Rethinking the Best Policy

We have always tried to be very honest with our kids. We tend to matter of factly explain everything to them. So much so that when they were smaller and used the actual, appropriate names for their private parts and talked loudly about them in public, we did think we had possibly made a mistake. But, that aside, we tend to not make up too many things as explanations. This probably explains why every holiday that involves "magic" gives me a little guilt. I don't like lying. But, I will admit that tonight, I even surprised myself with the flood of lies that came out of my mouth. Here goes....

We had some strong storms tonight, strong enough that we took cover in the basement for a little while. This freaked the kids out even though I attempted to make it fun by reading Flat Stanley (still one of my favorite kids books). After the biggest threat moved over us and just rain, thunder and lightning were left, we came back upstairs and started getting everybody ready for bed. Alex and Anna weren't having it. They were feeding off each other with how scary thunder can be. Back and forth until neither of them were willing to go to their own beds. And so, after trying to calmly explain that thunder is not dangerous and it can't hurt you, etc, I hoped they would calm down. No go. So, I did what any logical parent would do- I resorted to a made up story. Yep, the one about God and the angels bowling in heaven making the thunder sound. They had never heard this and, since they are so used to us being honest with them, they bought it, the whole thing. When we watched the news and they showed some storm clouds, Alex was even convinced that he could see the lane where they would bowl and Anna thought she saw somebody up in the clouds getting ready to bowl. Part of me did kind of cringe listening to them buy into the lies, but when it made them willing to go to bed without screaming, I got over it. As I was tucking Alex into bed, I kind of thought he might ask me if I was really telling the truth, or try to call me out on the lie. But no, instead he just asked, "Mom, why do you think they don't play tennis instead? Don't they know how many kids they are scaring up there? Tennis is fun and it's not loud at all!" Yes, Alex, you are right. Tennis is fun and if only God and his angels could do that instead, there may be a lot less scared children in this world :)