Telling children the truth.

[Nicodemus]

Perhaps being "stripped" of untruths allows one to actually use their own imagination?

I highly doubt that, because you are always in the process of being stripped of untruths. All you hold to be true is true until the very moment it is revealed to be untrue. It might be possible that you create a unicorn once you learn that they do not really exist, as a compensation for the loss, but that does not happen when you learn that demons do not exist, does it? I refuse to believe that there has to be a certain amount of truths in your mental hoard that longs for refilling when you lose one truth to the bitter realm of lies.

 

[SillySapienne]

I highly doubt that, because you are always in the process of being stripped of untruths. All you hold to be true is true until the very moment it is revealed to be untrue. It might be possible that you create a unicorn once you learn that they do not really exist, as a compensation for the loss, but that does not happen when you learn that demons do not exist, does it? I refuse to believe that there has to be a certain amount of truths in your mental hoard that longs for refilling when you lose one truth to the bitter realm of lies.

Well, hmm, there are tiny truths and gigantic truths, perceptually at least.

On a daily basis, I think that most of us deal with stripping away, or having our truths being stripped away on a near constant basis.

The tinier the truth is the less shocking the aftermath is when it is "proven" to be untrue, however, in the circumstance that a truth of great magnitude, a truth which we have carried with us our entire cognizant lifetimes, that has been integral to making us who we are, has been stripped, well, then we are forced in what philosophers, psychologists and intellectuals would call a deep existential crisis.

A mega-truth is something that we hold, presumably, invaluable it becomes not only deeply integrated into who we believe we are, i.e. our identities, but also how we perceive our surroundings, i.e. the universe, and how we justify our being, i.e. our existence.

Sorry, lost my train of thought.

I never carried any significant moral or intellectual "weight" regarding mythological/make-believe creatures, during the same time, I was just as enthralled by the existence of dinosaurs, hell, I was intrigued by most extant species, especially exotic ones.

So, I found just as much pleasure, (still do), in *imagining* and exploring extinct and existing creatures, i.e. *real beings*, as I do mythological ones.

If anything, I am one who finds more inspiration and delight from the what I believe to be a very true adage, "Fact is stranger than fiction"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry, did I address any, if at all, of your points?

:/

 

[Nicodemus]

Sorry, did I address any, if at all, of your points?

Yes, you did. There:

The tinier the truth is the less shocking the aftermath is when it is "proven" to be untrue, however, in the circumstance that a truth of great magnitude, a truth which we have carried with us our entire cognizant lifetimes, that has been integral to making us who we are, has been stripped, well, then we are forced in what philosophers, psychologists and intellectuals would call a deep existential crisis.

I would say that what you call a truth of great magnitude is more commonly called a paradigm. Once that has been invalidated, you are compelled to find a new one, because without it, you have no orientation in the world. Luckily, a paradigm is supposed to be invalidated only by a another one; so if you lose faith in one paradigm, you instantly gain faith in another. In this sense, your theory may be true. But that is not what we were originally talking about, is it?

 

[SillySapienne]

Is it true that we, as a species, as human beings are inherently cooperative or competitive by nature?

As a child I loathed competition with others, I did, however, deeply enjoy competing with myself as well as engaging in "friendly competition", through competition we grow, stretch our capacities.

I have always tilted in favor of human beings being *ultimately* cooperative via competition, as in, though we might kill each other, and act selfish, the ends, when they benefit mankind as a whole, justify the means.

I digress, in fact this whole post is a digression, so I apologize in advance.

There was one value that I held onto tightly my entire life, one belief, that being that Love, true love conquers all.

That Love saves our miserable souls, that Love acts as the bridge to the existential chasms we're trapped and isolated in, that Love defeats one of human beings' strongest, and at many times, malignant force, that of being Selfish.

At the age of 23, I remember, that last tendril of Hope died.

That thing which I clung to so desperately, that thing that made both day to day, and historical deplorable realities bearable was suddenly gone.

I was in my car, outside a bar, when this epiphany came to me, and I wrote in my journal.

"Why am I not enough?"

But, these are my own Truths, this is my own reality, and thus far, I have chosen to live, and hence have had to make great strides in constantly overcoming setbacks, those setbacks not necessarily being catalyzed by my paradigms being stripped but rather by their being circumstantially non-existent.

I do not want to live a miserable life.

And, though misery must be dealt with, if I continue to choose to live, I must endure the suffering of momentary and often momentous suffering in order to, perhaps ignorantly, one might say, find the beauty I once saw, knew and felt.

My truth(s) have been raped and invalidated time and time again, but I am still here, and I still believe in them.

If I don't believe in anything, then I would be consumed by apathy, a fate worse than death.

Call me delusional, I don't care.

One life to live, better make it worthwhile.

 

[SillySapienne]

Also, Nicodemus, I still have virtually the same paradigms I had and held onto my entire cognizant life.

I must concede that at some level, perhaps I was indoctrinated by others, but is one indoctrinated when they *choose* their teachers?

