Is it OK for parents to lie to their kids?
Most parents seem to think so (as do other adults), and each has their own lies and justifications that they think are acceptable. And yet, if you were to lie to these parents, they’d feel disrespected and even outraged. So why do parents think it’s acceptable to lie to their children, and are they really doing it for the child’s benefit… or for their own convenience?
And even more importantly, how does lying impact the child’s development, confidence, and quality of life later on?

Dan’s Top Resources

Books

Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:

• The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
• Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
• The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle

Online courses

Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform

• Nice Guy Recovery: how to transform from a people pleaser into a confident beast.

• Shamelessness: how to relieve yourself of the “not good enough” story
• Powerful Honesty: takes you through step-by-step development of your communication skills to be more charismatic and powerful in your honesty
• The 3X Confidence and Authenticity Masterclass program: use the famous 3X Model to build confidence in all areas of life
• Financial Freedom for Beginners: includes everything from budgeting, to getting a raise, to investing in the stock market, to starting a side-business and more
• Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection… Permanently!: covers the psychology of “rejection” and what actions to take to make yourself immune to the fear of it

Full transcript (unedited):

Welcome back to brojo online. Today we’re going to talk about lying to children. It’s a touchy topic. I know this because I’ve posted about such things on social media and had a polarized response. Parents themselves are very sensitive about this topic. And society in general has very strong views. Everybody’s got a very strong view about honesty with children. Ranging completely from we can’t tell them anything, too, we should tell them everything. And of course, everything in between most people stray down towards the dishonesty end and my experience, so most people believe it is okay to lie to children in certain circumstances, perhaps even as much as you want. I’ve recently become a father myself, my daughter is just over 18 months old. And, you know, I was faced with this dilemma even when my wife was pregnant, like, am I going to be able to uphold this religious commitment I have to honesty as a father? Because while I’ve gotten to a place where where I can be totally honest with adults, all adults willing to lose anybody, really, at this point? Would I be able to do it when my own child might be very much emotionally disturbed? By my honesty, you might be hurt by it? Will I be able to do it in the face of judgment from other analysts? You know, if they observe me doing it and have lots to say, am I going to be able to hold strong in the face of that, and a lot of thought about this. So far, I am still committed to it. And I’m going to talk about why. And I’m going to be quite challenging in this podcast. As to all the parents out there who do think it’s okay to lie to their children for various reasons. I’m going to pull apart some of the common lies and some of the reasons behind it. And I’m going to challenge you to debunk my hypothesis that we should be honest with children all the time. I want to start with a little story. One of my wife’s friends, they were out yesterday, I think, together so the wife and the kids and everybody’s got their kids there and so on. Long story short, my wife’s friend told her little toddler that he could not have any ice cream because they had run out of the thing you want to caramel flavor. You know, they don’t have any left. Because you wanted them to eat healthy soul bay or something. I don’t know the full story. Anyway, almost minute, within a minute of her saying this little lie. They hadn’t run out. She just didn’t want the kid to complain about not getting caramel ice cream or whatever she was trying to accomplish. Somebody walks past I think some sort of shopkeeper actually offering the caramel ice cream. Like, would you guys like to buy some of this? I don’t know exactly how that plays out. I didn’t see it sounds weird that someone’s offering ice cream. But basically, the point is that the child saw clearly that there’s caramel ice cream available in abundance. And even though he’s very young toddler, still kind of nonverbal he can ask for stuff and are very well. You know, a wife described the child is having this moment of realizing he’s been lied to. He’s kind of pointing at the ice cream and then pointing at mo this confused kind of frustrated noise he’s making. You can basically almost hear him saying like, Hey, you said they didn’t have any they do have any What the fuck? Right? And what he’s doing even though he’s unsophisticated, and his brain is not fully developed, you know, the child’s clearly seeing shit. She knew there was caramel ice cream. But she told me there was on what just happened here. What did she just do? For all we know there could be his very first experience of awareness of being lied to. And not just being lied to being lied to by his own mother. Right now that story is very representative of the kind of lies that parents commonly tell their kids right these little done for convenience, avoid the hassle lies there that almost any parent will justify to you. And say like, it’s just gotta be done. They’re hassling me all day, you’ll see when you become a parent need another verb, right? They always have a big story as to why it’s okay to lie, which in itself is a red flag if you had to explain yourself that much to justify your behavior is really good chance you’ve breached your own value code, right? Generally when you live by your own principles you don’t explain she just lay it as well as it’s the right thing to do. But when you have to go wide so because of reason a unreason be in this form of logic, and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, what about ism and so on, you have to do this big fucking ramble to get yourself off the hook, then, you know, you fucked up, deep down. So, what we’re gonna explore today was essentially that story can be kind of like, a reference point, was it okay for her to do that? So let’s define terms here. What am I asking is? Is it okay? To lie to a chart? Now the two terms we need to define as Okay, and lying, right? When I say is it okay? What I mean is, does it improve the long term quality of life? And if it’s not, okay, it would somehow harm their long term quality of life, okay, for so for something to be okay. It has to improve their long term quality of life, or at the very least not harm their long term quality of life. Okay, very least it must have no impact for it to be okay. Preferably, we’re looking for something they actually like, the result of it is their life is better in the long run. Okay. So when I say it’s okay to lie, you’re saying the lie improves their life, not yours. There’s, okay. We say it’s okay to lie to children. We’re not saying it’s okay for you. Even though that itself could be a whole podcast, challenging the effect it has on you, in fact, maybe I’ll touch on that a little bit in this podcast, but we’re really looking at the impact on the child because when someone says it’s okay to lie to a child, in various words, they justify a lie. What they’re saying is that the child benefits from the somehow this is good for them, like some noble thing you’re doing, like, I’m not doing this for me my convenience, I’m doing it to help my poor little child. Right? So okay, means that they life has improved, not just in the short term, they’re not just made happy now, for some big cost later. But longer term, they’re going to be a stronger, more confident, more successful, more healthy, whatever measure of quality you want, they’re gonna have more of it, at least a little bit. And lying, lying is to be deliberately untruthful, okay as to know, or at least think you know, what the truth is and your head, and to say something else, and to advocate for an idea that is different to that. Alright, to say something you don’t believe yourself, essentially, it’s not the same as mistakenly being untruthful. So being wrong, but thinking you’re right, is actually a form of honesty. Or if you think this is real, when you say it, like if I believe the Earth is flat, and I say the earth is flat, I’m wrong. But I’m being honest, because I do believe that the earth is flat. I mean, I don’t personally though, it’s just an example. But lying is like, I know that the Earth is round, but then I’ll tell someone, it’s flat. So it says deliberate adjustment of information you have in your head to portray a false image by your own belief system. Now, honesty is not the same as being truthful. Okay, so being truthful, would be defined as giving any and all information. So if you ask me, for my credit card details, being truthful, would be giving you my credit card details, or I’ll give you the exact information you’ve asked for that’s truthfulness, being honest, would be saying, I don’t trust you with my credit card details. Because that’s how I feel about the question. That’s how I feel about the information you’re trying to give me. So honesty is much more about what you feel is most true for you, then it is about facts and figures. All right. So I could be honest, by saying I don’t want to give you the information, that actually honesty, and truthfulness is just giving you the information. So know the difference, because some people get really fucked up about this. Honesty is saying what you believe is most true for