Just to get people more riled up at Dad and more empathetic for Josh, I thought I'd use one of his nice, innocent looking pictures for this post.  So presently, Josh is almost three and a half years old.  Too young to know right and wrong or lying and telling the truth?  I definitely know he understands right from wrong, but he does not yet grasp the consequences/concept of lying and telling the truth.  A unique, well, not unique, but a situation arose the other night that gave me the perfect opportunity to try and teach him to be honest at all times with Mom and Dad.

Before Josh was born, I spent a lot of time and money designing a custom, built-in bunk bed system that I thought he would grow up to love. Both beds have a set of touch pad lights that are great for reading.  We have had a few incidents with Josh destroying different aspects of his bunk bed system while he grew into it (we moved him into bottom bunk before the Audrey was born when he was 20 months or so).  So for the longest time, we actually had the lights pulled out of his bed because I did not want them broken and they also get very hot when on and I was worried Josh would burn himself.  We had finally put the lights back in when we felt Josh could 'handle' them in there without destroying them.  Well we were wrong.  Josh had had a play date at our house and inevitably something would get broken every time.  The kids just seem to gravitate to his bedroom and go crazy in the bunk beds.

Last night, when I was putting Josh to bed, I noticed one of the lights did not work.  As I mentioned, they just had a play group yesterday and I know they all go in his room and raise hell.  So I asked Josh what happened, albeit in a semi-stern voice, and he immediately starts explaining that other people were playing with his lights and it 'just stopped working'.  I was suspicious of whether or not he was lying, so I pressed him a bit, but he stuck to the story that it was another kid who did the damage.  I let it go as that but told him that the new rule was that no kids were allowed to play in his beds anymore because I paid a lot of money to build them.  Immediately, Josh's wheels start spinning, "How long did you have to work to save up money?" and I give the exaggerated answer "Ten years!"  "Whoa, that's a long time."  So I thought things would go pretty smoothly from now on because Josh does a great job following rules for the most part.  There is already a rule that none of the kids can climb up to the top bunk and if any kid starts to ascend the ladder, Josh comes screaming out in a panic like someone is about to die.

So after snuggling a bit in bed, I went into the office to work and asked Ann if she knew what happened.  I was basically going to tell her not to let kids back there at all anymore if possible.  To my surprise, she said Josh told her 'he' broke the lights.  So now I was more than little irritated and I went back in to his bedroom and scolded josh for a few minutes.  I told him I was very disappointed that he lied to me and if he lied again I would spank him.  This empty threat is key to story, but I must admit it is much more tame than the "I'll knock you through the wall!" threats I got from my Mom growing up :).  So after the scolding, which only lasted 30-40 seconds, Josh was 'all right' afterwards.  He was timid and profusely apologizing, but no where near the level of fear that was about to occur.

I walked back out to my office thinking that the drama was over.  I was determined to figure out how exactly he broke the light; if he had ripped light out of wall or kicked it or what.  I asked Ann if she saw how he broke it, and she now flipped the story again on me saying, "It just burnt out."  I'll admit, Ann had no idea of everything that was going down.  She was working on something and was probably only half paying attention to me since I wasn't pressing her for her full attention.  Now I was feeling a bit bad about scolding Josh, only a bit though, so I went back to 'apologize' to him, but I was hoping to get him to tell me the truth that it 'just burnt out.'

I walked in to his bedroom and asked him what really happened.  Here's where the fun begins.  Yet another story, the third story out of his mouth, comes out.  I was really just hoping he would 'double up' on a story and I'd immediately take that one as the 'truth', but alas, it never happened.  The exchanges went something like this:

Me: Josh, now that's the Nth different story you've told me.  Only one of those could really happen and the rest are lies.  Now tell me what really happen.

Josh: [Insert new N+1 story here]

He must of thought up about 6-7 unique stories.  However, during the forth or fifth version, I could tell he was starting to get 'fragile' and about to cry.  Constantly saying sorry to me and telling me he was too tired to talk.  I didn't really scold or anything.  I just kept saying, "Well Josh I need to know the truth, tell me what really happened."

So I'll admit here, that this was an colossal failure as a parent; trying to teach him lying and telling the truth, but I was blinded by the moment and was trying to 'urge' Josh to the truth without actually telling him what the true story was.

One of the stories involved him 'kicking it with his foot'.  Since he could basically stand in his bed without his head touching the top bunk, the only way this was possible was if he was doing a perfectly perpendicular head stand.  Obviously, this was not possible so I told him to show me how he did it, again just trying to teach him that he was not telling me the truth.  Well, to his credit, he tried to do something, but was about three feet from hitting anything.  After a few failed attempts, he started crying saying that he couldn't do it now because it hurts his foot when he does it.  I mean come on, does he lie maliciously or does he not comprehend what he's doing, or like every other kid, does he just think his parents are so utterly stupid they wouldn't know any better? (did I ever mention that 'deny everything' was my motto when I was young?)

By now, we've been 'at it' for about 20 minutes with the exchanges of 'tell me truth' and he makes new story up.  He kept trying to use the 'I'm too tired to talk' excuse while fighting back tears and I obviously went too far with an interrogation Tom Cruise in 'A Few Good Men' would have been jealous of.  The final straw broke when I said in a 'stern' voice, 'You are not tired!  I want you to tell me the truth!'  At this point, Josh loses it and begins crying which immediately leads to coughing and gagging (he starts to stick his hands in his mouth when he gets nervous).  I see this isn't going how I thought this whole 'Teaching Moment' was going to shake down.  In immediate retreat mode, I pick him up to try to comfort him, but he's not stopping... The gagging continued until he starts to vomit.  Some how he keeps it in his mouth with a horrible look of shock on his face as I take off for the bathroom.  Some how, through all the vomit gurgling, Josh did manage to get almost all the puke in the sink.  God bless him for that.  But then he sat there trembling, in fear I guess, for five to ten minutes.

By now, Ann has heard the commotion and comes into bathroom with fury flaming in her eyes as she looked at me trying to figure out what I did.  I told her to leave and I'd deal with it (since I was so successful up until this point).  After calming Josh down and getting him back to bed, I tried to explain my philosophy to Ann.  I 'think' she understood what I was trying to do, but I received several 'tips' on discipline after that night :)  Oh well, you win some and you lose some.

So I've conclude 3.5 year olds have no concept of the truth.  They are just telling stories for the 'fun of it' and trying to find the story that please parents the most.  The next morning, I tried to 'talk about it' again with Josh - I had to turn the monitor off so Ann didn't hear ;)  That kid came up with three or four new stories yet again!!  I immediately dropped it as I didn't want to clean up vomit again, but trying to extract the truth from him is going to be tricky.  If you lead him down some path, even in the slightest, that becomes his new story and he just embellishes more and more waiting for my approval.

Update on 1/20/2008:  So I've hardened up a bit on this whole scenario.  Now before you throw me to the wolves, I'll tell you the 'bit' I've hardened up on.  So now any time Josh is getting in trouble for anything, he puts his hands in his mouth and kind of starts to gag.  I've had enough of this 'defense mechanism' ;)  My immediate response is, "If you puke, I'm going to be REALLY upset!  Get your hand out of your mouth!"  Don't know how to really combat this.  Luckily, Josh is rarely getting in trouble to the extent where he's getting 'scolded'.  We are truly blest to have such a good kid, but any time I do try to teach right and wrong he immediately goes to gag reflex.  I'll let you know how many times I get to clean up vomit in my career but I'm hoping for a no hitter from now on out!