To Lie or not to Lie/what age is ok to explain a lie may be good?

It is ok to lie to any person or organization that is ridiculous, or that cant be trusted with the truth. In my books it is always ok to lie to the schools. I many many times decided that the kids ha better things to do then be in school, so I would call and say they they were sick or had a dentist appointment or the like.

We as parents have the right to decided what is best for our kids, if the state or agents of the state are going to be dicks if we decide something they dont like (for instance my kid has better things to do today than school) then **** them, they cant expect the truth. The original fault is with the people who run the schools, for being bullies and for not trusting the parents unless they have reason not to.

They had the order, didn't they, and would have seen what you paid and didn't pay. Huh. Where's Solomon when we need him?
Probably in the bathroom again.

That is really pathetic. These people are supposed to be putting the best interest of the kids first. Two of my kids were in HS sports, and they could do most anything university related and get a pass. Mis s a practice to showcase your talent to a university...that is a no brainer..."Good Luck!".

This seems like a screwy rule that could use a change by the athletic association - I bet others don't like it either. But, I guess I can see the rule if it involves several weekends of missing practices, thus reasonably could be able to affect a player's ability to lead the team. Still harsh, and sounds like it isn't applied equally at all schools/all sports.

This seems like a screwy rule that could use a change by the athletic association - I bet others don't like it either. But, I guess I can see the rule if it involves several weekends of missing practices, thus reasonably could be able to affect a player's ability to lead the team. Still harsh, and sounds like it isn't applied equally at all schools/all sports.

Seriously Linkat, this is exactly like the old stories of the father who will not let the daughter go out on a date because one of her chores is to set and clear the table, and she would miss it. Setting the table was not very important, finding the man of her dreams was important, but "THE RULES ARE THE RULES!"

Horrible lesson for the schools to be teaching our kids.

Better lesson: lying to idiots and bullies is fine, they dont deserve the truth and would not know what to do with it if they had it.

I don't think that you can teach a kid to lie, nor stop them from lying to you. They've already dealt with lies from others as they've been growing up, or they've already been frightened to tell someone above them something.

What I was taught was "white lies are ok". And, should be used in the scenario with the aim of "not hurting someone's feelings".

If a child is grounded, has respect and morals, I think that they will work out the difference of blatant lies for self gain, verses lies because the other parties reasoning will be in-correct or wrong and may affect them.

Oh yeah we used to live elsewhere and so we know some kids on that school's varisty and I was told he kind of ignores the rules a bit. We have a girl on my daugther's varisty softball she is not allowed to miss a weekend practice for AAU basketball. This other girl from the town we used to live in is on her basketball team - pretty much the games are on weekends - her coach doesn't say anything about her missing practice for these games whereas the girl on our team misses AAU.

I'm looking at your situation here, and relating it to other instances when lying might be more appropriate.

First off, I am leery of telling myself "this isn't hurting anyone" We can always justify our actions, or lack of action some way by convincing ourselves someone isn't hurt.

I'm looking more at the rule, in this case not being allowed to miss a single practice. That's just unrealistic that there won't ever be a situation where some person won't be able to be there. The fact that you (not you specifically linkie) would have to say you were sick, and not just be able to say we weren't able to make this practice for a very good reason, is not showing much faith or trust in people for wanting to naturally do the right thing. Why would the person or entity that made this rule feel it necessary to sit in judgement on whether or not it's a good enough reason? These kids are devoted to their sport, the parents are too. They take it seriously. Why would they miss a practice for an unsatisfactory reason?

Rules are important, but not rules that are so restrictive that people feel they need to lie in any way to be "allowed" to break them.

I could see myself saying in some situations, using this one as an example..."I'm letting you know there was a good reason for the absence. If you question my judgement in this matter, I'm hearing you say you don't think I'm capable of being discerning and accountable for myself, and that I need you to tell me what a good reason is.

If these girls are a true team, and it appears they are, they aren't going to let the others down by not showing up without good cause.

Maybe the coach or whoever may feel some of the girls are not mature enough yet to understand this, but he has to remember the parents are standing behind their childs word.