you is not saying the actual data, necessarily, though, quite often, there’s no overlap. Sometimes what you feel is most true is also the most objectively true in terms of data. So they come out as the same thing of the person who’s selling me something else. For my credit card details, I’ll just give them my credit card details, right? Because it lines up. And lying is not the same as fiction. Okay? If you think of a magician, and he does a sleight of hand thing, you’re like, Oh, my God, the cards disappeared. The whole setup of the show and magic in general was you know that it’s an illusion. It’s a fiction that the card magically disappeared. You know, some trick was pulled on you, but you’re okay with that. Whereas if you go back a few 100 years, the guy pulls the same trick and pretends to be God, that’s lying. Right? And the guy says, look, it’s just an illusion. I’m a magician. That’s not lying. That’s fiction. When we watch a movie, when we watch the Lord of the Rings. We’re not like fuck this hobbits documentary is off the hook. Right? We know it’s not real. That’s fiction. So it’s not a lie. It’s fiction to imagination. You know, when we’re playing with our child. Hold on, we’re drinking imaginary tea from the imaginary tea cups. We’re not like, but this is real tea. What do you see it? Right? We all know there’s no tea there, the kid knows it too. We’re playing, it’s different. But there’s there’s a blurry line, perhaps between fiction and lying. We’ll talk about this, I think about Santa Claus as an example, coming up. And this is a line many parents find difficult to walk, which is where playful fiction is actually served as the truth. And I’m going to explain later that that does not need to happen. You can have fiction without line. So hopefully, that’s enough to get the terms out of the way. What kind of light the parents tell the kids have to think about if you’re a parent, or of course, you’ve had a parent, or caregiver of some kind. What is lying from the adult to the child look like? What Allies did you receive as a child? Or lies? Were you told? Or were sort of implied? And if you’re an adult now, and especially if you’re a parent, now, what lies Do you tell? What things do you say to children that are not totally true? And you know it? More importantly, when do you deliberately deceived them into believing something you know, is not true? When do you tell them? You know, they’ve run out of ice cream? You know, they haven’t run out of ice cream? What kind of lies Do you tell? There’s some classic ones I’ve just listed here. There’s, as I mentioned before, like the fiction lies, Santa Claus, some religious stories, perhaps, things that you as an adult know, aren’t true. But in the kind of stumble of trying to have fun with a fiction, you actually cross the line into lying, you let the kid believe that Santa is real. Rather than having Sanders like a game you play at Christmas time. Right? You think of the difference between giving them a gift like who this is from Santa who? Who put this here? Did he come down the chimney and leave the kid actually think that happened? That’s lying. Well, when you actually get the kid like, Okay, well, this one to Mommy, let’s write from Santa Ana. Okay, that one can be a Santa one. And you can play the Santa game. No, is it everyone’s playing Santa Santa more represents like, you don’t know who the gift came from. That’s the fun of the game. You can do that. Just like they know. You know, they watch frozen. They know that Allah or whatever. Stupid. Singing checkers, you know, they know that she’s not a real person. But they love her just the same. Right? Kids are able to simultaneously hold fiction and honesty. Right? They know, they can play that’s why they can play make believe. That’s where they make the adults talk to each other not like oh, we show my dogs alive. Fucking call them NASA. You know, they’re not like they’re like, Yeah, boba. And then when they finished playing, there’s like the trickle away. They obviously don’t think it’s a baby. Right? So kids can play with fiction. But often adults struggle to play with fiction, they turn fiction into lies. They like sell it. Rather than you know, if they get some difficult questions going. Yeah, of course, it’s bullshit, which is having fun, Jill. As I mentioned in the story example, the idea that things are unavailable or can’t be done as a lie to kind of get out of providing something, or to avoid usually to avoid a tantrum kind of thing, isn’t it? So? The kid asked for something and you say, No, I can’t give you that that thing is not available. We can’t do it now. Well, that’s not the truth. And you know what? It could be done you just rather not. So rather than saying this, my preference to say no to you, you’re actually saying, hey, it’s out of my hands out of my control, nothing I can do. Leave me the fuck alone. So there’s a kind of lie where you’re basically portraying a powerlessness you say, I don’t have the power to do anything in this situation, when actually you do. So is that kind of lie? That’s a very, very, very common one. And, you know, it’s a forgivable, and we’ll talk we’ll talk about trying to be realistic here. But I don’t think it needs to be done. There’s a similar lie where you say things are bad. And this is a much more dangerous lie. You say things are bad or harmful or wrong, when actually what you mean is they’re just inconvenient. For example, playing on a playground, you might say, No, you can’t go up the fall off and break your neck. So now actually, if they fell worse, they land on the padding stuff and just hurt a bit. But you can’t be bothered sticking around, like watching them while they climb up that big, scary thing. That’s what you really mean. Or you’re the one who’s afraid of heights. And you’re just predicting that onto them, but not actually that they should be afraid of heights. They can’t handle it just because you can handle. So that’s the idea. You sell something as harmful, when actually it’s just inconvenient to you. Or you believe it’s harmful, maybe but you can also understand that hey, other kids are doing it just fine. Like maybe I’m the one who’s fucked up here. And this one as, again, that happens a lot I see, especially the more anxious helicopter type parents do this one. And you paint a world for the child that lots of things are very harmful and bad and wrong. Paint a lot of guilt and shame about wanting things in a paint a lot of confusion about why can that could do and I can’t Well, that kid’s parents doesn’t care about them, blah, blah, you know. And in reality, you just can’t be bothered. That’s the sad truth of it is most time you just can’t be bothered. You might be very tired, of course, and so on, we’ll talk about that. But you’re not, you’re not being honest, this thing is not harmful, that the kid now believes it’s harmful. And I’ll let that sort of plant a seed in your head, like, what’s it going to do to them in the long term, when they believe and harmful things are harmful when they’re afraid of things that aren’t dangerous parents disguising feelings. You know, there’s this kind of mythology, and parenting advice where you can’t let your kids see that you’re struggling. Don’t let them see that you’re stressed or anxious or depressed or angry. Don’t let them or the opposite. You know, don’t let them see that you’re proud of them. They’d be very happy for their success, as you know, spoil them. Don’t coddle them, right. Make them fucking earn it. There’s this thing where you you show a different emotion on your face and you’re feeling on the inside. That’s definitely a form of lying. Right? You might not be saying I feel so on but you’re definitely controlling your body language. And body language is language. So you are speaking just not what words. Promises. Maybe this is the number one, the amount of times parents out of desperation to get their kid to shut the fuck up. Just promise something, then they will do it later. You know, that kind of promise like, Hey, if you’re good, this will happen. This kind of thing. They’re like their rewards coming. So relax right now, please. But knowing that you really have no control over the future. It’s amazing how often promises are broken by parents because they promise something that they really can’t, you know, we’ll go see grandma later art tins or grandma’s Ella town. You know, they make promises that they can’t deliver on it only takes a few of those right to officially be in the land of broken promises. If you’ve been a child yourself, ask yourself how did you feel when your parents broke promises? That no matter what the promise was about, the matter if it’s big or small, was it just mattered that it was broken? In the last little one I’ve got on my my notes here is justification for arbitrary rules. A lot of the rules that parents play to their kids, the parents themselves don’t even know why they do it. It’s just culture. They were raised with these rules themselves, or the parents told them about it. Their anxiety just provokes them into creating a rule. And if you actually ask them, like, what’s the justification for their rule? Why is that thing not allowed? They would struggle with define it. You know, a classic one is you can’t go swimming within 30 minutes of eating, right? Who made that up? There’s no reason for that role to exist. You can be in the water eating, it’s fine. At worst, you might get a few bubbles on the stomach cramp up and drown. That’s not going to happen. It’s not why do you have that role? You know, the rules are you can’t can’t read books after you go to bed. Why not? Do you know why? Do you have a good like biological reason as to how reading after they go to bed harms them in some way? Or do you just think