(September 1, 2017 at 3:05 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(September 1, 2017 at 1:41 pm)shadow Wrote: Why is teaching your kids to think for themselves a reason to lie to them? Isn't it just making it more difficult for them to form a rational world view?
My little girl whom I lied to is 6 years old. I tried and tried (and tried!) to explain to her what would be going on during the August 21st solar eclipse, and she could not understand it. At first she thought that the Sun was going to "eat" the Moon but then realized that the Sun was simply going "behind" the Moon, but that it was the Sun and not the Moon that was moving; it was the best that I could do. She had no idea what the "red things" were on the limb of the Moon and ran around screaming from some insects whom she thought were biting her.
Concerning things like Santa Claus and fairies: I don't understand the point of confusing kids with stuff like that aside from it being kinda cute. They're not going to think for themselves better that way aside from maybe becoming (perhaps rightly) more paranoid that everyone, including their parents, is lying to them.
The way I was raised, my parents would give me true, scientific explanations for everything even when I was too young to understand everything they were saying. As a result, as I grew up and learned more, I'd encounter the ideas they had explained to me (often at a higher grade level in school) and understand them clearly, quickly and rationally. I appreciate that more than I can express.