For me, at least, truth comes intuitively, and it is fortified, for me, by both observation and feeling, i.e. having to see and feel it to believe it.

I never felt lied to because if I deemed someone to be a liar, that which they say is ultimately a lie, and hence holds no validity in my court.

I've been lied to a BUTTLOAD regarding what I alluded to previously as "tiny truths", and this just pisses me off, because I get upset that I actually trusted the liar to begin with, and even more so it gets me upset at myself for not being perceptive enough to catch it as it's happening, but other than that, all of my paradigms have been intrinsically arrived at, though I do not share/hold them alone, I came to believe them by myself.

I dunno, just some thoughts.

:/

 

[Ginkgo]

 

[Lark]

Also, Nicodemus, I still have virtually the same paradigms I had and held onto my entire cognizant life.

Pretty girl using big words :hi:

 

[LunarMoon]

What're you suggesting its a value judgement then rather than a cognitive skills set?
I've no problem if you're suggesting that not all adults mature the same way, some dont mature, some are emotionally illiterate or cognitively limited, that's an individual thing and its difficult to generalise. That's a given. However, that adults use rationalisations or other ego tricks to escape consequential thinking or pangs of conscience but it doesnt mean they dont do it.
By all means call bullshit, its not an opinion I'm expressing here, its sound evidence based psychological theory. Go read.

You seem to be confusing Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development with Kolberg’s Moral Stages. Piaget’s theory, the one that I was referring to, is a cognitive skill set based around the ability to think abstractly. As for consequential thinking and other forms reasoning involving abstract thought, most adults simply do not use it in any frequency that is not negligible. Nor is there any reason to believe that they can as the contrary has been proven throughout multiple experiments and should be fairly observable within the real world. As alluded to in the previous post, up to 49% of pregnancies within the United States alone are unplanned and many other live through a poorly laid out financial track living paycheck to paycheck. It would be a betrayal of Occam’s razor to claim that the majority of adults are so smart that they force themselves to disregard consequential thought in order to repeatedly make stupid decisions.

 

[Lark]

You seem to be confusing Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development with Kolberg’s Moral Stages. Piaget’s theory, the one that I was referring to, is a cognitive skill set based around the ability to think abstractly. As for consequential thinking and other forms reasoning involving abstract thought, most adults simply do not use it in any frequency that is not negligible. Nor is there any reason to believe that they can as the contrary has been proven throughout multiple experiments and should be fairly observable within the real world. As alluded to in the previous post, up to 49% of pregnancies within the United States alone are unplanned and many other live through a poorly laid out financial track living paycheck to paycheck. It would be a betrayal of Occam’s razor to claim that the majority of adults are so smart that they force themselves to disregard consequential thought in order to repeatedly make stupid decisions.

Smart vs. Stupid is intellect is it not? Intellect being distinct from cognition or morality, I'm not confusing the theories, I just dont see them a mutually exclusive or that one is correct and the other false.

 

[ZPowers]

I don't have kids and likely won't for a while (if ever), so right now I mostly operate on a 'don't be the first person to tell a child about the holocaust'-type basis.

 

[Blown Ghost]

you should NEVER lie to a child. they will never trust you again.

 

[ZPowers]

you should NEVER lie to a child. they will never trust you again.

Unless you don't care about a child's trust. In that case, go nuts.

 

[LunarMoon]

Smart vs. Stupid is intellect is it not? Intellect being distinct from cognition or morality, I'm not confusing the theories, I just dont see them a mutually exclusive or that one is correct and the other false.

You referenced consequential thinking in your previous post. By the definition of stupidity that I was using, I was stating that any adult incapable of consequential thinking and who thus makes the poor decisions that I referenced in my previous post, is stupid. So in that regard, we were actually discussing intellect to begin with. I wouldn't, after all, regard the ability to think consequentially as part of moral development, other than on a basic level. Also, cognition refers to the process of thinking in itself, meaning that intellect is actually a subtype of cognition, which is to say that they are not distinct.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the last sentence though. I never mentioned that I think that Piaget is correct while Kolberg is wrong. I'm simply debating against the idea that an adult is necessarily better at consequential thought than an older child or adolescent, which is what you implied in your first post.

 

[Helios]

Is it ever the right thing to lie to a child? Give them a positive falsehood.

Sure. "Father Christmas exists" is a good example.

Is it ever the right thing to withhold the truth from a child, without outright lying? Obscure a negative truth.

I don't see any reason why not.

Is it right to tell them you are certain about something that you really know is completely uncertain to you?

I think so. For example, a mother may lie and tell her child that she is certain that its seriously ill father, who in fact has a 50% chance of making a full recovery and a 50% chance of dying, will make a full recovery. I'm not sure how anyone could justify another course of action in such a situation.

Should the information a child can access on its own be restricted?

Yes. The finer details of sexual intercourse ought to be withheld from a five year old, for instance.

Does the answers to these questions depend on specific age? Is it "yes" for a 5 year old, but "no" for a 10 year old? When is the line crossed?

