“Parents often entrap their kids, putting them in positions to lie and testing their honesty unnecessarily.” (Learning to Lie)

The world is changing. Problems are changing. Jobs are changing. Technology is changing. Eventually, like everything else, children are bound to adjust and adapt to their ever-changing environment.

Children hear their parents tell a countless amount of lies, including Santa Claus, and telling telemarketers that they’re just visiting at that residence.

Children who would usually reply with an honest answer to their parent’s question, are learning to decipher their tone, and then decide which answer they’re going to give. If it was dismissive or friendly, there’s no need to lie because there’s nothing at risk for them. But, if the tone is disapproving or irritated, they give an unhonest answer because the truth then leads to a dreaded punishment, which is avoided at all costs. According to Po Bronson’s article, “Learning to Lie,” “The most disturbing reason children lie is that parents teach them to.”

“They learn that honesty only creates conflict, and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict.” (Learning to Lie)

Children often learn to lie, from their parents. After observing them tell countless lies, it’s only natural that they would want to try it for themselves.

Children begin to realize that their parents lie to ease certain social situations. They’re then taught to hide their actual emotions when it could get them in trouble, (simliar to their parents), like when opening a present. It’s rude to show your dismay with the outcome of an unwrapped present, so smiling and lying about your opinions smooths over the situation, and makes everyone happy. Lying is then related to positive outcomes. However, when children eventually become comfortable with not being honest and begin to lie to their parents, all hell breaks lose. There can’t be certain times when lying is and isn’t deemed acceptable for little kids, because it gets all too confusing for them.

One of the first lies that children are told, is actually from their parents. It begins on Christmas Eve, when parents tuck their children in at night after leaving milk and cookies by the tree, and recite the story of how a jolly old man, Santa Claus, will come and leave presents under their tree during the night if they’ve been a good boy or girl. Obviously, kids are going to believe their parents, because virtually no human could ever make such a lie about such a marveous idea. This gives kids an incentive to be good during the year, to ensure that their presents make it to their house safely by December. However, this also gives the message, that sometimes lying is okay.

Children are capable of beginning to lie as young as two or three, and by four they comprehend that lying can get them out of a punishment. Therefore, after receiving a low grade on a test they insisted they were prepared for the night before, it’s easier to tell their parents they passed. There’s no yelling, no punishment, no fights, and most importantly, happy parents. So, why on earth would you tell them the truth? They told you the whole Santa Claus lie for 12 years, for God’s Sake!

Students will do anything, in order to ensure the chance of achieving a better grade.

The school system has drastically changed to having impossibly high expectations set, that force students to lie on a daily basis, similar to overbearing parents. Having a test thats forty percent of a student’s grade with 6 months of material on it, puts such an insane amount of pressure on him/her, to the point where they would do anything to increase their grade. And I mean anything. Trying to find the test the night before on the internet, talking to kids who already took it, moving their chair closer to their neighbors, looking over their shoulder, nothing is excluded.

Parents put such an intense amount of pressure on their children’s grades, that it forces them to feel the need to do anything that may help them increase their grade- such as cheating.

The chance of getting one more question right by doing one of these techniques, is worth the chance of getting caught and therefore achieving a zero. There’s always a chance the administrator will believe any excuse you can come up with, as an accurate reasoning for your odd behavior. After being asked whether or not you cheated on a test, an automatic “no” is shot out without even thinking. Why would anyone in their right mind even hesitate, knowing the repercussions that would be involved? Students will do anything to get out of a zero, as much as children will do anything to get out of a time-out.

Getting a ninety on a test that you cheated on, is still a ninety, and the parents will be thrilled and hang it up on the fridge, no questions asked. Getting a sixty on a test that you completed honestly and worked as hard as you could on, is not acceptable and definitely not fridge- worthy. They want to know what happened. Where they went wrong. How they fix it.

You can’t.

Parents ensure their children are honest, by punishing them when they are caught lying. This way, it’ll prevent them from wanting to do it again. But in actuality, it makes their lies more developed and constant.

“For two decades, parents have rated ‘honesty’ as the trait they wanted most in their children. Other traits, such as confidence or good judgement, don’t even come close.” Test taking skills and intelligence levels weren’t even contenders, so at what age does this viewpoint automatically change?

Maybe parents should stop making grades about themselves, and accept that there are other things in life that are more important, such as being honest. But then again, what do they know about honesty, when we learned to lie from them? They’re the original culprits.