Kids lie for a variety of reasons.
- Most of the times, it is for fun.
- At other times, it is to try and push the boundaries set for them.
- It might also be to avoid punishment for some wrong doing.
Parents of a class 6th child walked into my office with a complaint on the new English teacher. She supposedly had hit the child on the back causing him to dash his teeth against the desk in front of him. This caused him to lose a front tooth. I promised an investigation and stern action on the teacher of the accusations proved true.
I summoned the boy and he indeed had lost a front tooth. He repeated the same version of the story as narrated by his parents. However, he was avoiding eye contact with me. This raised my suspicions.
I next summoned the teacher and asked her for her side of the story. She mentioned that the incident had indeed happened in her class when she was going around checking the homework she had assigned the previous day. She had asked all of them to keep their homework notebooks open on their desks. As she came close to this particular student, he felt that she might slap him on the back and hence ducked. In his attempt to duck he hit his front teeth to the desk in front and ended up losing a tooth.
The boy was re-summoned and I invoked the fear of God in him. I told him that lying may give him temporary relief but God knows all. The fear of God had its desired effect and the boy confessed to lying. He had been afraid of his parents and had resorted to lying.
