lier, lier, pants on fire

"I cannot tell a lie." The infamous words George Washington spoke as a boy, after chopping down his father's prized cherry tree. I would personally like to know what his parents did to instill such hard core values into such a young lad.

You see, lately we've had a little fibber on our hands, and her name is Ella. She's just recently grasped the whole concept of "I might be able to get away with something if I don't tell the truth." Though I'm her mother and I see right through it. Her eyes darting here and there, her wheels turning a million miles a minute, trying to weave a story that makes sense in her little mind. She might know how to lie, but I can tell that her conscience fighting it at every turn.

For now, her lies really seem harmless. Seem being the key word in that sentence.

Take two instances yesterday:

Me, seeing red marker scribbled all over her new jeans: "Ella, what happened to your jeans? Did you color all over yourself?"

She glances down, eyes starting to dart around before they focus on the ceiling: "No, I didn't do it. I think the marker fell off the table and did this to my jeans."

Uh-huh. A marker happened to roll off the table and scribble on your jeans from your thigh to your knee cap.

OR, this:

As I'm trying to get Ella's seatbelt around her carseat, I see, in my peripheral vision, that Ella is winding up to flick me. She does this sort of thing not to be mean, but to pick and pester. I was like that as a child. I was known as the pest of the family, and to date, my siblings still think I'm a pest. I honestly have no idea why. To make matters worse, they still think I tell everyone what they're getting for Christmas, even though I seriously haven't done that since I was like 10! Apparently you never grow up in the eyes of your family! Obviously it's a sore spot for me.

Anyway, I see Ella about to flick me...

"Ella, don't you dare flick me or we're going in the house and you're getting a time-out."

Pause. Eyes darting. "I wasn't going to flick you, Mommy. I was only making the number 6 with my fingers."

Wow. She's a smart cookie. I seriously hide a smile and stifle my laugh until I close the van door and turn away from her. She told a lie, a small, funny lie, but it's a lie nonetheless and she can't see me laugh about it.

There have been times where I've blown off her lying without a reprimand, realizing after the fact that by not "nipping it the bud" (as my mother would say), I am doing wrong by her. By not confronting the lie, and using it as a time to explain why lies are wrong, I am teaching her that is okay to lie, when it is definitely not! If I allow her to get away with lying about small and meaningless things, she will think it's okay to lie about something when it could potentially hurt someone. Teaching my child to be honest, no matter the consequences, is crucial in teaching her to be a woman of integrity.

So it's been a struggle. But I hope that in the end, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do in order to lead Ella down the right path. Its times like these that I cling to the following verse:

"Train up a child in the way he should go, for that when he is old, he will not part from it."

Any helpful or creative suggestions about teaching your children not to lie would be very much appreciated!