My normally wonderful three and a half year old didn't listen to the teacher at preschool yesterday. When the teacher claps, the kids are supposed to line up. Yesterday, when the teacher clapped, three kids and my son hid. We've talked to him about this issue once before when he hid in the past and and he hasn't done it until yesterday. While I know that was wrong, what he did subsequent to the act I think is even worse. My husband picked up my son after school yesterday. In the teacher's notebook (which parents are to check daily) the teacher wrote the names of the boys who had hidden. Our son was on the list.
My husband asked my son about this incident and my son told him plainly that he didn't hide. Later, I asked him about whether he hid and he said "No, but other boys did. I was the line leader, mommy, because I went to line up." Our son has never lied about things like this before, so we thought we would ask the teacher this morning. *I should note here that we are not a hitting nor corporal punishment type of family, more like the lecturing/explaining type of family, so I can’t imagine he was fearful of telling us the truth*I asked the teacher this morning when I dropped him off at school. She said that he did hide. I asked him again and he admitted it, not tearfully, more matter-of-fact-ly. I told him that we were disappointed that he hid and that we were even more disappointed that he lied about it. I told him we would continue the conversation after he got home from school but he should apologize and never hide when the teacher calls again. He dutifully went into the class room an apologized and I don’t imagine he’ll hide again anytime soon.
What should I do when he gets home? How should I handle the lying? Is he too young to understand punishment (like no books before bedtime)? What would you do?
Thanks to all of you. Great advice. We didn't talk about it much after school except I noted happily to him that he minded the teacher today. I so apprecaite the input. I've learned to handle it better from the beginning. Thanks for your support!
I would let it go now. He apologized as you asked him to, and he said he wouldn't do it again. He's 3.5 and testing limits- if you make a huge deal out of it, he may resort to lying for attention later, which you don't want. Praise him for not getting his name in the teacher's book and tell him you are glad he had a good day at school.
Everyone has said wonderful thing but I just wanted to add one more. Try not to put your child into a situation where they will lie. You read the report, so you already knew that he hid. Children do not want to disappoint (though their behavior may make you think otherwise, this is true). So if you flat out asked kids will give the answer that they think that you want. Next time address the situation at hand and talk about it from there.
"So you hid at line up time today. It is hard to stop playing and line up." Just wait for a bit and give room for your child to think about what they did and whet you have said. You can go one to explain that hiding is not safe or go in a direction that you wish.
So to sum up. If you know that your kid did something, address it, do not ask about it or you may find your child lying to you.
P.S. Check on your own lying. Has your child heard you say to someone on the phone that daddy is not home when he was? Has your child heard you tell someone that their hair looks great only to hear you saying it looks bad later? We lie more than we think we do and our kids are watching and following our lead.
B. Davis
Child And Family Coaching
http://www.ChildAndFamilyCoaching.com
Kids up through 5 or 6 simply don't have the same fix on reality that adults do, and tell grownups what they want to hear, or what the kids themselves wish were true. They want to make us love them. My agreeable, cooperative and polite grandson still does this at 4.5, and I'm not the least bit worried. If he were 7, I'd be leaning on him harder.
Rather than punish for what he shouldn't do, I simply explain what he should have done (or should do next time), and why. I would never punish for a first infraction, because to the child, that seems totally arbitrary. Getting punished for something you didn't yet know was wrong would seem outrageously unfair to an adult, too.
I'd like to argue your son's side of it for a moment. He was having fun with his friends. Hiding is a game. Cooperating with the teacher in a fun place like preschool is more a matter of all being on the same fun team than knuckling under a ponderous list of rules. The teachers (ideally, anyway) are trying to instill a love of learning, socializing, and cooperation. So, he was socializing, being creative, and surely meant no harm.
Now that he knows his actions caused the grownups to be unhappy with him, he's not too likely to repeat that behavior, and next time it would be reasonable for the teacher to determine an immediate consequence. A good teacher has the training and experience to handle this sort of situation, and it doesn't sound like it was such a big issue that she even needed to talk to you about it. Kids so young are pretty immediate in their thinking and behavior. A delayed consequence hours after the fact will just be confusing and unnecessarily punitive.
One last thought; if we really want our children to understand lying, it's probably not a good idea to force an apology. It's great to explain the purpose of an apology, and ask the little one to apologize when he feels sorry and wants to make things better. But an insincere apology is, essentially, a white lie.
Personally I would treat this first incident as a learning experience. Make sort of a deal out of sitting down to talk, so he knows it's serious, and ask questions about it, after explaining the whole thing from the beginning, so that he can get a better idea of how you want it to go next time. Whose idea was it to hide? Did he think it was a good idea? What should he have been doing? Why didn't he tell you the truth? Was he afraid of getting in trouble? What did he think would happen? How could he make the situation right? I like to give ideas here too, make a "sorry" letter for the teacher, tell the other boys that he won't be hiding again, and definitely include strategies for how to react to behavior he shouldn't join in (walk away, tell them it's wrong, tell the teacher... etc.).
Kids this age do a lot of experimenting with lies and reality, your best bet is to show him how you want him to behave (and make sure he knows that you will appreciate him telling you the truth, even when it's about behavior you don't like). My son fesses up and before I dive into punishment for what happened, I gush with admiration about how brave he is for telling the truth -- it's hard when you are scared! I don't think framing it as being "disappointed" is helpful, because he may not entirely see how to handle it properly yet.
Our son is getting ready to turn 4 in a few weeks. He knows right from wrong, and we're really fortunate that he has a great teacher at school who totally keeps the kids in line.
