Mail Bag - Lying

Transcription

[intro music]

Debi Pearl:  Papa and I are going to go ahead and record so ya'll go ahead and shut the door.
Child:  That is a big tree. I bet I could climb it. [giggling]

Announcer:  God hates lying and so do most parents. What do we do when our kids lie? Let's find out what Debi did when she had a liar.

Michael Pearl:  Deb has the first letter here. We're going to let her read it and see what it says.

Debi:  OK. This letter is about lying. It says, "Dear Mike, I know you're busy and can't answer all questions, like you said, but I write in desperation. I need to know what would you do in case of your children lying to you? This issue of lying stumps us completely. We have taught them from the beginning that to lie is wrong and the consequences are always much worse, such as spanking, but it still happens. I've been feeling lately that the possible reason is that over the years they lie for the simple reason of fear, not wanting to get a spanking. Other than that, we cannot figure out why our children constantly lie. Yes, we've read your book and we've read a lot of the other things that you've written, but we have never seen anything about the issue of lying.

Have you ever read the book "To Shepherd a Child's Heart" by Ted Trip? I feel the best books for raising children is Ted's and yours put together. He mentions this topic of lying and how to deal with it in his book, but we didn't agree with it at first. He mentions to discuss integrity and remind your child that God requires integrity, that all things are laid bare before him, and that we will finally all give an account in His court.

If we tell their children we don't believe them it will dishearten them. If they become persuaded that you will never believe them, there's never any reason to continued talk or future relationships. Refusing to call your child liars and pricing your relationship with them encourages integrity.

He's been amazed at the degree of self‑disclosure and even self‑incrimination his children had exhibited as a result of this. He goes on to say that, "if your child will not come clean about what he's done then he will get away with it this time." This is where we didn't agree and felt that we should still spank them when we knew they were lying to us.

He says, "That is sad, but your losses and his losses are less if you walk away than if you call him a liar. If what he has done reflects deceit, you will have other opportunities to address it. Much better to fail this time and preserve relationship than to damage your relationship and fail to address the deceit as well."

Finally he says, "if you are not sure what happens how can you secure acknowledgement from your child in spanking? Your credibility when you know what occurs increases if you will not discipline when things are unclear."

That's the only thing we have on this topic to go by and if we'd started with our children when they were very young it might have worked, but to just adopt this and start it when they are as old as they are is really hard. My husband would get the tar beat out of him by his dad if his dad remotely thought he was lying and I have to admit, I don't know what else to do.

I had the feeling the other night, and shared it with my husband, that it was possible that it's because we're leaning on our own resources too much and need to take it to the Lord more, if not completely, because we're at our wits ends. We've spanked, we've warned, we've given Biblical teaching on not lying, we don't lie to them.

Other than the fear of spanking, I just don't know why they continue to lie. Please give us an answer."

Michael:  OK, Deb. We did write on lying. I don't remember if it was in a newsletter. I believe we probably have it in "No Greater Joy" volume one or two, but we have written on the subject and we've certainly spoken on it. We've had liars in our own family so we've had to deal with it. It's not something new to us. By the way, lying is about as common as humanity. Children, all children, will experiment with lying. Some of them will become liars. Some just experiment with lying and some of them become perpetual and hardened liars and spend the rest of their life lying. It is a habit you need to break because certainly it's a total lack of integrity when a child starts lying to you.

Deb had some experiences one time. She had a brilliant idea that came to her. I'm going to let her take full credit for it and tell you what she did with Nathan when we found out he was a perpetual liar.

Debi:  OK. I have noticed that the smarter the child is, they seem to be more clever and able to deceive and if they can deceive successfully then that keeps them going. Nathan happens to be a real intelligent person and when he was a child it was apparent that he was smarter than the average child and he could just deceive me and it just kept going on and on. I knew he was lying but I just couldn't catch him. I could catch Rebecca and I could catch Gabriel and I could catch the two little girls. I could catch most any child, but I could not catch Nathan. I would sneak around the corner just to see if he was going to tell me the truth. I would try everything. I just couldn't catch him, but I knew he was lying. I knew he was.

Finally, after praying about it and being troubled about it, trying to figure out any way I could catch him, I came up with an idea that I was going to sit down and discuss with him how bad lying was and how I just did not like lying and that I would do anything I could to make him not be a liar but he was smart and I couldn't catch him. From now on, for the next seven days, at high noon I was going to give him 10 licks, not for lying but for being a liar.
I explained to him how lying works and what deception was and a lot of times you didn't have to say anything, you just had to make me believe it and that was lying. I took him through the whole thing. He was about seven years old. I made him go cut the stick, switch off the tree, and bring it in to me, and I gave him 10 licks at noon the first day.

I told him, "Nathan, I don't want you to be a liar. I want you to tell the truth and grow up to be an honorable man like your Daddy." Next day I called him in and said, "Go get the switch." He went and cut a switch, came in. I gave him 10 licks and said, "Nathan, I don't want you to be a liar. I want you to grow up to be an honorable man like your Daddy."

Every day at noon he knew what was coming. He had time to think about it. Finally, one noon or a little after noon he came to me with a stick and he said, "Mom, I can't stand it any longer, just get it over with." I said, "Nathan, this is the eighth day. What do you mean?" He said, "What do you mean, Mama?"

I said, "This is the eighth day. I said for seven days, we've kept it on the calendar. You've had your whippings for being a liar." That was the end of it. He never lied hardly. That was the end. I never had to deal with it. I never felt a troubled spirit after that.

Then we were speaking maybe five years ago. Nathan by then was way over six foot tall and he was a man just about. We were speaking at a child training seminar type group and someone asked about lying and Nathan said, "Mom, this is what you did to me," and he told the story and when he got through he said, "I made up my mind that day."

He said, "If Mom hates lying that bad then lying really must be evil. It really must be bad for me to have to come in and get a whipping every single day when she didn't even catch me at a lie. Then it must be a really bad thing and I'm just not going to lie anymore."

All these years I didn't know that and it really surprised me and blessed me to think...God and his wisdom allowed that child's heart to finally be turned after seven whippings. All of my children gained wisdom through that experience and, thankfully, it broke the chain that bound Nathan.

Michael:  All right. This woman read another author here, she said. As I listen to her recounting this author I thought well that's exactly the same thing we've taught. This author does not differ from us at all. In fact, it's exactly. Ted Trip, I think she said his name was. "To Shepherd a Child's Heart." It sounds like he's in perfect agreement. We've expressed it differently but it's the same concept. Let me see if I can recount what she said. She said...

Announcer:  Now, before you go and copy Debi's story exactly, come back next week to hear the conclusion to this difficult subject of lying. As always, don't forget to check out Cane Creek Corner.

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