When I Stopped Teaching Kids to Lie
Modeling desirable behaviors instead of forcing them
by James
Recently, I began to wonder why I have spent so much time encouraging children to be dishonest.
“What?!” you’re wondering, incredulously, “You used to encourage kids to lie, or misrepresent themselves??”
Well, yes, I did. Dozens (hundreds?) of times.
I was telling children to apologize or say thank you when they didn’t mean it. As a mentor to kids at after school programs, a teacher, a camp counselor and a director of 2 different camps, I’ve mediated more disputes between children and adults than I can remember. And in most cases, I’ve ended by insinuating that someone should apologize, or downright forcing someone to. And the times I’ve said, “Okay, now say thank you,” to a child who had been given something? I literally could never guess.
All of these suggestions were given to kids with the great intention of helping them learn how to function in the world, but recently I’ve been wondering about the unintended consequences of my actions.
On page 15 of her wonderful book, “The Creative Family,” Amanda Soule writes: “There’s a big difference between being forced to say, “thank you,” and actually feeling genuine, authentic gratitude. I try to differentiate the two in our home (oftentimes this means saying thank you for my children as a way to model it without forcing it) and strive for the latter.” And it makes sense, right? “Thank you” is something you say when you feel grateful. A real “thank you” shows love for the person who has given you something, and a forced “thank you” shows obedience to whoever is forcing you. If the goal of forcing a child to thank you is to make the other person aware of gratitude, shouldn’t that person be given a sincere “thank you” instead of a forced one?
The same goes for apologies. Teaching our children to apologize when they don’t mean it takes from their ability to understand what it means to feel remorseful. Instead, it gives them a tool to escape uncomfortable situations without “knowing what they did wrong.” Even worse is the follow up, “Now say it like you mean it.” Why would we ever want to teach a kid to say something like they mean it, when they don’t mean it? In the real world, this is called “being fake,” but for children, it’s called “being polite.”
Learning to express feelings one doesn’t have feel can have serious negative consequences, too. Most people have probably said, “I don’t care what she said, I could tell she wasn’t sorry,” or, “Can you believe he said he loved me, and then did this?” Do you think they were mad because the person wasn’t convincing enough in their dishonesty, or because they were expressing disingenuous feelings? Where do you think the disingenuous person learned this behavior?
I understand the need to help our children learn social conventions. It is hard to function in society unless one has a general understanding of “how people do things.” I do want my child to “say it like he means it” when he actually does mean it. So how do I help that to happen? The same way I helped him learn how to walk. Hint: I never took his feet and put one forward, and the other back, while swinging his arms to counterbalance him. Instead, I just… walked. Kids are absolutely incredible imitators. They learn to walk and talk in almost every case with no formal instruction whatsoever. We see basically no one who walks so strangely that she is a spectacle, unless there is an injury or some other external circumstance. The same holds true for talking. So why can’t the same hold true for being polite, or expressing gratitude?
When Oliver is given a gift, we will profusely thank the person who gave him something. And when Oliver pulls someone’s hair, we will profusely apologize. We’ll point out to him how the other person feels in both circumstances as well – “Do you see how upset Michael is? That’s because you pulled his hair. It really hurts when someone has their hair pulled, so we are apologizing to him to help him know that we didn’t want to hurt him.” Or, “Wow! Do you see how happy Michael is that you gave him the play-dough? Thanks, Oliver!” And when given something, we’d say, “Thank you SO much Michael! It’s so generous of you to share your balloon with him, and we really appreciate it!”
Will he be polite when we're not around?
This way, the same message is being communicated to the other party, be it thanks or apologies, but there has been no uncomfortable introduction of force. In time, we hope our children will learn that others appreciate thanks and apologies, and incorporate them into their social repertoire. By modeling behaviors, or “leading by example,” we also hope they will do these things when we’re not around. In the meantime, we hope that they do not learn to say things they do not mean, or to pretend to feel in a way if they do not.
If you’re like me, you’ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times. I don’t even think that this particular example of force is as bad as many. I’m not losing sleep over the times where I’ve told someone to apologize after he’d punched someone else in a face. I only think I could have done better, and this article is a promise that I’ll be working hard to do better for the children I work with in the future.
