And when?
Most superficial talk about teaching kids will always pay lip service to ‘honesty’.
But people have to learn how to lie. Most studies say that most people lie about 20 times per day.
You can get in trouble when you tell the truth. I missed out on a job once because I gave an honest answer to the ‘Where do you see yourself in 5 years?’ question.
Obviously in society one has to know when to lie, how to lie. How does one teach that to one’s children? Or do we just assume they will pick it up without any specific teaching?
Teach them that if you must choose between being truthful and being kind, be kind. “Brutally honest” is honest, but its still brutal.
Same way they learn almost everything else - by observation.
First day home from the hospital: “Honey, your mother’s on the phone. She wants to know how you and the baby are doing.”
Sigh. “Ugh. Tell her I’m sleeping!”
“Okay.”
If, by some miracle, the child doesn’t see this and other small lies and deceptions (“Tell Mommy she looks so pretty with her new haircut!”, “Daddy’s the best golfer ever!” “Try the lettuce, honey, you’ll love it!”) every single day of her life, she’ll see them soon enough at school.
I’d say that’s a fair assumption.
And Mark Twain agrees with me. Smart fella.
Amen! One of the worst things to come out of the 70s was the insistence by some people to tell the truth, no matter who they hurt, because they were “keeping it real.” :rolleyes: I believe most if not all of them were closet sadists who were glad for the excuse.
It may in fact be the case that everyone lies at some times; I won’t pass judgement on that. But nonetheless I don’t doubt that kids taught to tell the truth are at a significant advantage over those taught to lie regularly and without scruples. A solid foundation of honesty may cost someone a few opportunities but in will eventually gain them many more.
How do you know the people who did the studies weren’t lying? 
In many situations there are more than just the two options “Tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth” and “lie.”
Which is part of what we should teach our children. Just because something’s true does not necessarily mean it ought to be said. And, there are usually better, more honest ways of withholding truths that ought not be said, than asserting things that are false.
As far as I can tell, children figure it out on their own, to avoid consequences. I recall Jane Goodall, in one of her books – it might have been Through a Window – described how young chimps dissemble to their parents (throwing a tantrum and then checking to see if anyone was watching, for example).
Perhaps, but they do not need to be taught.
As soon as a kid figures out that admitting to being the one who knocked over the vase or took the last cookie means trouble, that kid will say something other than the truth to avoid consequences.
Primatologists have discovered that all the great apes lie and there is a certain amount of evidence that many other animals lie (or exhibit behavior that translates to lying), so I see no reason to believe that adult humans are running about teaching their children to lie.
Kids lie as a developmental milestone, like walking and saying a first word. A surprisingly good overview can be found here.
Another view recognizes that our brains are evolved game playing deception calculators. This has our brain’s size and capacity mainly having occured as a means to out-decieve others and to out-detect decieption in others in a brain arms race. We are, in that view, no more truth telling capable than lie telling capable: it’s all about learning the risk of detection outweighs the possible gain. It is our parental role to teach that the risk is only worth it for a few “pro-social” lies.
Yeah, I love to explain to people who believe in brutal honesty that “That’s why people don’t like you very much. Just being honest, you know?”
Tris
It doesn’t take them long to put their own interest ahead of everyone else, hence lying is the logical thing to do.
As I recall, there were a number of games in early childhood that taught us both how to lie and how to detect lies: the card game “Cheat” would be one example, but there were others which involved the group collaborating against one inquisitor, with the goal of concealing which member was holding some sort of token. “Ali Baba” was one such. If you really want to teach kids to lie, games like this are probably a good way - particularly because the also reward the skill of detection.
Apparently I lied like a rug when I was tiny, to protect myself from some perceived threat of punishment or consequences. My parents don’t lie, so I guess I figured it out on my own. But that’s not tact/BSing the truth.
But then, we do give cues to kids about tact: “That’s not nice, how would you feel if someone said that about you?” which might translate to their deciding not to say every mean thing that pops into their head.
Yes, and kids have been taught “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” for a long time.
Why do you think people have to be taught to act in their own self interest? I bet the number of times people tell the truth against their percieved self interest is literally dwarfed by the number of times people lie in the same circumstance. There’s nothing to “teach” there, it’s just human nature.
Reinforcement that lying is acceptable in this electronic age is readily apparent by the number of “cheat codes” and such with computer games.
cite? how exactly does an ape, or other animal lie? They have limited communication, how can they communicate something false?
68% of statistics are made up.