1990 (4) Raising Children in Honesty

Raising Children in Honesty

By Hieromartyr Vladimir, Metropolitan of Kiev

“A lie is a foul blot in a man, and yet it will be continually in the mouth of men without discipline” 

(Ecclesiastics 20:24).

“The manners of lying men are without honor: and their confusion is with them without ceasing” 

(Eccles. 20:26).

    Among the virtues which must be planted in the hearts of children with special persistence, honesty has an important and fundamental place.  By “honesty” we mean a feeling of love for the truth and repulsion from falsehood.

    After obedience, this virtue should be given second place.  If falsehood is the root of all vices, then truth is the beginning and foundation of all virtues.  For this reason the majority of parents’ attention should be directed toward planting and cultivating honesty in their children.  How should parents nurture the virtue in the souls of children?

    A feeling for truth and the desire to attain it is innate to every person, and therefore to every child.  True, because of sin it is weakened; but nevertheless it is not completely extinguished.  This striving toward truth manifests itself in the child's inquisitiveness.  The child asks about everything, and all that adults say to him, he accepts as total truth until he has been deceived.  The innocent, uncorrupted child does not know about falsehood or hypocrisy; on the contrary, he blushes not only when he has told a lie out of negligence, but even when he hears a lie from the lips of another.  The feeling of truth is planted in the hearts of children by God Himself.  To man  is left only the necessity to adhere to this natural voice - to  nurture it and  strengthen it.  This is mostly the duty of the parents.  How can they do this?  They must first from the cradle plant a deep, pious love for the truth, and secondly, nurture in the child a deep hatred for and an aversion to all falsehood.
     a) The first task compels parents to teach their children to love truth on a religious basis, that is, as a result of their loving God and submitting to Him.  Children must love the truth, because God (who is the unchanging truth) wants us to speak the truth and because He hates all falsehood.  Only that love for truth which is based on faith in God and profound respect for Him will withstand all tests.    

  b) The second task requires that parents interact with their children with frankness, showing that they have full trust in them.  Believe every word of theirs until you notice a lie.  Don’t demand proofs, oaths, or swearing of what they say; be satisfied with the Gospel saying, “let yes be yes and no be no.”   If, however, you have a firm reason to doubt their words, then on this first occasion, don’t let them see that you don't believe them.  Try to be absolutely sure that they have lied.  When you are certain that they have not told the truth, then call them, whether you are the father or the mother, and seriously and sternly, but with love, look them in the eyes and say: "God forbade lies.  He is everywhere and knows not only all our deeds, but all the secrets or our thoughts as well.  Deceiving lips are repulsive to God.”  The blushing that will show on the faces of the children will compel them to admit to the lie and will serve as a lesson for the future.

     c) Parents must also lake care to show their children love and piety for truth by their own example.  Be honest and without hypocrisy in all your actions and words.  Above all, show yourselves to be friends of the divine truths of religion and faith.  Avoid indifference in faith, and especially be careful not to show by example that your private life has nothing to do with faith.  Unfortunately, in contemporary conversations, one hears frequently the spirit of lies in the very "holy of holies"!  If you allow yourself to express these thoughts in front of your children, you not only banish the love and piety of religion from their hearts, but you also kill all feelings of truth in them.  If it really does not matter to God whether we have a correct or a false understanding of His essence, or whether we confess the true faith or a false faith, then why should we be concerned about truth in everyday life?  And if he who willingly dabbles in false religions and rejects the revelation of a perfect God is just as pleasing to God as one who confesses the true faith, then why should truth have such great value?  If, finally, those who say that there is no divinely revealed religion are correct, and if the true God found it not worth His trouble to reveal to us the truth in our dealings with the most important questions of life, then how can one demand of a person (even more so from a child) that he speak the truth in minor situations?  This is why, Christian parents, that for your children to love the truth, you must inspire them before all else to love and respect divine truth.  Lock up your hearts and the hearts of your children from indifference to religious subjects.  If your children notice that you light-mindedly approach religious truths and that you do not believe the Word of God, what hope do you have that they will not have the same approach to truth?  Show, therefore, love of religious truths yourselves.  Nurture it in the hearts of your children.

