Telling a child the truth.

During my upbringing, I had a few complaints about the way my parents raised me, but I liked their handling of information. They did not give me a philosophical or ideological agenda, they simply answered the questions I asked, without restricting me from any information.

The general question is; how much children be told the truth? Is it ever the right thing to lie to a child? Is it right thing to withhold the truth from a child, without outright lying? Should the information a child can access on its own be restricted? Is there a specific age for a child to hear the truth or be able to fathom it?

I'm going to make the radical proposal that a child should receive any and all information that it inquires for, as accurately as it can be done. Keeping the absolute truth or portion of the truth from a child will leave them vulnerable and naive to the harshness and unfairness of the real world.

Seуmour said:

I'm going to make the radical proposal that a child should receive any and all information that it inquires for, as accurately as it can be done. Keeping the absolute truth or portion of the truth from a child will leave them vulnerable and naive to the harshness and unfairness of the real world.

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I concur. The only reason we give silly analogies and lies to children is so they can 'understand things better'; this is even done by schools. I asked a lot of questions as a child, and didn't tend to get good (if any) answers from people, but did from books that went at length to explain things. I don't believe there are any specific age-ranges for intellectual comprehension of anything, so nothing should be hidden outright, but understanding of the universe still has to be built up properly or more advanced concepts won't make sense. Making an analogy or the like can help during the explanation of something, but shouldn't be left as the explanation itelf. If there are things people are uncomfortable discussing or with children knowing, then they should simply not be informed, not lied to.

Some things are a little too complex for young children (how do you explain terrorism to a 7-year-old?), but overall though I lean toward telling kids the truth and not hiding things from them. I don't like the idea which says that kids are stupid. You don't need to have the same education and experience as an adult to be told most things.

But then it's the most important things that usually don't get told, like why the pet bird stopped moving. I've read that until around age 7 kids don't really understand the concept of death purely based on their development up to that point. I don't know how many could be told who would really understand it and I don't know what the consequences (if any) there would be for the ones who didn't.

My parents always told me the truth, no matter how bad it was.

I turned out just fine... At least, thats what the voices in my head are telling me.

Seуmour said:

During my upbringing, I had a few complaints about the way my parents raised me, but I liked their handling of information. They did not give me a philosophical or ideological agenda, they simply answered the questions I asked, without restricting me from any information.

The general question is; how much children be told the truth? Is it ever the right thing to lie to a child? Is it right thing to withhold the truth from a child, without outright lying? Should the information a child can access on its own be restricted? Is there a specific age for a child to hear the truth or be able to fathom it?

I'm going to make the radical proposal that a child should receive any and all information that it inquires for, as accurately as it can be done. Keeping the absolute truth or portion of the truth from a child will leave them vulnerable and naive to the harshness and unfairness of the real world.

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I love you for writing this and completely agree.

Attempts to suppress information on the notion that the child can't understand is an arrogant presumption that is not tested, so long as the information is not imparted.

I find it unnecessary to lie to children; there isn't really anything that they can't handle by the time that they're 6 or 7. If you think that your child woud be unable to hande such information, you can prepare them for this, rather than feeding them false information, like, as Bela said, on the notion that the child won't understand.

In theory, yes it would be nice to be able to tell children the truth about everything.

In practice, you can't really predict how any child will react to information. Every child is different, some need to be raised differently to others. Some can handle certain subjects at a very young age, some still can't handle it when they're much older.

Although I do agree that children shouldn't be lied to. I think children should be raised on knowledge and logic rather than made up stories and fantasies; but some things may need to be taught in a restricted way, or not taught at all until they're older, it all depends on the individual.

Although trying to hide important subjects from children for too long never works; they will either find out themselves, or hear something from other kids, which is usually a distorted version from the truth.

Lying to them or sugar-coating a subject too much is essentially just raising a child to be ignorant.

TRIFORCE89 said:

If there's something a child needs to know, I don't see what's wrong with explaining it in a more "child friendly" manner.

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Yeah that's the best way to do it. Not necessarily lying to them, but tell it to them in a way that isn't too much for them to handle.

If my kid asks me something I'm going to tell them the truth about it, and I'm not going to go out of my way to censor what they see or hear. If they ask what sex is I'll say it's when two people make love to each other. I won't say "It's when you stick your penis in a vagina". If they asked where babies come from I would say it comes from a woman's womb or stomach, a term they would understand better.

I don't particularly worry about a kids innocence being taken away by answering an inquiry, I don't think it works like that. When I was a child I knew people died but it was just something I didn't care about because I was young and didn't understand the finality of it, and even if somebody described it as being the end, I don't think my world would have shattered around me.

TRIFORCE89 said:

Well, with my news reporter story... I meant more like... the kid wouldn't be aware that something happened unless you specifically told them. So, why do it in the first place?

If some guy down the street got violently murdered... My child does not know this happened or know the person it happened to. I don't have to tell them about it, there's no reason to. If they ask, they again, I'd give an explanation in a child-friendly manner.

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I never said that I would go out of my to tell them? I didn't even respond to that part of your post.

Haha it's okay, I was just like 'that's not what i meant ;-;'. xD

It ought to be up to the parents. I don't think there's a significant problem with either approach.

Seуmour said:

I'm going to make the radical proposal that a child should receive any and all information that it inquires for, as accurately as it can be done. Keeping the absolute truth or portion of the truth from a child will leave them vulnerable and naive to the harshness and unfairness of the real world.

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I can see where you're coming from, but you sound almost like a machine here. You sound like you're the kid's computer. I think there is a reason to preserve a child's innocence, for example, at least until they get old enough to find it out themselves on a real computer.

Now I'm curious. Does that mean you will not tell them something that isn't true? So would you or would you not tell them of childhood tales like santa claus or the tooth fairy?