allowing a child's mind to mature years before it should could lead to more trouble than good. Of course it's great to teach them lying is bad. Lies hurt people. Does believing in Santa and other "magical" myths hurt ANYONE? Unless you'd get hurt because you wouldn't get the credit for the gifts they get....

If you don't want them to believe in Santa, fine. But don't deliberately go out of your way to make sure they know Santa etc isn't real in the fear of them becoming liars or even worse, in later life. Because this won't happen simply because they believe in an old myth as a child. Plus, what about their friends who believe in such things? at school etc? how do they deal with that? Im interested.

As a kid growing up - my parents did have the same approach with me (they told me the Easter Bunny would only come if I would take a nap, the Tooth Fairy only if I was nice to my siblings, and Santa would leave me presents only if I was nice). The sad part was that I discovered it was all a lie within less than a year.

First, I lost a tooth & didn't tell my parents - I myself placed a penny under the pillow & told both of them that the Tooth Fairy left me a penny (should've seen the look on their faces; I'm sure they were trying to determine which parent left it there). Second, I placed coal in my own stocking - and found that the look on my parent's face was the same, which led me to believe that something was up. Finally, after talking about what the Easter Bunny left us in class one day (elementary school - we didn't have anything else to talk about), I found that the Easter Bunny was prejudice against families that couldn't afford much (I mean, how is it fair that the Bunny left a new bike & $100 for a rich kid, and left a bunch of plastic eggs for myself?).

And yet, because of all that, I feel that I am better off as a whole (I found that when working, you can't always tell a client the truth - when you don't know, sometimes a white lie is better than no lie at all). In fact, if I had kids, I'd probably tell them the same lies I was told (and when their older, how I managed to find out the truth). Besides, when they're little, they need to have some kind of escape from the real world for a while - I'd rather it be a fat, jolly man in a red suit that can "create" a chimney even when there isn't one in the house than the bogeyman. I don't consider it teaching them to lie, but rather teaching them that being brutally honest is not always the best approach.
-Fossilera