Lies to children

(No offense, but it sounds like most of you [aren't] parents- fixed)

Bobby G: re Lies to children "A lie-to-children, sometimes referred to as a Wittgenstein's ladder (see below), is an expression that describes the simplification of technical or difficult-to-understand material for consumption by children...

...The boundary is fuzzy between widespread misconceptions versus lies-to-children. One significant difference is that genuine misconceptions are resistant to further instruction, and are often believed firmly (sometimes passionately) by adults. On the other hand, students will easily recognize and discard the lies-to-children as more advanced concepts are acquired. Another significant difference is that a lie-to-children will tend to be an approximation of the truth (e.g., acceleration due to gravity=10 m/s²) while a misconception will often simply be wrong (e.g. tongue taste map, coriolis-in-the-bathtub)."

It may be that the problem as you have experienced it isn't that your teachers lied to you, it's that they didnt lie with sufficient pedagogical skill.

In any case, this all only applies to technical concepts. What I tell my boy aren't "lies to children" in the above sense, they are literally misconceptions.

Just last night (by some wild cosmic coincidence) my son lost his first tooth. We told him that if he put the tooth outside his door before going to bed, the "Tooth Fairy" would come and exchange it for a dollar. He was very excited by the prospect, and pleased the next morning when it apparently turned out to be true.

I see this as a useful lie to tell my child because up to that point, he had been understandably confused and alarmed by the fact that his mouth appears to be falling apart. What we have done is change a potentially threatening situation and made it "normal"- a natural part of his world, something to celebrate, not fear. We did this with a myth and a monetary reward, which is how you pretty much have to do it with a child as young as he is.

Eventually, his brain will develop sufficient sophistication that he will himself figure out the difference between magic and cause-and-effect, at which point my duty will be to reinforce the belief in materialistic cause-and-effect. Sadly, this will mark the beginning of the end of his belief in magic, but the point is that I don't control this process, he does, and all I can do is gently encourage him in age-appropriate ways.

You'll assume that you need to look it up when you notice that you're unable to solve the problem with the model that you've got.

Lies To Children aren't the "wrong answer"; they're a simpler answer that'll get you far enough and work in a sufficient number of situations.

If you tried to teach kids the "deeper" truth behind all of the accepted scientific theories and models in the field that you're teaching instead of simplified models that barely cover the basics, you'd have 20 years of compulsory education without even half the number of subjects that Western schools have.

Instead, the smart move (it seems to me) is to teach simplified versions of the prevailing models in each of the multitude of subjects, so that the kids will have a very basic, elementary understanding of each field. Later, they'll pick the field(s) they want to study further and learn the more advanced theories in those fields, retaining the simplified models they learned in the others so that they'll still know the basics.

If you run across a complicated problem in a field that's not yours, it's assumed that you'll look for help when you notice that it's beyond your level in that field. Or you'll study the field to the extent that you'll get your answer. Or you'll just go on with your life without solving that problem.

Again, it's important to emphasise that you're only learning the basics in mandatory education. If you want to go further, you have the opportunity; but to pass your courses, you only need the basics (in mandatory education).

It's kind of funny that we're talking about Lies To Children, which is the topic of this thread, yet we're talking about a different kind of Lies To Children that was indicated by the OP. So I don't know if we're on-topic or not.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Also:

QFT. Incidentally, what people usually seem to mean when they say they'll teach their kids scientific ways to solve problems or stuff like that is simply that they'll take an alternative route to achieving that. So instead of telling the kid that there's a tooth fairy, you can tell them that they'll soon grow new teeth, but this time the teeth will be permanent.

But it's true that even without answering their questions like this, they'll eventually learn the truth anyway. It's just a matter of letting them learn on their own or guiding them through the process in a more direct, yet harder to understand way; the latter is more challenging for the parents, but there's probably no significant difference in the way the kid turns out.

As far as I can tell, neither way is better; for example, Richard Dawkins' parents always answered his questions in a scientific manner (to the extent that a child can understand), yet he seems to have more admiration for the universe than most people who do believe in actual magic. Most kids will have learned magical explanations for natural processes through their childhood, and neither Dawkins nor the majority of people seem to be harmed by the way they were taught things when they were kids.

Personally, I'd raise my kids like Dawkins was raised. The difficult bit is figuring out how to simplify things for your kid so that they'll be satisfied with the answer without the simplified model being 100% wrong (in which case it's not simplified - it's twisted).

edited 13th Jul '11 4:08:04 PM by BestOf

I think it's on topic, because at least as far as I'm concerned, they are lies that are told to children, whatever the justification. If the OP thinks they're outside the scope of the thread I guess we can take this discussion elsewhere, though.

Assuming you realise your error. There's always the risk you won't.

That said, maybe my problem is that the lies I was told weren't sufficiently helpful or skillful ones.

I'd question the harmlessness of the tooth-fairy story, though. I mean, I can see why it might be convenient and why it might be appealing, both to a parent and a child, but what happens if the child finds out the truth? They might be angry at being lied to, they might be distraught at the non-existence of somebody they believed in, they might be less trustful of their parents as a result and they might feel ashamed at having been so easily fooled. This is how I felt when I learned that there was no "Easter Bunny". >_>

@Bobby: That depends entirely on the kid. I was quite chuffed with myself when I "proved" to my parents that the tooth fairy was just them sneaking around.

Like I said, "might". I agree, it does depend on the child.

I'd also be inclined to argue that it teaches them to not take anyone at face value without thinking about it.

I suppose it's all in the telling.

