Why Do Parents Lie To Children Essay

988 Words4 Pages

Do children deserve to be told the truth by their parents? Is it advisable to tell lies to children about situations that they do not completely understand? These questions have been contentious for a long time. Parents find it hard to weigh in how much truth they should reveal and how much information to conceal from their children. Some parents may hide crucial information such as divorce, disease, and other information as they see it as a means of protecting their children. Some parents may lie to their children because they look up to them, and they see it as disappointing their children if they know the truth (Bronson, 2008). With lying, they are not exposed to losing the trust of their children, and they see this as an easy route since …show more content…

Parents mostly view holding back the truth from their children as a simple means of protection of their children (Bridges, 2010). Parents seek to protect their children from being hurt by information that they view their children cannot handle (Lott, 2014). Matters such as separation of parents have seen to contribute a significant share of the lies that parents feed children. Parents assume that they can withhold the truth from their children about their marital issues thinking that they will tell the truth to their children later in life when they can understand the complexity of the matter at hand. Taking this example, when the children enquire about where their parents are when they are not at home. Arising from this scenario child ends up being hurt when they finally discover the real reason affecting their family from mostly third parties for example from school or their neighborhood. Information that reaches the children from third parties devastates the children since it mostly is exaggerated or it is just said in a way that shocks the child, which leads the child to a state of dilemma. The child is exposed to intimate details of their parent’s relationship that may be mostly mislead, hence affects the child negatively in the long