When you ask your child a question they can fabricate an answer based on reality, or they can fabricate an answer wholecloth.

If they don't know the difference then they have no impetus to tell the truth in that situation, so they are more likely to be dishonest than someone who knows the difference. This does not mean that by using their imaginations they will, later in life, be dishonest.

Or, to express it a little more philosophically:

Imagination is a necessary condition on being dishonest.
Imagination is not a sufficient condition for being dishonest.
Imagination does not imply dishonesty; but dishonesty does imply imagination.

Thoughts about fatherhood, philosophy, fencing, and hockey abound at http://shawn-burns.livejournal.com/

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It's not that I didn't understand what they were getting at (although well put philosophically, Shawn and well put creepily, Colin) it's just the idea of connecting those two things so directly. I don't think imagining you are a knight in shining armor leads to, "Did you wash your hands?" "No."

Is dishonest simply a falsehood or bearing an intention. I don't think the kid who didn't wash his hands is imagining that he had.

Ok so I find this fascinating. You may all find it duller than a car hood in a junkyard. Feel free to ignore.

Josh

SAHD Since August 2005

to be changed. What they are trying to say is not wrong but the way they say it is wrong.
New Quote:
"When children grasp the difference between right and wrong they are on the way to understanding the value of telling the truth and becoming trustworthy."

or truth and lie. Imagination is a good thing it helps a child grow and develop their mind and reasoning skills, but as Shawn has shown nicely above, imagination must be present for a lie to be made up. It was imagined.

I'll remember that one for my students.

Thoughts about fatherhood, philosophy, fencing, and hockey abound at http://shawn-burns.livejournal.com/

Now with new Dad Blog!: http://backpackingdad.blogspot.com

I guess sometimes it is VERY difficult to understand what is Truth/Honest. Here why:

1. At home and in the schools kids are taught/pushed to be the first ones, to have perfect scores, to do everything, to have many friend and good relations.
2. Kids get a trick (or prize/medal/ribbon/sticker) every time they TRY to do something.
3. Most of the times kids are taught that ONLY with hard and Honest work they get Success

So it'll be confusing when they TRY (hard for themselves) and don't get anything, it's easy to be upset when Honesty does not bring Success.

The tiny border line between Truth (Honesty) and Dishonesty can be blended to get Success (prize/medal/ etc) as soon as possible.

Imagination is just one of the many keys the kids have to get success, how they use it depends more on what they are expected to show and how we, as parents, react when we are showed.

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