In all of our interactions with kids, there will be both intended and unintended consequences. The Liberty Children approach is all about avoiding unintended consequences that arise due to force. What do you think – can kids learn social norms without being forced to? Are there other examples of times when children are forced to learn certain behaviors that have unintended consequences later on? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!
…just like teaching them to walk or talk…. brilliant. .
Thanks for reading, S! This notion is actually from John Holt’s book “Instead of Education,” so I can’t take full credit, but I agree it’s a nice analogy for most of what we hope our children will learn!
I strongly feel that teaching is at its core an inspired way to trigger intrinsic knowledge in someone else. Placing a purely external expectation on someone without them having made that piece of information or behavior their own is bound to unravel once the external pressure is no longer there, or once the internal frustration of being out of sync becomes too great.
Hello Oana! Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to respond. We totally agree about extrinsic motivators… they are largely in place to make people perform “tricks” for rewards or to give them Pavlovian training to avoid consequences. As teachers, I think we’re after understanding, and I think it’s very tough to achieve real understanding when someone is forcing someone else to do anything.
Appreciate the feedback, and look forward to having you a part of this discussion!
James
First of all thanks for posting these blogs – I think you have a lot of interesting and valuable ideas, and it is great to have an intelligent discussion about them. I have a few thoughts on the post above:
- I think there is some danger of over-generalizing here. There are
many different ways kids learn, and they include both observation and
instruction. While I’d expect a huge proportion of what a kid learns
in regards to social interaction will be through observation (which is
why setting a good example is critical, and kids who have parents that
don’t get along, etc. have so many issues), I think providing guidance
and instruction to a child about social interactions can also be
meaningful and important.
- While I agree that forcing a “polite” thank-you can in many cases be
meaningless, there are many other situations where the child actually
is grateful but has either forgotten or gotten distracted or simply
has not yet learned that an effective way of giving thanks is by
saying “thank you” (or giving a hug, etc.) In these situations I
don’t think a reminder to the child (“Wow I can see you are really
excited! Did you remember to tell Aunt Kerry how much you like your
new _____?”) is coercive.
- Similarly, while I can recall many, many “fake” sorries – I think
there is some benefit to having the child have to directly go to the
person they have hurt and interact with them. If nothing else, it
helps to reinforce that their action had negative consequences on
someone else [which, by the way, your proposed response does in a
better way]. I think the main problem with “fake” sorries is that
they are used as a band-aid – say sorry, even if you don’t mean it -
and then go on your merry way. I think your proposed response of “Do
you see how upset Michael is? That’s because you pulled his hair. It
really hurts when someone has their hair pulled, so we are apologizing
to him to help him know that we didn’t want to hurt him” is MUCH
better than “Go say you are sorry to Michael”. However, I don’t think
it would necessarily be bad to add to the end of your proposed
response “I think you should think about apologizing as well, because
I don’t think you meant to hurt him and make him cry.”
Andrew,
Those are some great thoughts! I think you point out an important omission in the article regarding my over-generalization. Certainly, I don’t discourage giving guidance when it comes to social interactions. I think that comes across early in the article when I seem to remorsefully say I encouraged kids to apologize. I think you draw an important distinction – if children clearly have the feelings, we can give them tools by both demonstrating what to do and asking them if they’d like to try. It’s very similar to asking a child for a kiss instead of just demanding one. I think it’s great to give the kid the option for a positive social interaction, but I am very much opposed to pressuring that interaction. Presenting the idea, though? I think that’s an excellent idea, and I should have mentioned that in the article.
As to your third point, though, I think “having” the child do anything in order to learn a lesson is coercive, which opens the door for negative and unintended consequences. You may feel that the positives outweigh the negatives in this scenario, but this feels a little bit punitive to me. I think that discussing the ways that rude or mean behavior can hurt other people’s feelings, followed up by discussing ways to provide restitution (An apology might make Michael feel better, do you want to go and talk with him?) feels a lot better to me than “having” Oliver go over and be forced to interact with the person. I think forcing a child to interact with his victim when he is resisting such an interaction gives a negative correlation to the practice of apologizing more so than whatever transgression happened. Most children will probably understand on some level that the sequence of hurt someone-have to apologize is uncomfortable, and therefore try to avoid hurting people, but I think the sequence of hurting someone-being spoken to about how sad that makes the adult-being given the option to make good will hopefully prevent the negative behavior both when I am around and when I’m not around…since it’s more grounded in why we apologize than just performing the act of apologizing.
