January 2023

Consider how important it is to give people the opportunity to grow—especially children. When is it the right time to tell children the truth about their way of thinking, even when their “brilliant idea” is wrong?"

Honesty is the only policy

Sarah Miller
MSMU Class of 2026

Growth is vital in everyone’s lives, especially when one is in the developmental stage of childhood. Coaching your child is straightforward as a parent, but when they start having their own abstract thoughts and ideas, saying no can be tricky.

When I was younger, I had an idea about making a dog hotel for all dogs in the SPCA. They would have a room dedicated to each dog and people who were a prospective adopter, and they would rent out the room for a night to play with the dog and see how they are in the real "at home" climate. I would say, looking back, it was a fantastic idea. Although I would not become a millionaire from the concept, and many dogs would be left alone in their room, neglected from time to time, there were a lot of grey areas in the plan. I proposed the idea to my mom, and she thought that it was very clever. My mom never turned down the dog hotel. She did realize, though, I was doing it with good intentions. I just wanted to get dogs out of the cages and into more people’s hands. It was a brilliant idea that eventually phased out of my thoughts, but how my mom handled it was clever. I feel that if your child truly has good intentions when doing something, it deserves to be up in the air for a child to think about. Good choices lead children to grow up living good lives, and being empathetic and kind to them is essential. We need more positive people with good ideas, and by raising our children with our future in mind, we can stretch the truth just so slightly so creativity can last.

When children start to have their phase where they have free thought, it is important to pay attention to what they say. From 4-6 years old, children have the ability to realize that parents are humans too, and they can say what they want to say, whether it is truthful or not. I think in these years, it is crucial to really listen to your kids so that you can critique them young. Verbal communication and interaction are important in development, and if the child doesn’t know how to communicate with their peers truthfully, how will they know how to make friends in the long run? I understand that shutting children’s thoughts down is also ineffective. Still, if children were educated early and parents utilized redirected learning, it is a passive way of teaching. For example, something along the lines of "honey, that is close, but this is better to say." Dismissing is ineffective, but comparing things for your child makes more sense.

Sometimes when I think of young children and their development, I also think of Christmas time. Recently, one of my friends asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I didn’t know what I wanted on the spot. She responded, "I was thinking that I could donate to a charity of your choosing in your name?" At the moment, I was surprised, but I also didn’t realize how thoughtful that idea was. So many people need help, especially in these cold winter months, and giving back to the community should not be overlooked. Although my mom gets me some awesome presents, why not give other people support, mainly because I have everything I need? Children should be raised to think of others first during this time, especially because Christmas should be memorable for everyone, not just those fortunate enough to spend money.

I feel that children should be raised to realize the true ‘reason for the season,’ and that is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Without thinking of Jesus’s birth, we really just give gifts to give them. I feel that maxing out our credit cards should never be the case, and setting realistic expectations should be a factor. You can make the time special for kids when you prioritize meaning over tangible things. Making a child happy isn’t hard; by just loving them and spending time with them, they are content. When children are growing up, I feel that being honest with them is the best policy, especially during the fun holiday times. Questions like, "how does Santa fit down the chimney?" or "how does Santa make it to every house in one night" can be avoided and better, more intellectual questions can be substituted for them. This can help children strengthen their faith. Once faith is lost during Christmas, many overlook the holiday. Traditions don’t just have to be through presents, but it could be seeing a family member who is far away or baking a batch of cookies. Both are sweet, but overlooked because of the stereotypical Christmas traditions; and please don’t get me wrong, I love a new pair of shoes once in a while.

All in all, children are brilliant. It is hard to tell your child they are wrong, but I feel it depends on how you are raising them and what kind of parenting style you choose. Sometimes kids do great with abstract ideas and thinking all of the time, but some kids do better with structure. It all depends on the child. You should never tell a kid that they are wrong or dismiss their hopes and dreams because of that idea of lost potential. Your support of kids is the most important thing in their lives. Parents who support their kids and love them unconditionally make the best mentors. Usually, children want to model after and be like the person they look up to, who are most likely their parents. That’s why I feel that support is one of the most important things in a child’s development. Reality, though, is something that should always be kept in mind when assessing their hopes and dreams. Not everyone can be an astronaut or a Superman, but teaching the qualities that come with being those things can be important life lessons for them. Who knows? Maybe you are raising the next Superman or Superwoman, but just make sure to tell them they probably won’t ever be able to fly.

