ENG

Topic: Comment Writing

Date:

Sample Comment “Lying to children“

In the following text I am going to talk to you about something that I recently stumbled
upon. I am a trainee in a nursery school and heard my colleagues lie to some of the children
for example when going for a smoke. This topic really weighted heavily on my mind which is
why I went out of my way to get some more information and opinions about it. Now I want
to talk to you about the conclusion I came to.

First of all I don’t think that it is good to lie at all neither to grown-ups nor to children. But do
in fact think that the intention behind the lie is pretty important. Is it for example not spoken
with malicious intent but rather as a white lie, which is used to protect someone from
something sad or hurtful, I think that´s more acceptable. Like for example when a child’s
favourite pet dies, then I wouldn´t advise to tell small children the truth but rather bend the
truth a little bit, to not make them feel miserable.

In comparison to that, for me it is absolutely unacceptable to lie to children just because you
don´t want to do or explain something because that would be a little unpleasant or
exhausting. Children should be treated like equals in this aspect and most adults don’t like it,
when someone lies to them. Therefore children also shouldn´t be lied to just because it is
more convenient for the grown-ups around them. Because that could lead to the inability of
the child to trust in people. Which is pretty sad, because the ability to trust in someone is
fundamental for positive relationships with other humas. Children need grown-ups that take
care of them and help them to develop the ability to trust in others and lying to your child
won’t support that development.

Most important is to keep in mind that often one lie leads to the next. Which means that the
more often you tell a small lie without malicious intent the more often you have to
lie again and sometimes even have to create a whole new truth around a topic to make it
more plausible. Maybe you don´t want to tell the children at the nursery about your little
smoking addiction so you just tell them you are going to get some fresh air. But what if a
child sees you outside the nursery with a cigarette in your mouth or smells the smoke when
you come back inside? Then you will be forced to tell the truth or tell another lie. But if you
tell the truth in such cases the child will feel bad, because he/she knows now that you lied to
him/her.

To conclude I would say that small white lies are acceptable to keep the children’s feelings
safe, but that only includes really sensitive topics and not you being embarrassed for going
for a smoke. On top of that we grown-ups should always keep in mind that we usually don´t
like being lied to at all and same goes for children. Their trust is even more fragile than ours
because they depend on us for keeping them save and helping them to develop trust in
other humas. Furthermore, we should consider, that one lie often forces us to tell more lies
and if children find out that we lied to them, they will very likely feel bad and betrayed.