Soapbox

Well, this week it finally happened. I was faced with a 5 1/2 year old who told a lie. In the overall scheme of things, it probably wasn't an earth shattering event, but while he learned about the importance of truthfulness, I learned about my expectations of my kids. It wasn't pretty.

It all started with a blue mouth, a basket of dyed Easter eggs and a glue stick. Sounds interesting already, doesn't it? I asked my son how his mouth and tongue became blue. I was met with a "deer in the headlights" look - "what do you mean my mouth is blue?" He showered me with a slew of explanations, all of which began with "it was an accident..." At the end of it, I figured the most reasonable of his explanations was that he put a blue egg in his mouth. So, the basket of eggs went up on the counter for the day.

The next day, I had a project set up for the kids, when I discovered a blue glue stick with a full impression of a child's dentistry. I confronted my son with the telltale glue stick and came to find out it, not the egg, went into his mouth. So, we had the calm discussion of truth vs. lies, accident vs. intentional, etc. The glue stick joined the egg basket, both of which are appearing all week on my kitchen counter-make your reservations early!

After the heart to heart, we all went about our day, but my heart was just deflated the rest of the day. In my head, I understand that this moment was inevitable. At his age, he is learning exactly what is the truth, and part of learning is making mistakes. My heart, as usual, had other plans for him. I am incredibly biased, and for some reason assumed since he is such a "good" kid overall, he would just know never to lie to me or anyone else. I'm not just his Mama, I'm his buddy, right? Well, that might work in some TV family, but the reality is that my children, like me, are not perfect. Holding them up to some unreachable standard is probably one of the greatest injustices to a kid.

Now this opened a whole nasty can of worms. I swore I would never repeat with my kids the unhealthy attitudes I struggle with to this day, but here I am. It's ironic how you can learn more about yourself in one day of parenthood than in a year of therapy.

all the best,

Catie

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About the Author : Catie Hayes is founder/editor of WomanLinks.com; a community of support, spirituality, growth and empowerment for women. She is a freelance writer, the single homeschooling mom of two, and an avid fan of laughter, spontaneous dancing, cats and chocolate (not necessarily in that order).