Another source of comparatively harmless lying is the instinct for secretiveness. Children just love to have secrets, and if there are none on hand, they have to be invented. A child will tell another a secret on condition that it be kept a secret; but when the secret is told it turns out to be a falsehood—perhaps even something libellous. Now, the child cannot feel that he has done anything wicked, for to his mind the big thing is that Nellie promised not to tell, and she broke her promise! If she had not broken her promise to keep the secret, it never would have come out, and no harm would have been done. Perhaps we have not yet sufficiently driven secrets from our common life to demand that the children shall be without secrets. When we set the children an example of perfect frankness and open dealing in all matters, we may perhaps be in a position to discourage the invention of secrets by the young people. Secretiveness leads naturally to deceit; but it is not in itself serious enough to make much ado about. Healthy children in healthful social surroundings will outgrow this instinct; where the atmosphere is charged with intrigue and scheming and dissimulation, this instinct may survive longer, but its manifestation is in itself not a trait that should give its concern.
Some children lie because they are inclined to brag or show off; others for just the opposite reason—they are too sensitive or timid. And a lie that comes from either side of the child's nature cannot be taken as a sign of moral depravity; the treatment which a child is given must take into consideration the child's temperament. Charles Darwin tells of his own inclination to make exaggerated statements for the purpose of causing a sensation. "I told another little boy," he writes in his autobiography, "that I could produce variously-colored polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain colored fluids, which was, of course, a monstrous fable, and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance, I once gathered much valuable fruit from my father's trees and hid it in the shrubbery and then ran in breathless haste to spread the news that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit."
For the vaunting lie it is usually sufficient to defeat its purpose by showing that the boast cannot be carried out. The braggart is made to descend from the pedestal of the hero to the level of the fool.
How the other extreme in disposition may lead to a "lie" is shown by the little girl who was sent to the store for a loaf of bread and came back saying that there was no more to be had. The mother was very sure that that could not be, but soon found out, on questioning, that the child had forgotten what she was sent to get and was then afraid of being ridiculed for having forgotten. Here the cause of the lie was timidity. To punish this child would only make her more timid. In a case of this kind the mother should try to cultivate the self-confidence of the child instead of punishing her for untruthfulness.
Perhaps the most common kind of lie is the one that a child tells in order to escape punishment. It is often chosen as "the easiest way" without realization of any serious wrong-doing. And even when a child is taught the wrong of it, it is still too helpful to be entirely dropped. As a little boy once said, "A lie is an abomination to the Lord, and an ever-ready help in time of trouble." The first lie of this kind that a child invents comes without any feeling of moral wrong-doing. He has only an instinctive shrinking from pain. To cure a child of this kind of lie, we must take his disposition into consideration; there is no one remedy that suits all children. In some cases it has worked very well to develop the courage of the child, so that he will fearlessly accept the consequences of his deeds. We all know of cases where children can be physically very brave and stand a great deal of pain if they are made to see the necessity for it—as when they are treated by a dentist or physician. Children of that type surely can be taught to be brave, also, about accepting the consequences of misdeeds. With another type of child the desired result can be obtained by making him see that he will be happier and that his relations with others will he pleasanter if he always tells the truth. In some children the sense of honor can be very easily aroused, and they can be made to see how truthfulness and reliability help human beings to get along with each other in their various relations. A great many temptations for this kind of lie can be entirely avoided if your child feels from earliest infancy that you always treat him justly.
Yet a child who is neither afraid of punishment nor inclined to deceive may often be tempted to lie when his wits are challenged. There is something about your tone of voice, or in the manner of asking "Who left the door of the chicken-house open?" that is an irresistible temptation to make you show how smart you really are. You think you know, and your manner shows it; but you may be mistaken, and your cocksureness arouses all the cunning and combativeness of the child. There is a vague feeling in his mind that he would like to see you confirm your suspicion without the aid of an open confession—and the result is a "lie." Indeed, any approach that arouses antagonisms is almost sure to bring out the propensity to dissimulate or even to deceive. In such cases the mother should learn how to approach the child without a challenge, instead of trying to teach the child not to lie.
The worst kind of lies are those caused by selfishness or the desire to gain at the expense of another, or those prompted by malice or envy, or the passion for vengeance. Although such lies often appear in the games of children, the games themselves are not to be held responsible for this. Indeed, the games of the older children, when played under suitable direction, are likely to be among the best means for remedying untruthfulness. Yet it may be wise sometimes to keep a child from his games for a time, not so much to "punish" him for lying as to give him an opportunity to reflect on the close connection between truthfulness and good playing. Special instruction may sometimes be needed as a means to arousing the conscience. The lies of selfishness are bad because, if continued, they are likely to make children grasping and unscrupulous. But it is in most cases wiser to try to make the child more generous and frank than to fix the attention on the lies. If he can be made to realize that his happiness is more likely to be assured through friendly and sincere relations, the temptation to use lies will be reduced.
One type of lying that is very irritating and very hard to meet is that known as prevarication. This consists in telling a part of a truth, or even a whole truth, in such a way as to convey a false impression, and is most common at about twelve or thirteen years. When a child resorts to prevarication he is already old enough to know the difference between a truthful statement and a false statement. Indeed, it is when he most keenly realizes this that he is most likely to prevaricate, for this is but a device by which the childish mind attempts to achieve an indirect purpose and at the same time keep his peace with his conscience. It is when he already has a certain fear of lying, and is not yet thoroughly sincere and truth-loving, that he will come home from the truant fishing party and ingeniously tell you that a "friend of Harry's" caught the fish, instead of saying that he himself did it. His conscience is quite satisfied with the reflection that he is a friend of Harry's. In this stage of his career the child is quite capable of understanding a direct analysis of what is essentially a deception, and a good heart-to-heart talk that comes to a conclusion is about the best thing he can get.
I hope you will not think, from what I have said, that I have been trying to justify lying, or that I do not consider lying a serious matter; nor, on the other hand, that you will consider a single application of the remedies suggested sufficient to make any child truthful. Thoroughgoing truthfulness comes hard and generally comes late. But for the majority of children truthfulness is attainable, although it will not be attained without a struggle. The finer instincts often enough lead to violations of strict veracity; but they may be made also to strengthen the feeling of scrupulous regard for the truth.
I have tried to show that what we call a lie is not always a lie; and that some of the very methods we use in training our children themselves produce lies. The inflicting of severe punishments is one of the chief of these, and the most common lie is that which is due to fear of punishment. Lies that arise from bad habits should be treated by an attempt to remedy the bad habit. Lies that arise from ignorance should be treated by attention to necessary knowledge.