Read other articles by Sarah Miller

We Teach Kids Addictions

Joseph Carlson
MSMU Class of 2025

Psychology is notoriously preoccupied with childhood. Whether it seems funny or fitting, our habits form when we are young, and unless rerouted along the way, remain the same until we are old. The idea we have of what a habit is indicates how seriously we take them. When you think of that word, what do you imagine? Perhaps you think of something you read in a self-help book about setting good habits, or perhaps you think of that sin you’ve been trying to overcome for a long time. Most of us who are not psychologists, whether we imagined a positive or negative habit, thought of some particular action. My first thought was of my addiction to biting my nails, something I have halfheartedly been trying to overcome for years. Maybe that word seems a bit strong, "addiction". Addictions are for drugs, or alcohol, or other unpleasant life-destroying things which some have the difficult experience of relying on for their happiness. Right? There’s truth to that schema, for sure. But what if I told you that a far more potent addiction, one which we all indulge, exists in the mind? In our very manner of thinking? It actually is just that, your manner of thinking: you’re addicted to it, and you have been for a long time.

Children are taught how to think from an early age. Many educators and parents concern themselves with teaching their kids what to think, an obviously important task. The child needs to be told that the stove is hot and that it will hurt them if they touch it. What they do with that kind of information, however, is what will dictate the course of their life. Do they touch the stove on purpose in order to spite you, or because they don’t believe you, or because they think that it is funny? Do they avoid the stove altogether? The stove is of course an analogy for moral boundaries, since all laws and rules of morality exist in order to preserve the human beings involved from suffering pain or disillusionment from their own dignity. The corruption of a child is very easy to accomplish: simply encourage bad behavior. We do this, far less often by rewarding our children for bad behavior, and more often by leading by example.

I would like to give an example: A child has a brilliant idea! Children are smarter than most adults anyway. Maybe the child finds out that money is printed, and suggests that we just print more money to fix our financial problems. Maybe he has an idea for a science project that is just not quite complete, or maybe it seems smart but wouldn’t hold up to standards we set for real science. These are examples from my own life, and I would like to narrate how they went wrong and how they went right.

The first idea about money was one that a friend of mine had when she was three or four years old. Her father did the right thing: he explained simply and kindly the idea of inflation, and in doing so, his daughter learned that money only represents real things, and is worthless on its own. I am sure that many children have this same idea when they learn money is printed, but most of them probably don’t have this kind of conversation with their parents, so many never learn the most important truth about finances and the economy. She managed to be quite the saver actually, and treats money pretty well – that, however, is a habit that is only really communicated by example.

The second example, where the child has an idea about something scientific that is true but not quite complete, was me. I had to do a science project in 5th grade, and after a lot of thinking, I decided that I would test different woods to see which ones burnt the longest. I had a vague idea that some woods burnt longer than others because my father had told be at some point that oak burns longer than willow and pine. A good idea, but beyond that I was lost. My father suggested that I try and see if there was a correlation between density and how long wood would last being burnt. I did the experiment with all the typical marks of a good experiment, and I proved my hypothesis right. I learned the actual process of scientific inquiry, and I’ve never forgot some of the standards set for me for proving something. I didn’t get any awards or anything, and of course I couldn’t say that it was all my idea; my dad essentially authored the entire thing. Still, I got to do it, and I learned. I did nothing very interesting or original, but no child should expect to ever discover anything original, or to have any kind of exclusive success.