that should be a rule? Right? But when you’re challenged, and the kid goes, What’s up with this rule? In some way, shape or form? You gotta come up with a good story, don’t you? You’ll cramp up and drown. Your eyes will get sore, you know, that kind of thing. So you come up with these lies to justify rules that you don’t even have a good like justification for me put it this way. If you have to lie to justify a rule then you don’t know why you have the rule. Otherwise you just tell the truth. Right. Now there’s many more types of lies probably I put these notes together pretty quickly. But I’m sure at this point have either touched at least one lie that you’ve had as a child or when lie that you’ve delivered as Nan or more. And partly this is this podcast is just a call these things lying. You might not have called them lying in your head. You might call it sort of a parenting strategy, you know, or safety technique or something or just not call it anything in here just kind of skittered away from it avoided acknowledging what it is, but let’s call it what it is. It’s you fucking lying to your kids. That’s what it is. So at least call it that if nothing as of you if you receive nothing else from this podcast. If you disagree with everything else, I say fine, but do not call being dishonest to kids anything other than like, that’s what it is. It’s what you call it if someone did it to you. Right? That’s what you’d call it if the context was different, and you were the victim of it. So that’s what it is, you’re a liar. You’re lying parent. So why is there a good reason? It’s fine. Now. Why do parents lie? I think it’s there’s lots of reasons. And of course, for each parent, there’s a different set of motivations, you know, different drivers, some do so out of a sense of anxiety, safety, others do so because it’s just what they’ve been taught to others do serve as a kind of malicious form of control. Others do so just sort of unconscious laziness. So let’s have a look at some of those reasons. I think one of the main ones is actually just social conditioning. What you’ll find is the type of lying and the intensity of lying that you see with parents and their children matches those around them and matches the country they’re in or the culture that thrown you know, you’ll find in some cultures say African tribal cultures especially that there’s very little like, gets it just given the cold hard truth right from the beginning. Because you know, they’re gonna die if they live in a fucking fantasy world, right? They got lions to deal with and shit. Like they can’t be allowed this nice big tap the loves us I know, that’s thing a repeat of fucked up pieces do Do not play with their cat, right? They have to be really straight up. Or they’ve elected to be very straight up. You got ancient cultures that are well documented as being very honest, you know, the stoics. And the Spartans. Were they’re like, no, no, you got to be hard. You got to face the world on the world’s terms. We’re not We’re not raising pasta. Yes, bitches here. Right. And so they have been very honest as a culture. And then you get cultures like, I don’t know, all of Western society, right? The UK, Sweden, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, you have so many cultures where it’s expected to lie. And in fact, there are generational lies like the Santa Claus fiction being turned into a lie. Religious fictions being turned into a lie. There’s these like lies that were passed on. I live in the Czech Republic, and there’s so many traditions. It’s a very, very traditional culture. You know, some of its Catholics almost just shut they made up. And every single parent pretty much sells the same lies that they got as a kid to their appearances as one where there’s this weird festival where this thing dresses up as a demon and goes around scaring the shit out of kids you know, you get your best friend adored or whatever your uncle and you know, promises to fucking take them away and kill them if they bad this year. And then if they’re good, they get lollies it’s very similar to the Santa Claus lie. They don’t have Santa here and check that baby Jesus and steer but they got this thing. He’s good like the to show something. And he like he’ll punish bad kids. And then like an angel fairy comes and gives lollies to the good kids. And you know, these kids, like they’re shaking with fear. They’re terrified. And it’s not no joke. They think there’s a real fucking monster in the house, the costumes are pretty convincing. And it’s supposed to scare them straight and the adults are laughing about it. And I’m watching horror. I’m like, You are fucking traumatizing these kids with this bullshit. What the fuck. And it happened to them, and then they pass it on. I think it’s okay. And there’s lots of little eyes that we pass on as part of our social conditioning. And then there’s just the general social conditioning, say politeness, professionalism, all the types of lies that we’re told we must do to create social harmony. Most people bring those home with them, don’t they? They teach their kids to be polite, you know, say sorry, even though you’re not. What does that but like, right? You know, ask for something when you say, you know, say please, and thank you say thank you, even if you’re not grateful, right? Say please, even if you believe you’re entitled to it, right? We get told lots of lies. They’re just part of the social culture around us. And if you go to another country, like the Zulu warriors, for example, they don’t even have the word for sorry. You know, they don’t even have a word for Thank you, then don’t bother with shit like that. There’s my politeness. You just say what it is, right? I really liked that culture, by the way. So you’ve got that kind of social conditioning. Why else you got the problem of instant gratification, which I think is probably the number one driver because it’s the number one driver of most behavior, which is it’s just easier right now to lie. The least you believe so? Right? There’s an instant win. If you lie right now you get an instant relief from suffering or pleasure. Essentially, you go and make the kid happy or you can stop them from whining with the lie. And so I think the problem of instant gratification is the number one cause of lie. The flip side of that is the drive towards instant gratification. is a drive away from hassle, right? Emotional hassle effort. So really the number one reason that parents lie. And if they’re just honest with themselves, I would see this, it’s not for the kids benefit, it’s for their own instant gratification just to relieve hassle or avoid hassle. They’re just trying to save time and save effort. Now they’re making a big mistake, because it’s going to cost them way more time and effort in the future. You know, there was a very bad investment, instant gratification. But that’s, I think, the real reason that most parents lie most of the time. And it’s these kinds of lies, the instant gratification lies also the ones they’re most likely to justify as being some sort of noble thing that helps the child like, the more it is about you, the more you’re trying to make it about the child do I have to recognize some parents out there who, while they lie to their kids, they at least don’t lie to themselves and others about why they’re doing it, you know, then I’m pretenders for the child Hill, I need this, you know, Vulcan string, get a break from this crazy little kid, you know. So at least those ones who are honest with themselves are halfway towards fucking enlightenment, you know, at least they’re not lying to themselves. And then they got a chance to figure out a way to be honest with the kids, and prevent the distraction that comes from being dishonest. Unconscious lying, it’s got to be a big reason. I think a lot of people lie in this kind of barely aware way, you know, patterns of lying, people who tend to guilt trip to get what they want, for example, there’s ever way it just pops out. And if they stopped to think about they go, that’s not true, because they don’t stop to think about it just pops out. They even sort of, you know, I got this working with criminal offenders, they’ll convince themselves of the lie, before they tell it to others, or as they tell it to others, they kind of accepted as true themselves. So if we go back to the story at the beginning, you know, say the out of caramel ice cream, you know that there’s some parents who will actually think that’s kind of truth. You know, they don’t really stop and think much about it. But they’ll say it and they’ll have a sense of they’re telling the truth, right? Because they just unconscious of the line. It’s a vague thing, it’s hard to define, but you know, when you’re doing it, when afterwards, you’re like, Oh, that was bullshit. But it didn’t feel like you’re talking shit at the time did it. And as I mentioned before, there’s the parents who confuse fiction with lying. They want to have fun. They want to create, you know, an imaginary world with their child. They want their child to have a good imagination and play. But they can’t seem to figure out how to do that without lying. They don’t seem to figure out how to how do you do things that are pretend? Which is different to lying, you know, and the child world who are pretending is like we know we’re lying for fun, magic, storytelling, fictional, you know, characters, imaginary friends, you know, this is pretending you know, I’m this princess and you’ll or Superman or whatever. That’s pretending. Right? But there’s some parents who really struggled do that without going there’s literally is theories living at the bottom of the garden look, see, look? Oh, yeah, you missed it. Right. And that’s, it feels like playing, but they