This depends on the individual child in question.

I'm going to go even beyond my parents and make the radical proposal that a child should receive any and all information that it inquires for, as accurately as can be done (you can't spend all day explaining everything in minute detail, unfortunately).

I tend to think that there is no such thing as bad knowledge (of course, I am open to any cost-benefit analysis to the contrary). I think that keeping the truth from a child simultaneously leaves them vulnerable to the harshness of the real world, and starves their critical thinking abilities (on the bright side, their inclination to think critically might sky rocket if they learn what a huge liar you are, but I think that's a bad way to go about it).

Keeping some knowledge from a child until certain ages have been reached is a way in which they can be prepared for the harshness of the real world gently, and therefore responsibly. To allow them unrestricted access to any and all information whatever their age borders on recklessness.

I consider the insistence on openness and honesty to be a very religious, and especially Christian, attitude. As far as I am concerned, lies and deceit can be just as virtuous as honesty.

 

[LunarMoon]

Sure. "Father Christmas exists" is a good example.

Could you please explain why it's a good example?

I think so. For example, a mother may lie and tell her child that she is certain that its seriously ill father, who in fact has a 50% chance of making a full recovery and a 50% chance of dying, will make a full recovery. I'm not sure how anyone could justify another course of action in such a situation.

You can’t see how anyone could justify telling the truth? Death is a fact of life and lying to an older child, especially, is pretty questionable, especially since many children are smart enough to figure it out anyway.

Yes. The finer details of sexual intercourse ought to be withheld from a five year old, for instance.

Why? Adults seem to be the only ones with an actual problem in regard to it. If the child in question knows about other facets of biological science then I don’t see why this particular one is special, especially if they’ve demonstrated enough curiosity to ask.

Keeping some knowledge from a child until certain ages have been reached is a way in which they can be prepared for the harshness of the real world gently, and therefore responsibly. To allow them unrestricted access to any and all information whatever their age borders on recklessness.

It seems that this would just prepare them for disappointment, discourage intellectual curiosity, and encourage delusional thought. Personally, I could never fathom the idea of restricting children from watching the news, for instance, since other than the Discovery Channel and its affiliates, it’s perhaps the only useful thing on television.

I consider the insistence on openness and honesty to be a very religious, and especially Christian, attitude. As far as I am concerned, lies and deceit can be just as virtuous as honesty.

This is a very counter intuitive statement to make. The idea of openly spreading and absorbing knowledge for its own sake seems to be a Post-Enlightenment, almost agnostic and atheistic, ideal. Most intellectuals would cringe at the idea of books being burned for containing inconvenient information, while there are many religious fundamentalists who openly support it.

 

[Unique]

When I was told santa wasn't real I was devastated

I think I would of been just as happy and joyful at christmas time as a kid if I knew the truth so I don't understand the point of the lie other than to inevitably cause pain

Could be an NT thing though... don't know

 

[LewisTheNerd]

fairly recently i had an argument with my father (ENTP) on a topic similar to this. both of my parents are psychologists and my dad mainly does clinical hypnosis. While honesty and the search for truth have always been among my highest values my dad has never seen anything morally wrong about lying to someone if it is genuinely for there own benefit (as in the placebo effect) and being clinical hypnosis this is really quite a large part of his job. When it comes right down to it, i beleive that no matter how unpleasant the truth is, the person you are dealing with deserves the right to know it. Say theoretically that someone had a terminal illness with absoulutely ZERO chance of recovery (i know that this is impossible but bear with me) i personally can honestly say that i would rather be told about it and then spend the last (whatever amount of time) in my life enjoying myself as much as i possibly could.

to the point of the actual question i think that as long as a child is capable of understanding the thing that they are asking you to explain, you should ALWAYS tell them the truth about it. There is nothing wrong with withholding something that the child is not able to understand, or will probably not be able to handle emotionally (such as telling them about a recently convicted serial rapist or something) but you should NEVER outright lie.

 

[Mr. Sherlock Holmes]

When I was told santa wasn't real I was devastated

I think I would of been just as happy and joyful at christmas time as a kid if I knew the truth so I don't understand the point of the lie other than to inevitably cause pain

Could be an NT thing though... don't know

I found out Santa wasn't real through my own eventually logical analysis, but for the longest time I believed it just because I wanted to and was afraid of the possibility that he wasn't, even though there was strong evidence against it. But it was pretty saddening. My mum eventually caught on that I didn't believe anymore, so I never actually told her. But I agree. Just tell me you're giving me presents. It won't make me unhappy. I also hated it when other kids lied to me, because I was so freaking gullible! I always believed everything they said, because at that age, other than to avoid getting in trouble, I could not fathom a reason someone would lie. It just seemed pointless. I mean if you make up some story about magic and conspiracies or whatever, at least let me know it's a game!

 

[Synapse]

I thought this was an interesting video.

[youtube="kVCSfJZK4_I"]Feeling Safe and Secure[/youtube]

Dunno if it answers anything though.