To let any child indulge in the idea that they have done something new or that they have had success where others haven’t is terrible parenting. No child invents anything new, especially not nowadays. They should, however, still try, and we need to love and be proud of them no matter what. If you let them think that they are more successful than they are, reality will be too cold a shock when it comes, and they will either be disillusioned from the truth or from trying. Or, God forbid, they won’t get to fail, and they will love success far too much. If my wood idea had been false, the right thing for my dad to have done would have been to let me test my hypothesis for me to find out that I was wrong. I would have learned the process just as well as if I had been right.

As a parent, you should be most on the lookout for habits of thinking in your child. How do they view success? How do they deal with failure? Are they inquisitive or moral all the time, or only when it suits them? How you react will dictate most of their life.

Read other articles by Joseph Carlson

Grocery store flowers

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

I’ve always loved cemeteries.

There’s a cemetery that’s particularly beautiful and holds a very special place in my heart. It’s located on the outskirts of Baltimore City, and as soon as you drive through the big iron gates, you have no choice but to follow the gravel road. It spirals up and down hills, and in the springtime, the chartreuse grass contrasts the bright, blue sky that stretches for miles. There’s always flowers dotted next to the many gravestones, but they’re never real—they’re instead from grocery stores, from at-home gardens, from anywhere but the actual earth of the cemetery. And I think that’s beautiful: a hand-picked collage of carnations and roses and baby’s breath, coloring the world even in its darkest places.

My grandmother would often take my sister and me to the cemetery on drives. Margaret and I were young, only in elementary school, but I always associated the graveyard next to Mommom’s neighborhood with beautiful spring days and lunches at Shannon’s. It was the cemetery where my extended family was buried, the cemetery that belonged to our church, the cemetery that went on and on forever, where you could just get lost in it. Even as a child, I associated cemeteries with peacefulness, with color and springtime.

When you’re young, you think the world exists just for you. It’s a naVve experience, a veil of innocence that slowly tears and chips away with each jolting milestone. When you’re young, you come up with explanations and ideas that make sense, only in your mind. And when you’re young, you create your own meaning. The thing about life, however, is that it slowly develops and unravels, and suddenly, you find that cemeteries are not just there for beauty and grace, but rather for deeper, darker reasons.

The first death I ever experienced was that of a baby—my cousin, eleven weeks old. The weight of my sadness was inexplainable; not only did I not understand the gravity of the situation, but I also felt the shock of a new meaning take over, filling my body. He was a baby, hadn’t even lived two full months of his life, and he had passed. When you’re young, maybe seven or eight years old, you simply can’t process such a thing. You start to question life and make your own meaning and sense of things, even when reality says otherwise.

He’s still here, I would tell myself. Just napping, just sleeping. Out of an inexplainable shock, I had somehow convinced myself that because my cousin was a baby, his death was temporary. That he would come back.

Death is not irreversible, however, and that’s the point of cemeteries. To remember. To fill the world with grocery store carnations so that we can acknowledge the souls that have passed. This truth is meant to be learned over time, after years of experience and wisdom gained from adulthood.

Maybe my thoughts of my cousin’s death could be considered "childlike" and "innocent." Perhaps when I expressed these thoughts to my parents and other family members, they might have brushed them off. That’s cute. That’s good that she doesn’t understand this. Children aren’t meant to experience death this young, like this.

But when is it right to tell children the truth about death? About these moments in life that are completely unexpected, that no one ever tells you about, until it happens, and you find yourself crying yourself to sleep and making new meanings of things? When do we figure out the right meanings to life? Are we meant to do this ourselves?

When my cousin’s grave was put into the Baltimore cemetery I loved so much, it all became real. The very place I associated with peacefulness and springtime had grown to the new meaning of death and permanence and winter. Of silent tears and drab, gray skies that hung over you like a weight. When my mother had explained to me that my cousin wasn’t coming back, had explained to me what a "funeral" was, I felt new meanings emerge. She had told me I was wrong in my beliefs, and suddenly, a large piece of my naivety had fallen away. I couldn’t seem to get it back, although I reached for it. The veil of innocence was not chipped away; it had been shattered.

I would argue that there’s never a right time to tell the truth to children about these kinds of experiences. The thing about life is that it is constantly moving, constantly changing its route and course and speed, and if we don’t accept this, then we will arrive at these experiences unexpectedly, unprepared.