We had a similar situation earlier this week, and I don't think our son meant to lie. I just don't think he knew how to answer the question at the time. It took some poking and prodding to get to the bottom of it and have a discussion with him about his behavior.
Until I was laid off last May, I always picked-up from day care. Most days both my husband and I did because our schedules allowed it, and there's no better feeling than seeing your kid's face light up at the end of the day. But, we've also always used it as an opportunity to ask the teacher about how they did (besides the daily progress report) and to address any misbehavior on the spot so the teacher understands that we take it seriously and don't sweep it under the rug.
In our son's case, he's a more passive personality and is very much a follower. He has a few kids he's latched onto, also good kids but they're slightly older and a little more daring. He follows suit, and we have to correct.
Good luck. Hoping he's learned the lesson, and it's an isolated incident.
This is what I used to do and although people may think this is not punishment enough I will explain my thought process and the results. I would make an 8 1/2 x 11 Huge Frown face with his name written across the bottom. I would tell my son that I am going to leave it up for 3 days because that is how disappointed Mommy & Daddy were with his lying. He did not like it. I told him that I never want to see the sad face up and explained to him that I always want to be able to believe my son when I go up to the day care or school to discuss behavior. My thought process in this was just to instill a sense of right and wrong right away. I wanted him to know that if he does wrong, or hits or lies that he really disappointed us and we were sad. Now if he did something really, really spectacular, we would display a happy face next to a picture that he drew. One thing though-this tactic was only effective about 1 1/2 years-smile.
I have had the same experience with our 3.5 year old and it seems like he gets more confused about the situation, not deliberately lying. It has only happened a couple of times, and when I find out the truth I let him know that he needs to tell the truth and that it is not ok to lie and tell things that aren't true. He seems to understand, but I am not sure why he started the lying in the first place as we also are not into corporal punishment. He is definitely old enough to understand things being taken away, which we use quite often and our son gets upset and knows that it is a punishment. Sit him down and explain it, I am pretty sure they get it, maybe not completely, but at least so they know it's not ok. I wonder it this is a boy thing?ha ha
I would remove your son from the militant preschool you have him in. He's 3 1/2!!!!! Why a "book" about the kids behavior?
Lying is a very normal experimental activity at this age. Do not take it personally. Just explain the difference between pretend and lying and why one is ok and the other isn't. Your child is still learning the rules of life :)
I think you're taking this too seriously - because of his age. Did the teacher offer any useful ideas here? I think that maybe one more conversation about truthfulness and following directions would be fine, but try to avoid being really overly serious and punish-y. My experience is that kids can hear, and he heard you the first time. If it's a pattern (either hiding or lying) then that's something to strategize about. But this isn't. He probably was line leader, got into line, then a kid said, let's hide, or come here, and they hid, and they had fun being mischievous and doing something different, and that was about it. 3 and a half is REALLY YOUNG.
I don't think it's realistic to expect three year olds to follow the rules all the time. I work in my three year old's classroom one day per week, as I did with my older son, and there isn't a day when several kids need to be coaxed into following the rules. IT"S NORMAL.
About the child not being afraid just because you're not hitting him, I would say that kids can be afraid of disappointing you - an accurate fear here, right? He did disappoint you. I've read that kids lie mostly to avoid punishment, and I think that's true. He didn't want to have you 'mad' at him. My son has done this, and I completely don't like it, but I have to admit that my words are a big deal to him. And just getting a lecture from me is enough for him to want to avoid telling me the truth!
So, I think you have gotten it across that it's not safe to hide, and it's not right to lie, and now I would just try to impress on him that he can talk to you. That you want to hear the truth and that it's safe to tell the truth.
Two other things - if you punish him tonight for something that happened yesterday, he's not going to make the connection, so it might just be negative. The other - is there a reason that your teacher isn't helping you to sort this out? Does this teacher advise punishment?
Good luck to you - M.
I absolutely agree that this is a great teaching scenerio. I too have a 3.5 year old and truth is something we talk about often. In our house, there are no such things as "white lies" a lie is a lie, plain and simple. We do our best not to lie to the kids and we expect the same respect back (another word we stress with them. It's the foundation of every good and healthy relationship). However, at 3 years old their understanding of words like lie, truth and respect are limited. It's your job to explain to him the difference.
To show my daughter I too an apple and an orange and put them on the table. I pointed to the orange and said "That's my apple I'm going to eat it" she laughed and said, "No Mommy that's an orange" I argued again "Apple" and she countered "Orange". To which I answered "You're right, that's the truth. Was mommy right to call it an apple?" She said no, and thus I explained that a lie is something that isn't right. I also told her lies make peoples hearts feel like they've been kicked in the shins (because her little sister kicked her in the shins and it hurt, so she understood I meant pain), even when the truth isn't something good it doesn't feel as bad as that. I also told her that no matter what, we will always love her and that lying to us won't make anything better.
I hope it's worked. We keep trying but good luck! As for punishment, I do take things away. She disobeyed over throwing a toy and after 1 warning (I'm not of the mind that 15 warnings is a good lesson, consequences teach responsibility) I took said toy away for "4 sleeps" she was sad and understood what I meant. I'm not sure if you should punish the first time but set out a guideline now for what will happen if he lies again. Eg. "Mommy understands that you didn't know tell me a lie (call it what it is) would hurt me. So this time I am going to forgive you and carry on. But now you know, that lies hurt so if I catch you lying about anything, to me or someone else I will....take away a toy, not let you watch a show for a day....whatever works." I also make my girls tell me back what I've said eg."What did Mommy say?" "Lies are bad things to do and if I do it again I don't get to watch a show". Then they get it.
Good luck! And great job for seeing a potential problem and nipping it in the bud!
