I Thought My Daughter Was a Good Kid, but a Certain Habit of Hers Disturbs Me
Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My 6-year-old daughter is extremely imaginative, loves pretend play, draws constantly, and loves to make up stories. It’s sweet, and being a person who has never felt very creative, I admire her immensely. But one extension of this seems problematic to me, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.
She regularly lies, sometimes really obviously, and sometimes I can’t tell if what she’s saying really happened or not. And if I ask her whether she’s telling the truth, she sometimes changes her story entirely or just makes it more elaborate and seemingly further from the truth. I’m actually not even sure this should be called “lying,” because that implies deliberate badness, when I think often she’s just wanting to contribute to the conversation or answer a question more thoroughly than she has the information to do. Sometimes it’s a harmless detail about a classmate or teacher (“Melissa doesn’t have any sinks in her house!”), and sometimes it’s reporting about conversations with her friends that I’d actually be concerned about depending on whether what she’s saying was true (“We decided that Melissa isn’t allowed to play with us on Fridays”).
I’ve tried telling her that it’s OK if she doesn’t know the answer to something I’m asking and that it’s important to tell each other the truth so we can trust each other. Is this a normal kid thing? Of course! I’m trying to figure out when it moves from being a normal kid thing to being more problematic. Six seems old for this kind of thing. Is it something I need to be concerned about? And how do I respond to these situations? I honestly feel like it’s a barrier in connecting emotionally with my daughter, and I worry about that and how it will develop over time. For what it’s worth, neither her teacher nor my husband seem worried about it, so maybe I’m overthinking all of this and just need to get some perspective.
Dear Cute or Worrisome,
Well, I can tell you that this behavior is not actually out of the norm for a 6-year-old. They’re better at lying than they were a few years ago and also better at creating magical wonderful imaginary worlds. What you need to work on, I think, is helping her distinguish between these two behaviors, so that you can praise and foster one while discouraging the other.
There are approximately 1 million children’s books about telling the truth, from the Berenstain Bears to this particularly helpful tome, which includes games and discussion questions to help figure out when lying is lying and when it’s imaginative play. I recommend adding some of these books into your weekly rotation while you work on this problem.
Encouraging her in her productive imaginative play is key at this time. While you’re firmly discouraging actual lies, give her extra scope and permission to create her myths and world building. Write down her harmless stories in a book for her, and tell her how much fun make-believe is.
When she tells a lie that isn’t in the above category, you’re going to have to really tighten up on imposing consequences. Set her up for success with this, though. If she tells you that she and her friend Amber rode loose in the back of Amber’s mom’s pickup truck, ask her if this is a fun imaginary story to put in her notebook or if it’s the truth. If she says it’s the truth, say, “If I call Amber’s mom, will she say it’s the truth?” so she has a chance to fix her mistake. If it turns out to be a lie, impose whatever consequences you would for any other form of bad behavior.
Kids do emerge from this phase largely honest, if that’s a comfort. I think you’ve only got another year or two to navigate this, which, coincidentally, is also the year or two left where she can really immerse herself wholly in imaginative play. Keep fostering that while discouraging the other. She seems like a good kid who loves imagination and can just get a bit off track returning to real life.
From: My 6-Year-Old Lies All the Time. (April 22nd, 2019).
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My 2-year-old loves to kick us while we’re changing her diaper. Sometimes out of anger: “I don’t want my diaper changed” or “I want the other parent who is currently cooking dinner to do it!” or “I’m having a meltdown for no apparent reason!” Other times it’s because she thinks it’s fun, and she laughs about it.
We’ve tried telling her it’s not OK to kick, that it hurts us. (Occasionally she will apologize, usually with some prompting.) We’ve tried looking sad. We’ve tried leaving the room for a minute. We’ve tried standing off to the side where she can’t kick us, but if she’s in a kicking mood, she will shimmy over to where she can kick us.
It’s less about the pain, though it does hurt sometimes. But it’s more about it generally not being OK to hit or kick people, all over the place while we’re trying to change you, especially when you’re covered in poop.
—Please, Stop the Kicking
Congratulations! This child is ready to be potty-trained. If she can apologize for kicking you, it’s time to get one of the thousands of books and start the process. If she does not like being potty-trained, you can tell your very verbal child that if you kick and hit people, you need to use the potty. It sounds like it’s becoming a fun game (only for her) and that she’s right on target for starting potty training.
I’m very sorry about the poop.
From: My Baby’s Day Care Is Stressing Me Out About Her Developmental Milestones. (March 18th, 2019).
Dear Care and Feeding,
My boyfriend and I are trying to have kids. The topic of changing poopy diapers came up, and he was adamant that he would not do it. He said that since he mows our lawn, I can change everything that isn’t pee. He was laughing, but I don’t believe he’s joking at all. Can you settle this for us?—Equal Opportunity Diaper Duty
People tell jokes for attention, or because they’re stressed, or to handle an uncomfortable truth. I want to believe that your boyfriend was joking, but I want to understand why.
So, maybe your boyfriend just wants some attention. Maybe he’s anticipating what it will be like when the two of you become three and the smallest member of the family is the star of the show. Similarly, maybe he’s stressed—deciding to have kids is no small thing!—and this little joke is a way of acting out.
What’s at issue here isn’t poop at all, of course—it’s the big messy task ahead of you both.
Or maybe this is his way of handling the uncomfortable truth, which is what you seem to think: that he seriously believes this is a tenable option for a dad. Obviously, he’s wrong. He cannot possibly argue that a reasonable approach to parenting looks like him mowing the lawn once every two weeks while you change diapers every day.
You should tell him honestly that this joke or assertion or whatever you’d call it is making you upset—that you need to know you’ll be equal partners as parents and that he’ll be present for your child come what may (and what comes will certainly get a lot messier than a poopy diaper).
What’s at issue here isn’t poop at all, of course—it’s the big messy task ahead of you both. I suspect he’s joking about diapers because he knows this and is rightly overwhelmed. Tell him he needs to cut it out, and hopefully he’ll hear you. If, however, he truly believes that parental responsibilities can be apportioned like this, you should think deeply about whether he’s the person you want to share those responsibilities with.
From: My Boyfriend Has Declared He Won’t Change Poopy Diapers. (June 13th, 2019).
I am fortunate to have a large extended family living in close proximity, including four grandparents. My mother-in-law sees my children regularly and never forgets their birthdays, which is wonderful. Traditionally, our families gather the weekend before Christmas for a gift exchange. We always have a nice time. This year I discovered, through a conversation with my niece, that Grandma travels to their home on Christmas morning to cook them a special breakfast and celebrate what my niece describes as “real Christmas when Grandma brings our big gifts.” This year, my niece explained, she expects some expensive electronics and gift cards from my MIL in addition to the gifts she’d opened that day at our gathering. My feelings were hurt.