Honestly?

If there’s one thing I love about young children, it’s that they all seem to be born inherently honest. Of course, they learn within the first few years of life that honesty is not a widely accepted quality in our society and they start to adapt.

And, thankfully, in some cases! I remember my mom saying that shortly after moving from a small town to a large city with my brother and me, she was in the grocery store and my brother (who I believe was 3 at the time) got his first memorable look at a person with dark skin. My mom said that he was so shocked at this new experience that he very loudly demanded of her “Mom! Why is that man black?!” The man, of course, was very close by and my mother was so embarrassed that she wanted to crawl away. I’ve had my fair share of similar experiences while raising my own kids. They’ve said things when we are out together like:

“That lady can’t walk!” (Talking about a woman in a wheelchair)
“That kid is so fat!” (Talking about a boy with a large belly compared to the rest of his body)
“Why is that person’s face weird?” (Talking about an obvious burn victim)
“That man is really short!” (Talking about a little person)
(Sigh)

I laugh now because these things are always embarrassing at the time, not because it’s nice to point someone out that way. It isn’t. And, I’m not saying that I’ve always handled these experiences the right way. Once, when my youngest was 4, he exclaimed very loudly that a lady near us was F-A-T ! I pointed my finger right back at him and said “WOAH! That kid is short! He has freckles on his face! He has a booger in his nose!” He was so shocked that I would be doing such a thing, and easily got my point when I asked him if he thought she liked hearing him talk about her like that. Yeah, it worked, but I think it’s just because out of my three kids, he naturally is the most sensitive to other people’s feelings. And, the thing is, he wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings at all. He wasn’t thinking it would be a mean thing to say. He was just being honest and noticing something out of ‘his ordinary’.

And, the reason I got embarrassed, is because the loud judgments of others makes worry that I haven’t taught my boys well enough to be compassionate and understanding. I want my kids to grow up with a love for mankind. I want them to have an open mind and make judgments about others after getting to know them personally (not based on outward appearances). And, even so, I want them to have and hold onto their personal values or beliefs, but not feel threatened by anyone who might have different values or beliefs. I want my children to act civilized and good in society, really.

But, I don’t want them to lose their natural love for honesty. Sometimes it bothers me how much our society leans towards “niceties” over “honesty” when determining goodness. There is much to be said about learning to be nice, but if I had it my way, we’d all encourage our kid’s natural love of honesty by learning to accept honesty as a higher quality. There are 2 reasons why honesty isn’t valued as much as it could be in our society. First, the person with the opportunity to express honesty chooses not to be totally honest because they don’t want anyone to be upset by their truth. And second, the person with the opportunity to hear the truth doesn’t really want to hear it. We’ve all learned to be afraid of speaking or hearing the truth. But, why is that? If someone comes to you and says that they truly, honestly believe that the sky is purple would that change the fact that you believe it is blue? Of course, that’s an easy analogy to understand, but no matter what another person’s opinion, we still cringe when we hear someone say something we disagree with. While I’m still working on changing this in myself, I know that I’d rather hear what someone close to me really thinks, than have to deal with trying to figure out what they really meant to say later on. If you agree, try saying thank you 3 times this week when someone tells you something that you maybe didn’t want to hear . . . just try it. You don’t have to agree, just thank them for their honesty.

And, think about why listening to and appreciating the truth is a good practice to get into. When you ask your friend if they like your new pants and they say “Yes, I love them!” Do you ever wonder if they are just saying that because they always say they love everything about everyone? It depends on the friend, doesn’t it? It seems that most adults are either full of blanket compliments for everyone everywhere, or rarely express a compliment because they don’t want to be like the former type of person. From whom, then, does a compliment really mean the most? From the type who is less complimentary, that’s who! And, that’s because you know they wouldn’t have said it if they didn’t mean it. This speaking and hearing honesty thing also puts a lot more responsibility on owning your own feelings about things . . . like your pants, rather than depending on someone else to give you an opinion to hold as your truth. That’s a powerfully healthy way to live, isn’t it?

I’m not suggesting that you try to be significantly less affectionate with others, especially with your kids. Kids need and therefore crave a lot of affection. But, I have learned that since our kids are more honest to begin with, they aren’t looking for our constant compliments, either. When they say, “Look at me! Look what I can do!” they are literally asking us to watch them, to notice something that they have already decided to like. When they show us the painting, or story, or mud pie they just made, they aren’t asking for us to say “That’s nice”, or “That’s beautiful” one more time. Sure, we can teach them to get into that pattern by setting up our relationship with them that way, but what they really want is to show us what they have already honestly done for themselves. What they want is for us to ask them about it, so that they can then tell US how wonderful, or beautiful, or weird they think their own creation is. In these moments of personal creativity or expression, they are at their most honest, core self. THIS is the time to encourage their honesty!

Asking our kids questions rather than complimenting them is a lot harder than it sounds. Naturally as a parent, we want to provide some sort of judgment or life-lesson on everything that they do. We want to tell them how to be, rather than letting them be. We worry that without our constant guidance, they won’t learn the correct way. We worry that they won’t know that we love them without the constant reinforcement of our compliments. We forget how easily they learn to tune out most of what we say because our words aren’t always as practical a teaching tool for them as we think they are (especially if we become like the friend who likes our pants because they like everything). We forget how perceptive our children are and how easily they will learn the value of honesty by watching us have genuine interest in their honesty. We probably see very well how incredibly smart or talented they are when they do something amazing, but instead of telling them how great they are, try noticing what they’ve done without placing any judgment on it before they do. It’s harder than it sounds, so here are some suggestions to get you started:

“Tell me about your picture.”
“It looks like you like jumping that high.”
“You must really like running fast.”
“You used the color yellow a lot.”

This is all our kids need to hear before they start telling us more about what they are doing and/or what they like about what they just did. They are already proud of themselves, and so they feel loved when they get to tell us more about it with complete openness. It takes a long time to listen to everything they have to say sometimes and you really have to ask yourself if you are honestly ready to hear a life-story about a blob of paint or a trip across the monkey bars before you start verbally noticing, but try it for just 5 min a day with your kids. The great thing about learning to ask for our kids’ honest feelings about something without placing any judgment is that it actually helps them to listen to us when we have something important to teach them. (This learning to listen to honesty works well with parents, and spouses, and co-workers, and bosses, too.) So, I dare you to try this and see if your relationship with your kids isn’t better within a few weeks . . . I mean, honestly.