don’t realize, hey, the kid actually thinks he’s fucking theories as kids loving an absolute fixture right now. Like, this kid is living in illusion that I just created. They’re not part of the illusion, they’re actually sucked into I just conned them. Right? They’re not creating with me. You know, they’re stuck in my creation. That’s a big difference. And it’s one way to think about the difference between creating fiction with your child and tricking your child into believing affection. That’s not creating with. Alright, that’s imposing on. So it’s a different I think a big one, at least that parents tell themselves is that they’re trying to protect their child. Rather than prepare the child, this is you know, helicopter parenting is the new trend, isn’t it? From what I can tell over the last couple of decades helicopter parenting has really taken off, it’s kind of combination of increased anxiety and people in general, plus parents sort of having more time to be available and having kids later and being better prepared and set up so that they can spend more time with their kids actually leads to them not having a sort of healthy amount of neglect for the child you know, they’re there all the time doing everything for them, keeping them safe at all costs. And they’ll often use lying is one of the safety strategies you know, often to keep the child from doing something harmful. You can go into that drawer because the sharp things in there will cut you to pieces right or you can’t climb up there because it’s got poison in it, you know, whatever. These lies we tell to stop them from doing dangerous things. Rather than like, you know, ghost slowly as you climb up there, because those berries up there are poisonous, so just climb around them, which is preparing the kid rather than protecting them. Right. So there’s a big difference between preparing and protecting. And lying is often done to protect rather than prepare truth is used to prepare. And I think one of the reasons it’s just got to be acknowledged here is parents themselves can’t handle the truth. They find the truth, painful, scary offensive, and they project onto the child that same fragility. So look at the child thing, if that’s how I feel about truth, they’re going to be the poor little thing, she’s going to even hurt more without realizing if you stop and listen to kids, especially if you listen, talk to each other. Like fuck, they better handling the truth. And we are right there right there. They’re autistic as fuck when the little you know what I mean? Like, they just go straight for the fucking target. They’re quite happy, though. They’ll call you fat. If you’re getting gaining weight, do you know what I mean? And they’ll point to their own fat, if they’re gaining weight, like they, they have no fear of the truth until we teach them that we project, the fear that we’ve learned onto them, which is of course what ends up giving them the fear. And then the next batch comes through and around and around we go. Right? But we’ve got to stop thinking that it’s because we’re afraid of something that the child must be as to children are so much tougher than we give them credit for the tougher than us, the tougher physically, you know, just watch how much they fall over smash themselves round, and how much of a song and dance you’d make if that was you. So the tougher physically, they might look smaller and clumsy, but they’re tougher. They can handle way more pain than adults can. And they tougher mentally and socially, right? Anything you see them suffering for from, you know, an adult in the same position, an average adult would be much more devastated by it. Right? So even if the kid is in pain, it’s nothing compared to what the average fragile adult of the modern society would be like. But we think that they’re even weaker than us because they’re smaller and more dependent to an illusion. So quite often we go, okay, why can’t handle the truth, so I better even double down for them, because they’re going to be even worse, rather than actually, they’re tougher than me. So we have lots of reasons. Some of them appear to be noble, others are just straight up bullshit. We have lots of reason for lying to kids. But you know, what reason we don’t have making the life better in the long term. It’s very hard. And I want you to stop and think right now. Try to come up and in your head one lie. You could tell a child, they’re better prepares them to be a confident, healthy adult, then the truth would? Or should I say, then honesty would? Right? Let’s say you don’t want to tell them the graphic details of how sex is done. Fair enough. Right? There is age appropriate levels of detail, for sure. But you don’t have to tell them a story about a bird bringing the baby in. Right, you can tell them an age appropriate version of the truth. If you think of honesty being as like a spectrum you can least be on the spectrum. You know, the higher up the spectrum you go the sort of more honest, you get to get more details to get more graphic, yet more brutal and harsh. But down the lower end of people sort of just being introduced to the truth. You can still be honest, just it’s more vague. less detailed, less brutal, more kind of generalized, but still true. You know, I think of like, what am I going to do if Chloe asks where babies come from? I’m going to be like from mommy’s tummies. Right? The baby grows inside the tummy. Well, how does it get there? And I’ll tell them, Well, you know, when a mommy and a daddy get together, they can make a baby together? How do they do that? Or you’ll find out later. You can always give them information without giving them all the information. But at no point do you have to actually lie? Do you have to actually deceive? While we believe that we should? Like I said, try and think of a lie that isn’t better and some form of honesty for the long term confidence and health? Because I’ll tell you one. There’s a little kind of analogy or I don’t know what do you call it? A reference point that you can use being the last kid in school to find out right now, it’s hard for us adults to remember being in school, you know, most of us block it out because we’re so fucking awful and traumatic. But there’s a certain thing where there’s information flying around the kids, right? The kids are developing as they get older and they’re learning about truths and they share these truths with each other. And soon kids find out the truth first and certain kids find it out last and and almost without exception, they couldn’t find it out last as the loser, the kid who finds out first as the hero, right? I remember when one of the kids at school knew what the term winking, which was masturbation, if you’re not from New Zealand, new other doing ranking meds and wouldn’t tell any of the rest of us just lorded it over us. It’s like your wanker. Say yes or no. And you’re like, fuck it. I know which one to choose? Yes, I knew you’re going. Right? Well, fuck. What’s the wind? Good. Tell us. You know. And then of course, the last kid to know What a wanker is ego. That was his nickname from the urinal. Nobody ever told him. You know what I mean? The last kid to find out that Santa Claus isn’t real as a kid that gets bullied and teased, right? Last good to know what sex really is the last kid to use any swear words. So on. The last kid left is ostracized and punished socially, generally speaking, at the very least, they’re teased. And at the very least, they feel a sense of unfairness and injustice. How come all these other kids got to find out? Why did I have to wait? Why wasn’t I allowed to know? Is the same with doing stuff? Why don’t all the other kids get to watch TV? And I don’t that was one of mine from my childhood, you know, they’ll be talking about shows let me see transformers of like, yeah, so transgenders, or whatever they call you. That was good show. Right? Like, I have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. I felt very left out. And just mostly I just felt it’s very unfair, like, what’s up with the strictness of my house? Like, why don’t why don’t these kids get to do whatever they want compared to me. But more importantly, with the information, information is just kids just telling each other stuff all the time, most of it’s bullshit. It’s, you know, kids lie. But when somebody finds out something interesting, like, every boy remembers when the first boy that they knew, found out what sex was, and you’re gathered in a circle, like, tell us how it’s done. Is it rubbing bellies together? Is that what it is? The kiss each other? That sounds yuck. Right? And you get all the details. And that’s like an epic lunchtime when somebody drops the dime on that thing. But being the last kid left, being left out of that information, why don’t you put yourself in the emotional position of being that kid? Because whatever you lie to your kid about, for whatever reason, that’s what you’re setting them up to be? You’re delaying them finding out all they’re gonna find out. There’s no fucking 40 year old who still believes in Santa Claus, right? There’s no adult who thinks that the ice cream place actually runs out of caramel, they know it doesn’t. Right. So at some point, what Eva lies, you’ve told them, at some point in their life, they’re going to know that that was a lie. And that means two things. One is, you’re putting them at risk of being the last one. So you put them at risk of social punishment, which as a kid, and a teenager is a big fucking deal. It’s Lord of the Flies ship, right? You do not want to be the bottom of the hierarchy. And being the kid who has the least amount of information is a good way to end up in the bottom of the hierarchy. But secondly, you tell them a lie in one of the things you tell