Your theory breaks down when you figure out that by and large the schools dont trust the parents.

also Linkat and her daughter cant trust the coaches to be reasonable.

sorry for that double post


Ok, ok, only semi-sorry.

I think Linkat's original lie is absolutely justified. You have to look at the benefit of the lie against the downside of the lie.

The biggest upside of this lie is privacy. The liar in this case was forced to lie to protect her privacy. Neither the coach nor the other players had any right to know what she was doing, and there was no other way for her to keep her private decision secret without lying. By the way, I don't think that this means that the rule is wrong. You can have a perfectly reasonable rule that can at times still be reasonably broken (I think crosswalks are a good example of this).

There was very little downside. No one got hurt. No one was inconvenienced any more than they would have been if she had told to the truth about where she was.

This is clearly an example of a lie that was justified and beneficial. In my opinion, it would be unreasonable to tell the truth in this example.

(I am curious to hear my 10 year old daughter's opinion on this. I think I will ask her.)

YOu were just very adament about it.

We haven't lied just yet. It is more likely to be this winter if we do suddenly come down with a sickness.

Hopefully you are not ignoring me because I like to help and I am right a lot of the time but have you considered talking honestly to the coach about this now? If you get the wrong answer then lie this winter. He will have forgotten.

Dont be too pin point on what she might want to miss practice for, "something important for college" should do.

Or, they could have told the real truth and said there was something important enough to miss one practice, and that it was private.

I just feel one starts going down a slippery slope when one has to lie about anything, especially if only because one is afraid to tell someone "the truth is, the reason she missed is and good one, AND it's private"

heh, maybe off subject, but I'm reminded of a time I was sitting in the doctors waiting room. It was really crowded. I was lucky enough to have some high strung chatterbox next to me. She told me 3/4's of her life story while I tried to pretend to look at a magazine. Internally I was going over some important things my doctor and I had to talk about. Suddenly out of the clear blue sky, she says something like "I'm here because (then names some gross condition I seriously didn't want to know about)", then asks "What are YOU here for?"

I didn't even look up and said, "That's none of your business." A woman across from us couldn't quite stifle her guffaw.

As far as I can see, it really isn't the coaches business to determine if the reason is good enough. Rules like "you can't miss practice once before the finals" are made to minimize absences. It isn't going to eliminate them.

Well, I guess if the coach really pressed me to know, throwing his weight around, I would tell him my daughter had the same condition that bat **** crazy lady in the doctors waiting room had. THAT would shut him up quick.

"that is none of your business" rarely works with the schools, I once got hassled for 4 months to turn in a free and reduced lunch form even though I said we dont quality, because they wanted income data on every family. They were aggressive, apparently I was one of the few to refuse to provide personal information that would not help me, that the schools had no legit use for.

We have reached out to this coach in the past and he is pretty nonresponsive. As it is not her major sport and it would only be one weekend so just one practice..I am inclined to lie. I see no benefit in telling the truth and I typically come clean on things. I don't take lying lightly, but for a non started missing one practice is not going to break the bank for them.

I have a blackberry and before that I had some other device where clients could get to me almost any where. One time I was at an OB GYN appt and a client wa trying to reach me. I got back to them afterwards. In the mean time they kept trying to reach everyone in the office because they couldn't undead and why they couldn't get me within 5 minutes. I was so close to being very clear on where I was....especially seeing it was some dude I really wanted to be specific.

My boss advised me against it.

Not I goring you from before at allbut I agree sometimes it is just the process. Maybe in one way it is a learning experience on how best to deal with bureaucracy .

Funny I had one teacher ... the funny thing was at the beginning of the school year my daughter didn't get along with hrr...told me when I was honest she would miss school because she was attending a tournament our of state. She said don't tellike anyone I said this but it will help her later in life as she will learn how to prioritize things and balance things and organize her schedule. And to be honest what is really going to miss in one or two days.

There are those teachers who do undrstand. I think there is just so much crap..maybe because you cannot trust all parents that hey put a rule in place and take away common sense.