I always hate the inevitable interrogations when something gets destroyed, and nobody knows how it happened. But, I imagine the complete opposite would be even more frustrating:
Who broke this?
Me
How?
Ninja moves.
Will you please be more careful?
Probably not
Don’t you even care?
Not really.
I have three kids and I always want them to be 100% honest with me but I really don’t want them to be 100% honest with people outside our circle of trust. Being polite and interacting with strangers requires a certain level of lying.
When they screw up honesty gets rewarded by a less harsh punishment or no punishment at all and we make it very clear what the punishment could have been if they had tried to hide it.
Well, I don’t have kids, but I think I’d rather know they don’t care, so I can work on that instead of being annoyed the next time it inevitably happens again…
Yeah, it’s literally one of a parents many jobs to teach their kids how to care about others.
I tell my kids what I was told.
If you tell me the truth now I won’t be as mad if I find out you lied to me later.
for example. my kids have limited access to YouTube. it’s on an old phone that’s in my bedroom on a charger. my eldest snuck in and took the phone for several hours. when I caught him he didn’t hide it and fessed up immediately. I calmly told him I was disappointed that he did it and not to do it again. I thanked him for being honest and upfront with me though and praised him for not hiding it from me because I would have found out eventually.
not in trouble outside of a light scolding, but had he lied and attempted to hide it he would have lost YouTube privileges for a month.
kids don’t care, it’s our job as their guardian to teach them why they should care. sometimes it’s as simple as “building trust” between individuals, other times it’s as complex as following unspoken social rules. still, that responsibility falls on us, not them.
My mother always told me to take the truth, then one day she bought a glass oven dish, wrapped it in gift paper, and gave it to herself. Nothing wrong there, we all deserve nice shit from time to time. The thing is, she later took me to visit her sister (my aunt) and told her “someone” gave her the oven dish. I burst out laughing and said “that’s a lie, she gave it to herself.” She probably wanted to live the fantasy of someone else getting nice things for her? I don’t know. My aunt looked very puzzled, and I think my Mom whooped my ass later on.
The morale is: say nothing.
I wasn’t a compulsive liar growing up, but like most youths I would stretch truths. It never got me in real hot water, but sometimes things didn’t work out.
As an adult, I’m pretty much as honest and open as I can be in any situation. It’s just easier. People prefer honesty over lies and it builds trust. It’s all about phrasing. When I find out someone has lied to me, I never trust them the same again and there’s really no way to get back that trust.
No kids here, but I’m your example, that’s the exact type of response if want to hear. From there, you can turn the convo to a learning moment about empathy and consequences. This is the ideal outcome from a bag situation.