yourself, as they don’t know, unlike what you’ve really got to be telling yourself as they don’t know, I’m lying yet. But they’re going to every single fucking lie, you tell your kid. There’ll be some point if they live long enough, where they’re going to become aware that you lied. Sometimes it’s those epic ones that don’t come out until you’re like in your 40s or 50s is like, what? Dead? cheated. I knew. That’s why I went on that holiday. Fuck, you know, and you got these big lies are like a family secret, they still come out, they still fucking come out. I’ve found out about all sorts of weird shit about my family in my 30s. Right? They couldn’t keep it hidden forever. It comes out, you have to assume whatever lie you’re telling them big or small, it will be revealed and time. If enough time passes lies have a way of coming out, don’t they? Can you think of a single secret you’ve managed to keep all to yourself? This long, very few of you will have one. And even if you do you think you’ll have it as a secret but other people do know. So let’s say you’re definitely going to get caught out and you’re putting them at risk of social ostracism. Let’s see what’s the impact of lying, loss of trust. Trust is very fragile thing. And takes only an incident one incident to destroy years of trust. You’ll know this because you’ve experienced it on both ends of the fence. One time it takes to be let down before your sense of trust and that person is permanently damaged and changed forever. At the very least thing Well, it’s at least that thing I can’t trust them with. And other times it’s much more severe. Like I can’t trust them at all. I don’t even know who they really are. When your kid finds out and this is actually you can look up the data, there’s research that verifies this when your kid finds out that Santa Claus isn’t real. And the reason the Santa Claus lie is used so often is because it’s often the first time the kid goes, Whoa, my parents are full of shit. So first time that they, because they usually as soon as soon as you know, somewhere between five and 10, when they find out Santa Claus isn’t real. And so they’re old enough and have enough sense of critical thinking to just comprehend how big that lie is. Especially when other kids make fun of them for still believing it. When they get there, kind of like whoa, I was allowed to get to the point where I’m embarrassed and humiliated in my social circle. My parents let that happen. And they knew it. They knew all along. They weren’t like thinking that Santa Claus is real. They knew. They knew he wasn’t. And they had me believing him all the way into my back and friends called me a fairy, you know? What the fuck? And it’s maybe not in those conscious thoughts, but they just have this kind of rude awakening. Wow, my parents actually are full of shit. Now, a lot of kids have this earlier. Like that little kid I told you about in the story. He’s already had it. Like she said, there’s no caramel, but there was caramel. What the fuck happened there. Now he doesn’t have the word lying in his little vocabulary yet. But he has a sense of it, the sense of wrongness, and their shame and guilt that comes with having been deceived successfully anybody’s been manipulated and conned that guilt you get really are Fuck, I can’t believe they got one over on me we lose trust in your inability to judge things is trust in yourself. So the real trust damage isn’t just the trust in your relationship with them, which is severe. Even on a small lie being caught out. The trust is severe. That goes from there always true to me to at least sometimes they aren’t. And I don’t know when because I didn’t even know they’re lying. So I can trust anything they say now. Right? But also the kid goes Fuck, I can’t judge people accurately. I thought they’re telling the truth. I was wrong. Do I know anything? Can you see how self confidence issues start? And we what is a self confidence issue? It’s an inability to trust yourself. And how do you lose that ability? Why is it that little toddlers and babies trust themselves? Look at if I can hit strong, you know, they’re crazy. And they they’ll go and try anything do anything. They got full faith in themselves? How do they lose it? Because people fucking lie to them. And then they don’t trust themselves anymore. They’re gonna like judge people Why didn’t know I was being lied to. It’s different. If a kid knows they’ve been lied to that scares full of shit. They can trust themselves. Then you want to set your killer for the future? You want them to be good at spotting a liar or bad Ed? Do you want to successfully lie to them many, many times before they catch on? Or do you want to help them understand that people lie and show them how to figure out when it’s happening? What sets them up better for the future? You being a liar? Are you helping them find out who’s a liar, gaslighting that new trendy term. And this is I think, at the heart of why I’m in business as a coach, children being gaslighted children being made to believe realities that don’t exist, be made doubt their own reality. Children who think they’re not good enough, for example, they don’t get there from the truth they get there from lies. You think I can’t give my kid honest feedback because it will hurt his feelings. So no, no, no. You send them up to think he’s good at something. Wait till he gets fucking taken out. Have you ever watched American Idol? Right? The ones that go up and crash and burn. You know what the same story is? Love family. pseudos Great Bay encouraged me to be here. Your family fucking lied to you and set you up to be humiliated in front of millions of people. Was it loving? Is a good parenting is it? Because if my parents did that to me, I’d never speak to them again. So we allow children to believe a reality that doesn’t exist. Either to hold them down or to try and prop them up. And all we do is guarantee that later on, they have severe insecurities that they have no idea what’s real. They don’t know what’s strong in themselves and what’s weak. They don’t know how to work with it. Because nobody gave them any fucking feedback and preparedness for reality. Everybody’s felt that leaving high school when they go into the adult world he is like, Oh, just hit by a train like fuck, I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. But the helmet taxes was the guy on the bus yell Yeah, I mean, what the fuck is going on? Right? Most of us, either going into adult hood is like a relief because our childhoods are so traumatic and terrible. But for the majority of us, going on to the adult world is just a huge slap in the face. It feels like we’re starting over again. We are so fucking unprepared. You know? I mean, how many times were you conned in your early 20s? You know, you signed up to the stupid phone plan or you bought a car on really bad, like, payment terms or whatever, you know? Like, how many times have you just duped in your 20s? Before you caught on to like, how vicious the world is? And how many people out there to harm you? And how you you know how hard it is to take care of yourself. Now you got to negotiate things and what’s truly an opportunity what’s really a risk and knows how to you had to learn that the hard way in your 20s Why the fuck Didn’t you learn that before you were 10? Because you could learn that before you’re 10 my fucking daughter is going to know about the ship before she’s 10 My daughter is going to learn how the world works, right? And how to navigate and how to be successful in it. Why don’t you only find out when you were 20 or 30? Or maybe still haven’t found out? Maybe still struggling to navigate? You feel like a child amongst adults swimming in a fucking ocean that’s too deep for you? Do you feel like there is a reason your parents lied to you? That’s why and you weren’t prepared for how the world is. Zulu warrior kids are fucking prepared. There’s no focus hunting their first lion before they turn 16 They’re prepared? Do they know what’s going on? Right? How come our kids would fall apart at the thought of even going on a safari disconnection from parents and authority. And this is one like, if up until now you’ve been like, I’m gonna lie for my own selfish reasons, at least you’re willing to lose your kid for it. Just to avoid a bit of hassle, you’re willing to have a loss of your child. Do you know how many children are disconnected from their parents as they become adults? You know, how their relationship is just they’ve got better relationships with their work colleagues than they do with their parents. I mean, how many people is that true for how many people the only reason they maintain contact with their parents is out of a guilty sense of fucked up love and obligation. And it’s not because I really liked this person. I’m really looking, they might go to bed, very few people, their parents or their go to person. But for the few who are you know why? Because the parents are honest. I know a few people were like, if they’ve got a problem, the number one person they’re going to turn to as their mother or their father. And in most cases, that person was very honest, I have a very honest parent, who probably got a lot of shit as a kid was being raised. Because as I unconventional, I want to stay where they are, you’re supposed to be their parent, not their friend, blah, blah. Later on, it’s like, well, now my kid is my friend. Hey, like them apples, right? We hang out together as adults was your kid. They become disconnected from authority. Right? They start to go okay, parents lie to me. Teachers lie to me, politicians lie to me. Or I fuck all of us. Right? I mean, it certainly will happen to me. And they got no chance of like really repairing that the damage is done too badly. It’s