The Little Tikes Blog
Santa Texts
In the age of technology, children are growing up faster than ever! At ages 4 & 6, both boys can probably operate my smart phone better than I can. Although technology may change, phases that children experience are still traditionally the same.
Over the past few months, Liam has really struggled with lying. I remember that Milo lied as well, but the phase was very short-lived. All of Liam’s lies seemed to be relatively innocent and very obvious to me. For example, he told me that his preschool teacher said that he didn’t have to go to school anymore. Despite countless discussions on the dangers of lying and its impact on his own credibility as well as others, he continued to do so.
One day, I decided that I was simply done with it and would go ahead and fight fire with fire. I just so happened to receive a text from my husband directly following another one of Liam’s whopper of a lie. Liam heard my phone beep. I said, “Liam, you are never going to guess who just texted me.” I could tell he was curious by his facial expression. I continued, “it’s Santa Claus and he texted me that you have lied one too many times and now you are Naughty List and won’t receive any gifts for Christmas.” I showed Liam my phone with the text from Mark. After looking at the words that he could not yet read, he immediately started crying because he assumed that Santa had texted me. After a few minutes, I told Liam that I’d be willing to text Santa back to see if he can get moved off the Naughty List if he promised to stop lying. Liam eagerly agreed and has only managed to tell a few lies since then.
