When is it OK to lie to kids?
For all youth-development professionals, leading by example includes modeling honesty. We share how we feel, we offer candid feedback, and we own our mistakes. Of course, honesty is not the same as completeness. If a young person in one of our programs asks, “What did you do on your night off?” we are not obliged, in the name of honesty, to report details such as “I got in an argument with my parents” or “I made out with my boyfriend.” Modeling honesty is never a justification for sharing content that is either too personal or too adult to be appropriate for young participants. At the same time, we don’t have to fabricate an answer. Responding, “I just had some personal time” is a truthful yet appropriately broad response to a question about how you spent your night off. Curiously, adults do lie to kids sometimes. And sometimes, the lies are elaborate and last for years. So, when is it OK to lie to kids? Or is it never OK?
Cultural Lies
Most adults in North America and the United Kingdom happily lie to their 6- to 12-year-old children about a magical fairy who comes into their bedroom (while they are sleeping, no less) to retrieve an exfoliated primary tooth from under their pillow and leave a gift in its place. At some point, it dawns on every child whose primary caregivers propagated this prolonged falsehood that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real. Few, if any, children love their parent(s) less for engaging in a multi-year lie. They may be weirded out to discover that a parent has a small satchel of milk teeth stashed in a sock drawer, but surely that caregiver quirk is offset by the money or treats they received during the Tooth Fairy’s shadowy reign.
Despite having been duped, most kids would say the Tooth Fairy scam is a net-positive experience. Yet, as enjoyable as it can be to embrace the myth, it would be a mistake to embrace “Tooth Fairy Ethics” as a justification for lying across the board. Lying for entertainment (at the expense of gullible youth) and lying for whimsy (manipulating the thoughts and feelings of impressionable youth because we can) are patently unethical. Said differently, fun at others’ expense or manipulation of others’ innocence is unprofessional and can be abusive. All young people need trusted adults in their lives, and trusted adults are truthful adults.
How, then, do we reconcile periodic deceit in a sea of honesty? As with all other aspects of great leadership, the answer is nuanced.
Lying Extremes
The lies adults tell children lie (pun intended) along a spectrum. On the benign end of the lying spectrum might be harmless lore, like the Tooth Fairy. The narrative involves no threats to the child’s health or happiness, and there is no embarrassment or shame when the truth is revealed. Every day camp, overnight camp, and parks and rec program have some lore as part of the culture. As long as older kids react positively when the curtain is pulled back to reveal the lore as a fabrication, leaders may elect to retell such stories to future generations of young participants.
On the nasty end of the lying spectrum might be abject untruthfulness that makes a child feel humiliated, unworthy, guilty, or out of control. For example, telling a young person, “The only reason I drink is because you stress me out” is a pernicious lie. Any lie that predictably harms a child is out of bounds.
Silly Lies
Somewhere between those two extremes are the sorts of lies I hear at camps, parks and rec departments, and other youth-serving organizations. Some are harmless, such as pretending that a pop star lives on a fancy nearby property or claiming the triangle-shaped filets in the dining hall are harvested from elusive schools of Bermuda Triangle fish. They’re goofy tales, but 100% false. Most importantly, there is no emotional backfire when kids realize the fib.
When I was seven years old, my day-camp counselor told all the kids that every tree had a nozzle the staff used to inflate the trees for the summer and deflate them before winter. When one boy asked why, the staff member replied, with a totally straight face, “Well, if you don’t deflate the trees before winter, the weight of the snow snaps a lot of limbs. If you look at the trees here at camp, you’ll see that most of the limbs are intact. Compare the camp’s trees to places that don’t deflate their trees, and you’ll see a difference.” Back then, I believed every word, and I would have sworn I noticed fuller trees at camp than elsewhere. At some point, years later, I realized the gag and smiled.
Risky Lies
Less common and riskier are lies that seem harmless when staff tell them but turn sour once uncovered. A hapless child may ask, “What’s for dessert at lunch?” and a well-intentioned staff member may jokingly lie. “Well, the director got married last weekend, and there’s still tons of wedding cake, so I think that’s what’s for dessert.” This is a harmless lie when it’s told. Obviously, the intention is to be humorous. Nevertheless, kids looking forward to cake at lunch are going to be sorely disappointed. Whether to tell lies such as this one—lies that inevitably lead to disappointment (or perhaps anxiety for children who are gluten-free or diabetic)—is a judgment call.
To make wise judgments about lying for laughs, staff members must continually assess how much their kids know them, trust them, and understand their brand of humor. Good practice is for staff to spend the first few days with every new group being truthful, positive, warm, and reliable. Of course, staff should continue to be truthful, positive, warm, and reliable throughout each session, but the initial days, during which staff are cultivating relationships with their young participants, are interpersonally tender and formative. Therefore, it’s best to avoid sarcasm, practical jokes, and lies that could turn sour, especially in those early days.
Over-The-Line Lies
Finally, there are lies that don’t pass the so-called Time-Out Test I frequently reference in my live workshops on professional adult-child boundaries. The Time-Out Test is a quick and easy way for youth-development professionals to gauge the appropriateness of their words or actions. The way it works is simple: Before saying or doing something questionable, staff should imagine touching their shoulders with their fingertips—right fingers on the right shoulder, left fingers on the left shoulder. (This gesture was the referee’s signal for a 20-second time-out in the NBA, until the time-out rules changed in 2017.)
Next, to gauge the appropriateness of words or deeds, imagine your campers’ parents or primary caregivers on one shoulder and imagine your director or senior staff team on the other. With that image in mind, consider whether what you are about to say or do would irritate, embarrass, or upset the responsible adults sitting on your shoulders. If the answer is yes or maybe, then stop. Do not tell that joke. Do not make that move. Do not initiate that activity.
Back to lies. Lies that do not pass the Time-Out Test should remain in your imagination. You may intend a lie to be a joke. That doesn’t matter. You may predict that young participants will understand that the lie is a lie, and therefore see it as humorous. That doesn’t matter. You may want to shock your kids with a dramatic lie and then reveal the even more dramatic truth. That doesn’t matter. You may even want to couch a morsel of adult humor inside a believable lie. Unfortunately, those lies go off like little time bombs when kids are old enough to understand sexual innuendo. So thaaaat’s what my counselor meant when they said so-and-so. That’s not how you want to be remembered.
Whatever your intent, first ask yourself whether you would be glad to explain it all to that child’s parent or guardian and to your boss. If it would make you uncomfortable—even a little—to explain yourself to those trusted adults, that’s the type of lie you should not tell kids. By the same token, if you guess it would make caregivers or senior staff uncomfortable to witness or learn the truth behind some of your words or actions, that’s a clear marker of inappropriateness. Check yourself.
The Truth About Lies
People—especially young people—feel safer with some predictability and certainty in their lives. In our mentoring and caregiving roles, we can choose to be a source of predictability and certainty … or not. We can choose to be a lighthouse in the foggy storm of contemporary culture … or not. The truth is: we have a choice.
Adults have many healthy ways to entertain, guide, teach, and connect with young people. Lying is not an essential tool for positive youth development. Indeed, the programs we run are fantastic laboratories for pervasive truth of all sorts, beginning with small ones. As Albert Einstein said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” If you want to be trusted with important matters, you now know where to start.