a similar thing to like, say racism. You know, if you got beaten up by a lot of black kids, when you’re younger, it’s very hard to get over there and get back there wasn’t a race thing. I was just about where I lived. You know, the damage is so strong. It’s hard to undo the hate was the same if you’ve been lied to by people a position of authority. Later on, it becomes very hard for you to trust an authority figure. So how are we supposed to have functioning governments for majority of people raise to thinking like, I can’t trust any adults fucking mean I’ll vote but they’re all full of shit. I mean, most people do. They don’t know they function in society, knowing that politicians are full of shit knowing that the people who govern them are followship. And they’ve come to a place where they are Fuck it. Everyone’s for shit. Anyway. So again, you know, let’s get some honest people in here. There are honest people, I do trust authority, people who are honest. And people don’t even have like, they think that’s a fucking pipe dream. Right? There’s no honest politicians, right? So if one even did come through, they would never get the vote. Because they’re not damaging. Of course, we the child who’s lied to more often lies more themselves. There’s strong research that shows for example that very strict parents and you find strict parents are generally quite dishonest you know, lots of arbitrary rules. Lots of can’t do this because Lie Lie Lie. so on. Those kids lie more themselves because the only way the kid can have a life as by fucking lie. Yeah. And you know, I’m a child of strict parenting. And I became a master liar. I lived a lie, create an entire performance that got away with things. So if you want Your Kid To be honest, how’s your role modeling, you know, you gotta understand, they’re never going to be better than whatever you’re showing. So if you’re lying to them, you’re saying be a liar. And there’s so many of you give your kids mixed information and you, you punish them for lying to you. And you do lie to them all the time. What the fuck? At the very least, we’re gonna be really hard on this point. If you even tell the tiniest of white lies to your child, do not ever punish them for lying. They’re so fucking hypocritical. Right? If they lie to you to get out of trouble, you should be like, well, bravo, because that’s what I would have done. In fact, that is what I do. Because you lie to them to get out of trouble, right? You, you lie to them to avoid hassle and inconvenience and emotional difficulty in hard conversations. That’s your version of trouble. And you lie to get out of that. So when they do the same thing, you should be fucking patting them on the back and giving them an ice cream because they living just like mommy and daddy does. If you don’t feel comfortable with what I’ve just said, Stop fucking lying to your kids. And they feel strongly about this. Of course, one of the worst ones along the lines of gaslighting is children start to make decisions based on untruths. You know, you tell them a lie like you can’t make money as a musician. That’s definitely a lie. The richest people in the world Latin great many of them are musicians. And so they go well, I love music, but I can’t make money as a musician. So I guess I’ll be an accountant, and go have a miserable fucking life. That gives me a midlife crisis and cause me to commit suicide when I’m 46. I’m not exaggerating, that is what happens. All right, I’m right in the thick of the Exxon working with these people. You could they you lied to the my client and 20 years. Right? I know what’s going on? I know what happens to them. I know what happens to your relationship with them. I know how fucking off track they get. Because I’ll tell you what I’ve never had as a client whose parents were honest. Because that person doesn’t ever need coach. That person grows up confident. And I don’t mean honest as a noob, or brutally harsh to your child, because that’s not honesty being critical all the time as an honesty. When did you last acknowledge their strengths? How do you know you’re right about that criticism, so on. For most of you, you’re just dishonest with your kids. And they’re going to make decisions based on this fictional reality that you’ve created for them. And they’re going to live that and then they’re going to break down later because it sucks. They live in a world that sucks. And you help create that by lying to them when they’re too young to understand what lying even was. And of course, they do what you’ve done. They become a lying parent themselves. In the legacy continues. I’ve been pretty harsh and I write all the other you know, there’s a kind of new wave of parenting stuff. The I think it’s well intentioned. We basically get this messaging like it’s okay to fuck up. Right? And that’s probably good messaging overall. You know, sometimes you’re gonna lose, you’re sure that your kid that’s okay. You know, sometimes you’re not going to be able to handle a situation. That’s okay. But sometimes this parenting sort of new wave theme of parenting goes too far. So basically, look, be a terrible parent. It’s okay. As I there are no standards, you know, nobody knows what they’re doing. Just do whatever the fuck you feel like because you’re a good person no matter what. It gets into that area a little bit. And I’d like to just hold the reins on that a little longer. No, there’s actually a bottom line standard here. And yes, you can be honest with your child. And yes, all the fucking time it can be done. And it should be done. It’s what’s best for them. It’ll be hard for you. Look, ominous parent is a hassle. You know, kids only 18 months and it’s already really hard to keep being honest with you. But I do and so it is my wife. When she goes, I want ice cream. I’m saying no, I’m not gonna get you an ice cream because I don’t want you to have too much sugar. She doesn’t get it. So why can’t have too much sugar. Watch doesn’t have that much language. But you know, that’s not a good enough reason for him. Like, you know, you don’t like their reason, but that’s why it is that’s what’s happening. And what they are they run out of cones or I don’t have any money. Now I got money. They got heaps of cones. They’ve had too many kinds of anything. Probably give them why. But no, you’re not having one. All right, because we want you to be healthy. And you know, we need to limit the ice cream for that day. And we sometimes are I’m like I’m eating ice cream and she doesn’t get one. Right? Yeah, well, I hate my boy. But you don’t say you don’t get one. But the point being is yes, it is a hassle. Absolutely. And yes, there are some difficult conversations and then you get into those ones with like why why why why? I see him being very, very curious. They’re not hurt by the truth, they’re obsessed with it. They love it, they can handle it. Right? And how much of it you give them. That is where you moderate, right? That’s where you go, Okay. Three year old probably shouldn’t know about the details of how to have anal sex. Okay, so I’m not going to give them that. But I will tell them that adults like to touch each other sometimes. But if an adult touches you here, or here or here, you should say no. And you should come and tell me. Okay? Why? Why? Because those are your special areas. In adults aren’t supposed to touch those areas. I touch them when I clean your pole in your ways. And we have a shell. But that’s all. Only that I was touching that you can have these conversations. All right, and you should, because Jesus Christ, you’re setting them up to fail if you let them live a lie. Right? You can tell them that you’re wrong. You can tell them that you you can even tell them that you lie that can actually help it’s better coming from you than then finding out another way member they’re going to find out who they’re going to find out from. Go back to the Santa Claus one like I want to extend a bit of an olive branch redemption shot for the parents who have already lied listening to me feeling very fucking uncomfortable, or very meat and you know, and defensive and outraged towards me or whatever. But it’s not too late. You’re a kid believing in Santa. You be the one goes to tell him like, look, that’s someone who made up for fun, right? There isn’t really a Santa. So something we like to do a little kids a lot of people do with little kids. It’s like a tradition. That’s actually it’s me and your mom, we stay up late and we put a little Santa thing and this year, you can do it too. You can do a few little brother. Right? You can do a thing we you help them see that you are lying. But because it’s you doing it by choice, not because you got caught. The trust can be maintained. Right? Because everybody lies at least a little bit. I don’t really, but I must occasionally not be fully honest, I guess. But most people are human right? And they don’t have my ridiculous autistic standards. That’s not the problem, the problem is getting caught. Okay? Now you can either pay one or two games, you can either trade never get caught, good fucking luck. Or you can be the one that calls it out by choice before you get caught. And then that way they at least know hey, if he does lie to me, he’ll tell me later. He’ll never leave a lie until he gets caught. And that’s trustworthy. Right? I think of like my own partner, you know, and she’s established this trust with me that sometimes she doesn’t tell me the full truth, or you know, she might exaggerate something or whatever to win an argument, perhaps, or whatever. But what I trust is that she’s going to confess to that later. She she has done that many times. She has been lying thing I said yesterday, if I can lie to you. And when she does, I don’t lose any trust for her because