The other day I read an article on a Canadian study done on children & lying. I will admit from the start, I HATE lying – both telling one myself & being told one. In raising my children, I made sure they knew that I would so much rather be told something they had done than that they would lie to me. Lying tears down relationship & trust.
Anyway, this article made me go ballistic. Here are quotes from the article so you may see for yourself just why I reacted:
- “Lying is part of child’s development, study confirms”
- “By age 4, 90 percent of the children in the study were capable of lying”
- “A Canadian study says children who lie are really just developing their intelligence.”
Do we now have no other way to gauge a child’s development and intelligence but to test their ability to lie? Do we no longer call out a lie & teach our children to be truthful? Are we to become afraid of hindering our children’s development & intelligence if we should punish them for lying? Seriously, this is all that I ran off on while reading this article.
OK, let’s back this up & define “lying”. Dictionary .com says….
“deliberately untruthful; deceitful; false: a lying report. Synonyms: deceptive, misleading, mendacious, fallacious; sham, counterfeit.”Â
There we have it. This is what our children will become if we fail to teach them to be truthful – they will deliberately be untruthful, they will be deceptive, they will mislead deliberately.
Scripture has a few things to say about lying…
   “Do not lie to each other.” (Colossians 3:9 NIV).
      “Keep your tongue from evil & your lips from speaking lies.” (Psalm 34:13 NIV).
         “..he who pours out lies will not go free.” (Proverbs 19:5 NIV).
The article went on to state:
“The director of the institute, Dr. Kang Lee, said parent’s should not be afraid that their children are going to turn out pathological liars if they catch them in a lie.
Kang called it a “developmental milestone.”
Sad to me that we can now call lying a “developmental milestone.” I either got spanked or punished for this milestone.
May we as parents (& grandparents) teach our children to be truthful. May we not be afraid to instill in them godly character. May our children be known for their honesty.
Scripture asks a most important question – “Who?” :
“Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?”       (Psalm 24:3 NLT).
Scripture also answers that question for us – “only those” :
“Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.” (Psalm 24:4 NLT)Â
Scripture also tells us what is to be gained in living this way – “they will receive & have” :
“They will receive the Lord’s blessing and have a right relationship with God their savior.” (Psalm 24:5 NLT)
This is why we teach our children & grandchildren to not tell lies. We want to see them achieve the “developmental milestone” of knowing Him, of receiving the Lord’s blessing & of being in right relationship with God.
The truth of God’s Word once again trumps any statistic!
       May we and our children climb the mountain of the Lord.
             
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