We really appreciate the honest feedback! I really feel that your point helps refine our approach a lot, and it’s definitely going to be a useful one for us to use as parents as well. Thanks again!
James
This is an issue that has been on my mind recently, as my children get older. Sometimes, they hurt others on purpose! What is the point, I ask myself, of forcing her to apologise for an incident that she WANTED to occur? Of course she doesn’t feel remorse….right now.
I’ve learned to give my kids time to process the situation and I try to remind them of other times when they have been the one wronged. It’s nice to see the connections form in their brain and to watch them make sincere efforts to make amends. The wronged party is much more responsive to these genuine apologies as well, and they often are much nicer to each other for the rest of the day.
I sometimes encourage my toddler to apologise, but not for her own sake – my five year old doesn’t always understand why her baby sister pulled her hair or pinched her. The idea of developmental stages is far too abstract, so in order to smooth things over, we ask the little one to “be gentle” and “say sorry.” I don’t expect her to understand the “say sorry” part of it, but it helps my older child to feel better and move on from the hurt.
In all their disagreements and disputes, I encourage the children to use their own judgement on how to genuinely apologise. They often surprise me by their generosity – toys are offered, money is exchanged, privileges freely given, and so on. These are much better outcomes than me standing over them and saying, “Now say you’re sorry!”
Thanks for the article!
Sarah! Thanks so much for reading and responding. You make such an important contribution with this quote:
“I’ve learned to give my kids time to process the situation and I try to remind them of other times when they have been the one wronged”
You do two amazing things here: You help your kids not react emotionally, and you help them learn empathy. I believe that it’s empathy that really helps kids learn not to hurt others. When you know you’ve hurt someone, you feel a little bit of that yourself. I know I’ve changed many behaviors in my life due to feeling empathetic. Thanks so much for bringing this point to light!
You also said:
“In all their disagreements and disputes, I encourage the children to use their own judgement on how to genuinely apologise. They often surprise me by their generosity – toys are offered, money is exchanged, privileges freely given, and so on. These are much better outcomes than me standing over them and saying, “Now say you’re sorry!””
What an important point, as well! When a child engages her own brain in the process of making amends, there is real, genuine, human interaction. Helping your kids learn this humanity is a much better outcome than having them parrot your commands.
I look forward to hearing what you have to say as we continue to conversation on this site! Thanks!
James
This is such a good thing to remember! And it’s so true — forcing someone to apologise or say thank-you doesn’t really mean very much. I think sometimes you have to teach your children (or your husband HAHAHA! LOL
) what to say but you can certainly read how they are feeling at the moment and you know if they maybe just don’t know the words to express themselves. I think we say, “Say you’re sorry!!” sometimes because we don’t know what else to say and we rely on the first idea that pops into our heads. But it’s better to wait and just let natural consequences happen and let it all process – then everyone learns about each other. Kids do say they’re sorry on there own – we usually just need to give them time and guidance to see if they can figure out the situation.
I know from experience seeing my child say a real genuine thank-you for a gift. The best thing was no one told her to and she didn’t exactly say the words thank-you either. She was just completely grateful and she expressed it freely. It was amazing to see the pure joy of the gift-giver — they were so happy.
Hello Kimberly,
Thanks so much for your comments! I love this idea:
“I think we say, “Say you’re sorry!!” sometimes because we don’t know what else to say and we rely on the first idea that pops into our heads.”
Absolutely! One of the things Taylor and I work on so much is just trying to plan how we’ll handle common, difficult situations. This way, we can avoid mimicking what we’ve observed from our own childhoods. When approached intentionally, parenting is a lot less stressful to us.
I love your story about your child giving thanks freely, without even necessarily saying the words! I can picture the little ones I’ve observed giving so generously of themselves and how heart warming it is. What a pure and magical moment. I’ll take 1 of those moments and get rid of 100 forced “thank yous” any day of the week. Thanks for reading, and hope to hear more of your stories in the future!
James
PS: My wife teaches me what to say sometimes, too