she didn’t caught she didn’t have to do that. She did it by choice. And so I trust that if she ever lies to me, she will come clean. And because I’m very easy to be honest with the combination of her courage and revealing lies. And my ability to accept that kind of MIA culpa is the combination that’s going to make her encourage you to be very, very honest, like she doesn’t have to worry about honesty with me. And you can create a kid who handles honesty. Well, you know, if you want people to be honest with your kid, they need to be someone who handles honesty. Well, you can set them up for great connections in the future by being making sure their kid is resilient to the truth. Someone drops the ball, you know the truth of the world. They are Yeah, it is what it is not like oh my god, I’m so fragile, raised on lies and I’m gonna fucking die. Right? You’re gonna make them much less anxious person and much more confident person, much less likely to take things personally and so on. If you get in early with them and you whatever damage you’ve done so far can be repaired. If you initiate rather than waiting for it to crumble, rather than waiting for the crisis to happen and it will happen you might get away with lies for decades even. But what does that matter if you get caught in the end? I mean, think about how many parent child relationships ended in you know, the, in the adult when they’re both adults. So that the last part of their relationship together as a horrible bit, you know, the great truth is revealed and they never talked to their mother again, you know, while she’s elderly. God, you want to end like that. Fuck there, give the discomfort done now, so that never happens. Right? There’s almost no secret, there’s too big for your child to handle as long as it comes from you. Okay? It’s when they find out about it from some other source, and they give that awareness that you are never going to tell, that’s when it becomes a monstrous deal. Now, there might be a time in place or more, so it might be levels of honesty. Let’s say for example, you like to swing. Now, you’re not gonna tell your three year old like, you’re staying with Auntie tonight because I’m gonna go fuck some strangers, right? There’s too much for a three year old, they’re not gonna understand. But in my style, like, this is Mommy and Daddy’s nights to go have fun with their friends. Right? And as they get older, so let them know a bit more and a bit more about what their fun entails and so on. Over no point do you have to be like, No, we’re just going to the movies. Just Oh, sorry. That’s my struggle. Now we’re just going the movies. You don’t have to do that. as well. These are the toys. Oops, you found my toys. These are daddy’s toys. You know, you don’t play with daddy’s toys. They will have these Christoper in your mouth. Right? You can ease them and they can handle it better than you can think. Right? I’ve known kids who have like wild hippie type parents who give some kooky shit. And the kid knows all about the kid was fine and went all traumatized and fucked up about it. The kid is all traumatized and fucked up by that stuff as a kid who finds out about it. You know, the kid who’s somebody else reveals the information or they’re just looping through drawers and they find some fucked up photographs or whatever. You know, that’s the kid who’s traumatized the kid who is gradually allowed to see the truth more and more. under the control of the parents moderation, there’s never any dishonesty, there’s just increasing levels of honesty. That kid will be fine. Kids can handle a lot. Kids get through wars kids get through fucking bullying. Kids get through all sorts of shit. They’re stronger than you give them credit for put it this way, they are definitely stronger than adults. So whatever respect you’d give to an adult, double that and give that to your kid. Alright, that’s how strong they are. Until you treat them as weak. And then you get self fulfilling prophecy you create a weak child, and then you’re going to be fucking hassled for the rest of your life. Like Dr. Gabor Matta talks about it. If you do the heavy lifting in the first three years, the rest of parenting is easy. You know, if you put in the hard yards of creating a connection and taking your time being very, very patient and lots of playing, and lots of talking and explaining and doing all the things and most parents can be fuck doing because it’s just so hard and so tiring. You know, you don’t have to do much as they get older, because you’re gonna create a confident kid. But if you avoid that stuff, if you lie and get out of the house or when they’re younger, then you’re going to be chasing your tail for the rest of their life, you know, you’re going to be bailing them out when they’re 15, you’re going to be dealing with bullying when they’re seven and so on. It’s way more hassle than having a few honest conversations when they’re younger, and having to deal with the endless why questions, right? It’s not as much as well as you think. If you weren’t so fucking traumatized about honesty yourself, you would actually enjoy these conversations. It’s like a challenging navigation. How do I answer my child’s questions about sex in an age appropriate way? For example? How do I let my child process that the lollies are actually available, but they’re not going to get any? How do I work through their withdrawal? These are difficult challenges but their connection building challenges and their confidence building challenges. They’re worth the hassle because the hassle of bailing them out of prison they get fuck you Mom, I don’t love you. Anyway, that’s way bigger hassle. Right? And that’s what you’ve seen them up for when you lie to them as kids. It’s as simple as that. So how can we be honest? What are some practical tips here? Well, think before you speak. That’s the main thing here. A lot of lines just autopilot compulsive. Just that kind of you’re frazzled and frustrated and sleep deprived, I get you my child’s 18 months and she still wakes me up five or six times a night. So don’t don’t think that I’ve got an easy Alright, we’ve got no support nothing. I am fucking nekkid. Right. We both that. And my wife sick a lot of the time, you know. But I can still think before I speak, I could still just breathe and go, what’s the real answer? You know, anyone asked that question? Is there some form of honesty? Some honest answer I can give here? What’s the most honest I can be here? Just before you speak before we answer the questions before you deal with the hassle and the requests and whatever. Just like is there an honest way of doing this? Just give yourself a chance to at least try and identify before you auto pilot fucking deceive your kid. Right before don’t make manipulation, your first choice at the very least, you know, the very least put manipulation on the bench to like I couldn’t think of anything honest that might have worked. At least be sure If that before you resort to lying to your child. Remember, you don’t have to give them information. Right? And if you can’t be honest, and don’t give them any information, being silent is better than lying. Right? At least you’re not creating an illusion. You’re just not providing information. So I’m not going to tell you, I can’t tell you that. You know, I don’t want to tell you there because you want to like the answer. You can give these you know, I’ll tell you when you’re old or even. It’s not great. But it’s way better than like, okay. And this is a form of honesty to say, like, I’m not comfortable telling you that and whatever words you want to choose, all right, or I don’t want to explain that to you right now. Right, just do what Mommy says. You don’t have to be like, because blah, blah, blah, make something up, you don’t have to do this is you trying to get out of a house. So it’s like you’re trying to avoid confrontation. They’re a child, right? Is a good chance, if you’re an average adult, and you get sort of ravaged or regular kid, that physically you’re going to be stronger to them than them until they’re at least 18 years old. I’m thinking of like the smallest mother with the biggest son or whatever. But in the end, you don’t have to fucking talk this through. If you don’t want to, you can just put them in a headlock and chuck them out. Now I’m kidding. But you can physically restrain your kid without abusing them or hurting them. They don’t have to be explained everything. If they refuse to leave the restaurant, you can pick them up kicking and screaming, and calmly but strongly carry them out to the car. You don’t have to be like, well, when we get to the car, maybe we can watch a movie, you don’t have to tell them all these lies, right? Be the fucking parent be the authority. Authority is somebody in truly empowered does not need to lie. Right? So when an empowered position lying doesn’t really have any power. Right? So tell them the truth. And then if they can’t handle it, solve that situation be the boss. Right? It’s in their best interest. It’s boundary setting. Know the difference between harm and hassle. A lot of times you’ll tell yourself that you don’t tell them the truth, because I will harm them. But what you really mean is you don’t want to tell them the truth because it’s a hassle. At least establish that difference. Alright, kids can handle the truth. Why do you think that they can’t? Where do you get that from? Right? I mean, if you never really give them the truth, how do you know how well they’re going to handle it? It is they do process things. I had an interesting sort of dilemma. The other day was a bit worried that my truth had gone too far. I was walking with my daughter. It’s kind of a weird situation. We had to be there but talking with my daughter