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<\/p>\nLast week, a house three doors down from us was broken into. It was during the day, and the owner was home (so was his barking dog). When my neighbour went down stairs to see why the dog was barking, to his surprise, he found a stranger in his house! He immediately began to chase him out of the house, but stopped in his tracks when the robber declared that he had a knife (which my neighbour saw) and a gun (he didn’t see). He immediately called the police and about six patrol cars showed up outside my house and up and down the street. When I went outside to see what was going on, I was shaken to the core. I mean, it could have easily been our house. Luckily though, there wasn’t an incident and the robber left empty ended. While leaving me feeling vulnerable and shocked, this wasn’t the part that bothered me the most.<\/p>\n
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You see, we live on the same street as our local school, where our boys go. During the incident, the school was on a “lock and hold”, which is different than a “lock down.” Specifically, during a lock and hold, no one can enter or leave the school, but inside, it’s business as usual. The kids weren’t made aware of this lock and hold, except that some kids were told that they needed to remain in the lunchroom instead of going outside for recess. Eventually the area was cleared and it was determined that it was safe so the kids were sent out for recess. However, the street was still lined with cops. So the kids, being kids, started to stare, ask questions and speak among themselves to figure out what had happened that day. Luckily (I have no idea how), my boys didn’t see or hear about any of this.<\/p>\n
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A letter was sent home to the parents explaining what had happened. When my oldest son handed me the note, he asked me happened. I had two choices… tell him the truth or lie. I decided to do the latter.\u00a0 There was absolutely no point telling my 7 year old son that a house, a few doors down from us, got broken into by a “bad guy”. This is the same kid that is afraid to be on a different floor from my husband and I, at any time of the day. Later, when I spoke to my neighbour, whose house it was that got broken into, she also told her kids that the robber didn’t get into their house, he was just in their backyard (also a fib). It was clear that in this situation, our lies were needed in order to protect our kids and their innocence and help them feel safe.<\/p>\n
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While I do believe that it was also a great opportunity to speak about being vigilant and to make sure our kids aren’t naive, I knew that this conversation would be better discussed at a later time so my kids don’t connect it with the incident.<\/p>\n
What are your thoughts? Would you have lied to your kids in this situation or would you have told them the truth? Do you ever think it’s okay to lie to kids?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, a house three doors down from us was broken into. It was during the day, and the owner was home (so was his barking dog). When my neighbour went down stairs to see why the dog was barking, to his surprise, he found a stranger in his house! He immediately began to chase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Weigh in... Do you think that it's ever okay to lie to our kids? I think so, and I recently did. Read on to find out why... https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dEqj-3j1 #momlife #momtruths","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5309],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-parenting","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n