"How does the tooth fairy know when your tooth falls out, Dad?"

"Because your old tooth gives off an invisible odor that only the TF can smell, that's how she knows" as opposed to "It's magic" or worse yet "I don't know, she just can!" The first takes the style of a rational explanation, while being entirely wrong in content, thus preparing him to think in certain ways, while the second generates trust in meaningless labels and the last is just a fancy way of saying "shut up".

A good story well told leads to more questions. A bad one doesn't.

From my personal experience, I'd say that most kids are pretty satisfied with themselves when they figure out on their own that the stories are just stories. My parents intentionally let me catch them in the act of giving the bag of presents to the santa who was coming to visit us when we were "big enough" to know that there was no santa; though me and my oldest younger brother had already figured it out by then.

(In case you don't get what I'm talking about: in Finland, for families with kids, Christmas goes like this: after you've eaten a shitload of delicious Christmas food, one of your relatives or neighbours comes in, dressed as Santa, with a bag of presents that they got from your parents when they arrived (outside, so the kids won't notice). Then you sing a couple of Christmas Carols for Santa and he distributes the presents. Then he leaves. When you're old enough, you begin to recognise who Santa is this year and where the presents were hidden and so on (you don't tell your younger siblings or classmates, though; everyone's supposed to figure it out by themself.)

Yeah; when you're taught your Lies To Children, the person doing the teaching is supposed to tell you what kind of problems you can and can't handle with what you've learned. So if you don't know how to solve it, you know it's more advanced than what you've learned. If you think you can solve it and end up doing something wrong, it means you didn't know your limits, which usually means that you weren't told how much you knew or you've forgotten stuff.

It's always usually better to play safe and make sure you know what you're doing, even with things that seem only mildly difficult, than to just go and do things that seem vaguely like what you kinda feel you should be doing.

That's what it seems like.

From your reaction to learning about the Tooth Fairy, I kinda suspect that your parent(s) acted too serious when they told the story in the first place. As in, they told it just like they'd tell you something that's actually true. If you ask me, when you're telling a child something that isn't an approximation of truth, it's a good idea to tell it like you'd tell a story. They'll learn to pick up the signs in your tone, body language etc eventually, thus learning social skills at the same time.

That's brilliant.

edited 13th Jul '11 4:33:48 PM by BestOf

I was never that great at reading expressions as a kid, TBH. My parents only told me about the Easter Bunny as a joke, and I still believed it at the time. And they did seem pretty serious when they talked about Santa, so I figured it must be true. Especially since they did have elaborate answers for every time I questioned part of the story, which made me more certain that it was true.

Fiction: Make it as clear as possible that fictional characters aren't real. I'd tell them that magicians aren't capable of magic if they asked, and go into as much detail about it as I could. Learning interesting things is one of the best things about being a kid, and I wouldn't want to take it away from them.

Death: My parents were totally honest about death with me, and I'm gad that they were, so I'd tell my kids that some people believe in an afterlife, but that there's no solid evidence that it exists, so you probably just kind of stop living at some point, and that's it.

Sex: I feel like telling them the truth would be the right thing to do, but I might not be able to bring myself to do it. It just feels gross talking about that with a kid, even if it's for their own good. Probably, I'd always say I'd tell them when they were older, and then wait for another kid at school to tell them. Not at all responsible, but it's what I'd do.

Other: I'd try to avoid lies as much as I could. I don't have a problem with sugarcoating things, avoiding topics or just refusing to explain things, but I don't like the idea of lying directly to my own child. I'd want them to trust me.

The thing about lies to children in the educational sense is that it it must be presented in the context of being naturally extended to the full truth in the future. When I was a math tutor, I'd usually preface those things with "This is a special, nicely-telescoping case of a broader and more complicated rule going on behind the scenes, but it takes tools you don't have yet. Do it like this for now, and be ready to revise it in a few years when you're ready."

As for Santa, my school taught us who St. Nicholas was, and that our job was to be Santa. Ho ho how's that motherfuckers.

edited 13th Jul '11 9:41:04 PM by Pykrete

Whatever you do, do not present lies as a reason for why your child should not be doing something. When I was a little girl, my mom would tell me to not go too far away from the house because some evil person will catch me and turn me into sausages. Even at four, I recognized that warning as a load of bull, and would go as far away from the house as I'd want.

It's really better to be truthful with your children about your concerns, because chances are, the will see through your BS.

I've told him that if he wanders away too far, he'll get lost, and he may not be able to find me again. Eventually, I expect him to confirm that hypothesis.

I want to be trutful, if only because my grandma scared me to death when she said that if I went out of the cul de sac they would find me in a bush somewhere. Kids don't need to be THAT scared.

I think telling the truth, possibly simplified, is almost always the best course of action.

• Fiction: Kids are generally better at telling truth from fiction than many people give them credit for. If they actually seem confused about what's fictional, explain it honestly.
• Death: If it comes up, explain what death is, and if the kid doesn't get bored too quickly, also give a simplified explanation of the philosophical questions about death and the biology of aging.
• Sex: Explain the details of sexual reproduction. And I really mean the details; talk about genetic diversity in populations, asexual versus sexual reproduction and their respective evolutionary origins, the biological process of cell fertilization, the development of the fetus during pregnancy, and so forth. If the kid doesn't get bored before you've given the full scientific background necessary to understand sexual reproduction, then you've raised a science geek who's probably mature enough to handle knowing what sex is.
• Other: Tell the truth, simplified when necessary. If it contradicts what they learned in school, explain why and teach them about the scientific method and how to evaluate conflicting claims.