on the buggy and this drunk guy like shirt open smoking drinking out in public bucket. They’re smelly and shit. You see a few of them around and my town and a little girl poor little neglected as girl with them. You know, she’s like four years old trailing behind them, daddy, he’s back there. Anyway, and then Chloe, because my daughter just loves anything that’s interesting. Meaning she wants to go see the guy. And using our own language, I told him no, we can’t see the guy because he’s Yuck, you know? And it’s just my simple way of saying like, that’s, that’s something we can’t touch or go towards. Right? So I’ll say, you know, the chewing gum on the ground is Yuck, that means don’t touch it go towards it’s the most basic explanation I can use. At the stage later on. Say it’s got germs or whatever. But you know, those guys have me to explain like, he’s a drunken derelict freak, and he smells and you probably try and talk to us and touch us and he’s very uncomfortable to be around. I don’t want to be around him. So as you know, the man’s yak and daddy doesn’t want to be around him. I said I don’t want to be around. Because I know we’re not going there. The man’s Yak. I don’t want to be around. She was just obsessed with this is I mean, Yak mane? Yeah, like she’s process as our fact that I was teaching to be judgmental back what I do there. And for like, the rest of the night. She just kept bringing up so man. Yuck, man. Yeah. But then she got past you know. And I realized that just she just had to work through that new piece of this was an interesting, weird, nuanced thing that she was trying to process that there’s some mean that you don’t go towards. Right? There’s some mean like, not everyone’s your friend. You know, there’s a like a little insight she’s had here of some kind. I don’t know. Exactly. She’s too young to explain how she exactly interpreted that. But yeah, we did identify, keep explaining to over and over again, I must have explained it 25 times the rest of that evening is the man was yuck. That’s why we didn’t go near him. You know, it’s gotten too late. When she’s older. I’ll give him more information. I look. These drunk guys sometimes they can be a bit violent. Sometimes they’re a bit disgusting, or at the very least they just get in your face. So generally, when you see them just you know, give them a distance on a gallon because it’s not worth it. You see for yourself. We’re going to talk One you’ll see oh, well, I can do that later. But for now I can just do the bit that Sheila understands, like, Man Jack daddy doesn’t like the man so we’re not going to the man. Right? That’s that’s what’s happening here. It is a hassle, but it’s not harmful. Okay? I just realized no, no, we need to get home because the star left the stove on. She doesn’t learn anything. What about the guy? Well, no, no, he’s he’s busy, he’s gonna sleep you know, I don’t have to do that. It seems easier in the moment, but later on remember later on just gonna find out I lied in some way. One thing you can think about when you go to decide what to say to your kid is, am I creating a confident adult or a happy kid? Not the same thing. Your kid being happy right now is not necessarily path to them. Being a confident adult who can handle life and enjoy themselves at a deep satisfying level. I try to keep your kid feeling good right now, with lies and snacks and distractions is not going to create a confident adult. If you want to create a confident ad, or if that’s really your goal, if you really want your kid to have a good life as an adult, you got to put in the fucking work. It’s hard work. It’s not just being around and making sure that they’re fed, you got to do more than that if you want a confident kid. All right, you got to explain things, you got to be honest with them. You got to work through the truth with them. Right? You got to have confrontations and difficult conversations. And sometimes they won’t like you. And sometimes I think that you’re being mean and all that stuff. If you want to create a confident No, they’re not going to always be happy kids. Happy doesn’t mean confident. Just means feeling pleasure. And drug addicts feel pleasure. It’s not a sign of anything. Right? If you want them to really enjoy life, not be happy, yay. But enjoy life like fuck, I am an awesome person this is rocking, you know that sensation? Well, you got to give them the right information or work with you got to give them the fucking truth so that they can work with the truth. Confidence is aligned with the truth. There’s no confident person living a lie. So you got to think long term, what do I really want for my kid? Not what’s easy for me right now. And not the misunderstanding that a kid being happy right now is what’s good for them. Right? Because a lot of a lot of adults, they really do have good intentions. I haven’t said that enough in this episode. But most parents would lie to their kids, they’re not trying to hurt the kid. They think they’re doing what’s right, they are trying to set the kid up to have a good life, they’re just doing it wrong. Lying is not what sets the kid up to have a good life, then being happy all the time doesn’t mean they’re going to have a good adulthood. All right, if he gets a bit serious or a bit bored, or a bit frustrated or angry at you, that’s good. If it’s based on the truth, as a kid, feeling the whole range of emotions, getting to learn how to regulate that emotion, you know, happens to the kids who are happy all the time. They fall to pieces when they have other emotions. They haven’t had any experience with a kid who gets to go through the whole range and talks through with their parents over and over again. On board. Yeah, well, what are you gonna do about it? Well, oh, here’s some stuff will, you know, if you let your kid lie, I don’t want to do that. Yep, sometimes we just don’t want to do things. But you know, either you don’t want to do things dropping an adult Fuck, I never get to do what I want. You know, it’s just the way things are might, you’ll be alright. You can talk through them, talk through the stuff with them. And then by the time you’re an adult, they’re not going to be hit by a bus when it comes to stepping into the adult world. They’re actually going to be leaders, they’re going to be on top of the game. Not getting defeated by trying to play with fiction rather than straying into dishonesty. Right? You can use words like let’s pretend let’s pretend that we’re having tea. You know, let’s pretend that you’re a farrier. And I’m a fucking Superman. Let’s pretend that there’s a dragon hiding in the garden, we gotta go find them. You don’t have to, like, make it sound like it’s true. That doesn’t kill the magic kids. But you don’t need to wrap up their imagination in Cornwall, they can have total fun knowing it’s affection. You don’t need to try and convince them of anything. Leave them alone. They’ll do it on their own anyway. Right. You don’t have to try and trick them into Santa Claus. Because I do want to be Santa this Chris. Okay, this Christmas, your Santa. Okay? The only mum know which prisons are from St. You can do that. It’s fine. You don’t have to be like, No, there’s a real center. There’s a guy who lives in the North Pole and does physically impossible things. And now you believe that physically impossible. Things can be done. Good luck trying to figure out the truth when you’re older. Right? Doesn’t have to be done that way. You can have fun without lying. But it’s hard. You gotta put some thought into it. Right? You got to risk ruining the fun in order to figure this shit out. And what are really end on is just respect. Respect your kids ability to handle the truth. Imagine that they can and act accordingly and see what really happens. You’re so convinced that they can’t. Have you tried. Did you start convinced that they can’t so you never really gave it a nudge? If you don’t like a solid like, three month trial or I’m just gonna give them the whole truth for three months and see if they can handle it. Right? See if they can handle exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. See what happens after three months. Right? Just try it now your brain also know the Falcon. Heavy tried it. Look doesn’t work out for three months and going back to being a fucking liar if you want to. I don’t think you need to. I’m telling you. I’ve worked with the adults who had the childhoods remember, more dishonesty that occurred in the childhood, the more work they got to do as an adult. And the few people I’ve met who had honest parents, no matter what else happened to them, whether they went through shit in high school or whatever, they handle their business, and they’re honest adults. And even they never went down the path of needing to lie. If you really do need to lie, then eventually trying to be honest, will fall apart and you’ll revert to lying but how is it that people who start on us never revert to like Elsa, the people who got to adulthood with honesty, never go you know what? I’m going to go go to the lying thing that everyone else does that I just keep going with the honesty thing, because that’s what actually fucking works. So pretty strong fun, isn’t that one. And if you made it to the end, congratulations, because I’m guessing a lot of parents who’ve listened to this tuned out earlier on in outrage. Feel free to share that outrage or any thoughts you have in the comments below. All I’m asking is try it. Try it and see. Try being honest with your kids. Try being more honest with your kids. Give them some respect. See if they can handle it. Save yourself the hassle of trying to repair the damage later on, which you are going to have to do. Thank you so much for listening. I’ll catch you all later. Cheers.