Lying, Tigers and Boys - Oh My.

It's been happening - every now and then - for quite sometime now.

My little boy has been lying.

I would say it started around the time we began potty training. Little white lies about whether or not he had an accident, whether or not he peed in the potty or all over the outside of the potty. But it was a new experience, this potty training business, and he was trying hard to learn the ropes. So we did our best to encourage, rather than reprimand. To focus on the positives rather than accentuate the negatives. Besides, the less attention we drew to his little white lies, perhaps the less likely he'd be to continue telling them.

Or so we thought.

This morning, it seems, we've crossed the line from little white lies to thought-out, planned deceit.

I was drying my hair when Ryan came into the bathroom asking where his little guitar was. I told him it was on the tray table by the back door. He ran away and I continued drying. The rest of the morning went on, as I got dressed for work, applied perfume and put on my jewelry. All the while, Lindsey and Ryan were in and out of the bedroom, playing and laughing. When I gathered up the kids to leave my room and head out into the kitchen, Ryan quickly scooted in front of me and into the dining room.

"Ooo...look what Bailey did," he said.

I turned into the dining room and found Ryan by the back door, next to the tray table, pointing at the floor. A small herb pot, which was also on the tray table next to his guitar, had fallen over and spilled. Bailey, he said, had knocked it over.

"Are you sure you didn't knock it over?" I asked calmly. "No," he replied. "Bailey did it." After a few more gentle prompts - with Ryan remaining adamant that Bailey was indeed the guilty party - I explained that sometimes we do things by accident and that's OK, as long as we tell the truth so whatever we did can be fixed. He nodded his head. "So maybe you knocked it over with the guitar over by accident?" Another head nod. "So it wasn't Bailey who did it?" A quiet "no" in reply. "So did you lie about knocking the plant over?" Another head nod. "Then go in time out," I said.

Crying, tears and a few minutes later I asked Ryan why he was in time out. "Because I knocked the plant over," he said. So I began an explanation (that I heard often when growing up) about how it wasn't what he did that got him in trouble, but the fact that he lied about it. That lying is not nice and lying can be hurtful. All the while, he looked me in the eyes and nodded. He gets it, I thought.

So after my best first attempt at instilling the value of honesty into my three year old, he replies, "But tigers are nice. They don't hurt you."

Wait...what? It seems my entire explanation of lying had been interpretted by Ryan as lions. Lions are not nice...lions can be hurtful. Well...the good news is those statements are as accurate as my intended lesson.

The bad news is - something tells me this isn't the last time we'll have this conversation.