How honest should parents be?

[Edwardo Piet]

Lying to children causes in harm in that when they discover the lie, they lose trust in you and that's not good.

Absolutely. I would say never ever lie to children apart from maybe some extremely rare exceptions to protect them that I can't even think of.

I'm just wondering if there may be ever ever ever one tiny example of some tiny tiny white lie that would help. For all intents and purposes in practice, never lie to them.

I could be completely wrong and I am not a parent. Maybe it's wrong to ever ever ever ever lie to your children no matter what the circumstance no matter how rare or special the circumstance is.

 Kids need to be able to trust their parents.  If you say you will do something, do it.  If you tell them something, be sure it's the truth.  Holding back detail to protect them is perfectly fine.

You're absolutely right KP, I am merely not ruling out the possibility that the whitest of lie might be preferable possibily perhaps on some occasion, maybe at least just the once. I completely agree that 100% honest with children is basically 100% the moral and rightful way to go.

And I could be 100% wrong about there ever being an exception, and I can't even think of any examples. And after all, I'm not a parent.

I'm a consequentialist. So I believe that whatever action causes the best long term consequences is best. Problem is one doesn't know what the consequences will be, so the best thing to do generally is to follow basic moral principles. But I am open to the possibility of extremely rare exceptions. And even then it would only be the absolute whitest of lies and it would have to have a huge payoff and be really really needed to help the child or children.

I'm just being extremely pedantic so as to be clear about 100% what my view is.

If I was so sum it up in the most basic way of all: Don't lie to children it only hurts them and teaches them to also be dishonest themselves. That's my basic view. I'm just being pedantic as always lol.