Learning to tell the truth and what to say about death, 1931: Ursual Wise advises on dealing with continuous lies , as well as the subject of children's questions about death.

February 25^th, 1931 in The Nursery World

Learning to tell the truth

David, aged four, is very imaginative. If he has done anything naughty he tells a story of a little boy or girl who came in through the window and did these things

“D. R. H.” writes: “I read your pages in ‘The Nursery World’ with the greatest interest, and I wonder whether you would some time discuss two questions I am up against with my small charge just now. I am an infant-trained nurse, and David has just outgrown my knowledge and experience, and I am having to feel my way into tackling new problems. He is four years old, and I am staying on to look after a delicate little sister. David is a jolly, very sensible little boy, but has always been very highly strung, and is suddenly frightened of unexpected things, such as blind man’s buff at a party, or the noise of air in hot water pipes. He is at the very imaginative age now, and has just started ‘telling lies’ – chiefly entirely imaginative ones. If you ask him if ‘so-and-so’ was at a party, he will say, ‘Yes,’ and tell you a whole long story of their doings, and perhaps afterwards you find that she was not there at all. Also, if he has done anything naughty (such as removing all the buttons from pyjamas, etc.), he will come and tell me of a little girl or boy who came in through the window and did these things.

“A little while ago, if I listened and smiled, and then said at the end, ‘Now tell me what really happened; think a minute and then tell me,’ he would say, ‘David did it.’ But now he sticks to his story through thick and thin. So I never ask him if he did a thing or not. Once I found an empty bottle of sweets and asked him if he had eaten them all. He said, ‘No, I haven’t eaten one.’ So I said, “What have you done with them?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. I suggested, ‘Have you given them away?’ ‘Yes,” he said, ‘I gave some to mummy ,’ etc., going through everyone in the house . I left it at that, finding out that no one had been given a sweet. Later I found the sweets, which had not been eaten, stored away in a corner. So it seems to me he has no idea of ‘facts’ at all one moment. And therefore, that the only thing to do is to ‘keep off the grass’ and hope the phase will pass, as I have watched many other difficult phases pass, by being ignored. But also I am wondering how best to give him an idea of being trustworthy – something towards which he can grow as he passes through the phase. And also I would like to know whether I am right in just leaving the subject open for a bit.

“The other question I would like to ask is how to describe death to a child of four years? David always asks me what a graveyard is when we pass, and is dreadfully upset if anything gets run over and killed. He is obviously worrying about it all, and I want to give as happy as possible a reason. So far I have told him that when people get ill or very old and tired Jesus takes them away with Him and makes them better, and when we haven’t them here any longer with us, we sometimes make little gardens for them by the church, and out flowers and their names to remember them by. But this I feel is inadequate. I have never seen either of these subjects discussed in your pages, and I don’t think I can have missed them, as I always find it the most absorbing part of ‘The Nursery World.’ I shall be so glad if you can give me ideas. Following your advice to others, we came very successfully through the advent of the little baby sister, who is a pet of all the household, but most of all David’s pet. They are the most devoted little brother and sister. She is as placid as he is highly strung, and will be a great help to him, I think.”

Yes, I certainly think that the best way to deal with these imaginative lies is to leave them entirely alone. They are quite common at this age, and are pretty certain to die away if no notice is taken of them. And you are quite right in feeling that it is best to avoid the sort of questioning that leads to the lying, as the child is so much on the defensive against either real things or imaginary naughtiness, that he cannot be properly clear about what the truth is, nor dare to tell it. The best help you can give him towards learning to tell the truth is his actual experience of your own truthfulness and trustworthiness. But in addition there is no reason why you should not make some cheerful suggestion to the effect that it is best for little children always to say it is true, because then people can know best how to help them. And there is no reason why you should not enter into his stories about things, showing by your manner that you can enter into his imagination while yet being aware that is it only imagination. A tone of voice, a twinkle of the eye, an occasional use of the words “not really,’ without any preaching or pedantry are the best support to the little child’s feeble sense of reality.

The actual details you give about the behaviour of your little charge make it very clear that the whole content of his imaginative lies at the moment, as well as the dread of death, are bound up with his hidden anxiety about the birth of the little baby sister, which he had dealt with so successfully in his actual relation with her.
Space will not allow me to go into a full explanation of this, and I say it chiefly in order to support your own sympathetic understanding that the child is passing through a phase of inner difficulty. With the help of your patient comfort he will probably pass through it quite normally. I think your way of dealing with his anxiety about death is a very good one. Many children between three and five years of age have this distress about death, and fear it for themselves and those whom they love, but the preoccupation with the idea passes away in time.