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From: sed408@ihlpg.UUCP (s. dugan)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Kids telling the truth
Message-ID: <1141@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Aug-85 12:25:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1141
Posted: Tue Aug 27 12:25:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Aug-85 09:01:15 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 50

> 
> 
>                                        We discovered that
> scraping the point of a house-key against the wall would
> produce a pencil-like mark.
> 
> I scribbled a few spirals (that was all I knew how to draw),
> and my sister printed our names.  Later, when my parents saw it,
> my father asked, "Did you write in pencil on that wall?"
> I was to scared to answer, but my sister calmly replied, "No."
> She stuck by her denial, despite my father's increasing frustration
> and anger.
> 
> Twelve years later, my father mentioned this episode over dinner.
> He remembers his bewilderment and disappointment that his daughter
> had looked him in the eye and repeatedly delivered an obvious lie.
> He had always known she was intelligent; even at age six she must
> have been aware that no one else in the house could have been suspected.
> 
> My sister replied, "I told the truth.  I didn't write in pencil on
> the wall.  I used a key."  My sister is now a lawyer.  It figures.
> 
> 	Frank Silbermann



A similar situation happened to me once.  My mother was convinced that I had
lied to her about something (I don't even remember what.)  The punishment for
lying and swearing in our house was having our mouths washed out with soap.  I
got the "normal" treatment that day.  Later in the day, I had the opportunity
to prove that I had been telling the truth.  My mother took me into the
bathroom, handed me the soap, opened her mouth and told me to wash her mouth
out!  That always struck me as being a very magnanimous gesture.  It meant a
lot more to me than a simple appology would have.

I've done similar things with my daughter once in a while, and she seems to be
quite impressed by the event and remembers it for a long time.


-- 

Sarah E. Dugan
"One Day At A Time"

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