    In all other aspects of your life, be truthful and fair.  Flee all falsehood, cunningness, hypocrisy in your dealings with others.  If your children see that you allow trickery in your dealing with others, that you resort to slyness, to setting snares, that you are hypocritical and treacherous; if they notice that you are pretending in front of friends, but that in your soul you abhor them and laugh behind their backs, then soon your children will become no better than you.  If, on the contrary, in all aspects of your life you reveal that you turn away from falsehood and hypocrisy, from lies and treachery, then your children will carry truth in their hearts, and not have lies or treachery on their lips. 

    Raising children to love and to honor truth is not easy because we must persistently fight against lies and falsehood. To assist us in this endeavor, these four rules may be of help:    

  1) Teach your children to hate lies from a religious perspective by turning their attention towards God.  Your children must run from lies not out of fear of punishment if caught, but as a result of their realizing that God forbade lying and that every lie is a sin before God.  Show your children how repulsive lying is to God by referring to the words of the Holy Scripture: “A lie is a foul blot in a man...” (Eccl. 20:24); or "lying lips are an abomination to the Lord…" (Prov. 12:22).  Help them to realize that lies have been the work of the devil from the first time he deceived Adam and Eve in paradise, wherefore the Savior Himself says: *'for he is a liar, and the father thereof" (John 8:44).  Therefore, teach your children that when they lie, they imitate Satan and become like him.    

2) Don’t allow in your children even the smallest falsehood.  If a child makes a mistake and immediately and honestly admits it, then forgive him, "no questions asked."  If the mistake is serious, then lessen the punishment, but tell him that the punishment is lessened because he immediately admitted to his mistake.  However, you should not be too lenient, so if the child has a tendency to lie, then he does not take advantage of your leniency.  If, on the other hand, the child has done something malicious and denies this, then you should double the punishment, saying that it is not only for the transgression, but for the lies as well.  If the child out of revenge or hatred says something abusive about someone else, slandering him, then for this he should not only be given the usual punishment for the offense, but he must also admit to the offence in front of all who heard it.  The moral Christian law demands this.

  3) It is imperative that parents neither lie, nor deceive anyone else.  Don't allow your children to be deceived by those older than them whether they be brothers, sisters, maids, or friends, etc.   How often it happens that to stop a child crying or to calm him, the parents trick him or scare him or make promises that they never keep!  This causes great harm!  The child soon understands that he is being tricked, and his faith in the words of his parents and his feeling for the truth suffers and wanes.
     4) Don't create a situation in which your children are compelled deliberately or unintentionally to lie.  This is done inadvertently when the father or mother for some reason austerely and angrily, sometimes even with a belt in hand, comes up to the child saying: "Tell me who did this!” or: “I’ll belt you, if you did this!" etc.  Is it surprising that the frightened child will lie?  And what of those parents who laugh at the lies of their children or compliment them because they so wittingly and cunningly lie?  Worse still, what can we say about those parents who teach their children to lie to administrators or teachers in order to get out of trouble and to escape penalties.  These parents, if they even deserve the name of parents, are the tempters of their own children.  What surprise is it if these children, as a result of their upbringing, slander, deceive, and rob?  Experience shows that those who think lightly of lying won’t think twice about cheating and stealing.

    Here, my Christian readers, are rules which can be helpful in raising children in the feeling of love and piety toward truth as well as instilling a deep repulsion and hatred toward falsehood!  Teach your children to love the truth primarily by example of your love of truth in all your actions and words.  Teach them how repulsive and vile lying is in the eyes of God.  Don’t stand for even a grain of falsehood from the mouths of your children; but don’t deceive them yourselves, and don’t allow others to deceive them.  Take heed, finally, not to, intentionally or unintentionally, direct them toward falsehood.

New Hieromartyr Vladimir of Kiev (“The Voice of the Church” No. 7-8, 1914)

ORTHODOX LIFE, Vol. 40, No. 4 July-Aug., 1990 pages 43-47.

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