Children have growing, expanding minds—not stagnant, nor unchanging. When we see things like beautiful cemeteries with flourishing, colorful flowers, we are inviting ourselves to understand why those flowers exist. Why they are bought from grocery stores. Why people kneel at graves for hours until the sky grows pink. Why the smallest-size grave is given to my baby cousin.

And maybe, there’s a certain beauty in unveiling these meanings. To tell kids, simply, that they’re wrong in their beliefs. To help children to understand and grow from even the darkest life experiences is to allow them a deeper, clearer insight into the world. Innocence is beautiful but temporary—and although life is dark and filled with difficult truths, we can discover a truer beauty beneath all of this.

Flash forward to sixteen. I’m learning how to drive, and my mother takes me to the spirally backroads of our favorite cemetery to perfect my right- and left-hand turns. It’s an April day, and the entire world is chilled and stirring in peace. You can tell that spring is trying its very hardest to emerge, but the trees surrounding are still barren, stretching their limbs into the oil-painted sky. If you look closely, there are buds growing. And I’m sixteen. Full of truths and understandings of the world, but still new to many things. Like learning how to drive.

Humans constantly cling to their innocence because, to us, being exposed to some parts of life is terrifying. But I would say that innocence is the opportunity to be suspended in between meanings that we create for ourselves, and meanings of the world. For children to grow and flourish fully, they must be guided through their childhood with an upmost respect for the truth.

Read other articles by Claire Doll

Growth is a result of kindness and honesty

McKenna Snow
MSMU Class of 2023

If someone gives you a dessert they made just for you, you graciously say thank you and take it home. When you taste it once you’re home, one of three things happens: you absolutely love it; you think it’s a good, average dessert; or, you taste it and find that it is no good, at least not to your subjective taste buds. The majority of it gets discreetly thrown away.

In the third case, the next conversation with the friend who gave it to you tends to be an awkward one. They ask what you thought of the dessert. Not wanting to hurt their feelings, and not wanting to lie by saying you loved it, you say cheerfully, "Oh, a pie like that didn’t last long in our house!"

Whether this is a good way to handle this situation or not, the clever response illustrates the difficulty of handling conversations with friends or loved ones that necessitate honesty and kindness at the same time.

A unique difficulty arises when such a circumstance involves having a conversation with a child. At first, one might think that such conversations might be easier with children than with adults, perhaps because there appears to be less at stake. Children don’t remember very well, do they? They’re not very good at reasoning yet, right? They definitely don’t associate you, their parent or teacher or older sibling, with conversations you’ve had with them.

All of the above is false. The reality is, children are much smarter than adults often give them credit for. Their memory is often much sharper than we realize, and often it doesn’t hold onto even big moments as prominently as it holds onto short conversations, brief reactions, and small gifts either given or received. Note that this also means they often hold onto adults’ disinterested reactions, belittling dismissals, outbursts of frustration and anger (especially when it is directed at them), and when it appears that something is more important than them as a person.

The point is, what we say and do for children matters to them. Whether we are honest or not when we talk to them matters. Whether we are kind or not when we talk to them matters. I argue that a good conversation with them about hard things is a composite of both kindness and honesty. In the case of honesty without kindness, a great deal of hurt can be caused, not only short term but also long term. Children remember instances when they are telling their parent or sibling about a "great idea" they’ve had, and when the adult shoots it down with the cold unamused reality of the idea’s uselessness. In such cases, the shooting down of the idea often shoots down the child’s desire to share anything with the parent, harming the relationship. Or, the shooting down of the idea also takes with it the child’s desire to be creative, since the last time they tried their invention or idea was so poorly received. Sometimes the shooting of the idea down takes both the trusted relationship and the desire to create and think with it.

The other case, kindness without honesty, is just as dangerous. The child’s idea might not have been shot down so harshly—instead, it was praised without criticism, encouraged without any dialogue. The problem with this dynamic is the adult’s failure to acknowledge the child’s need for knowing the truth. A parent who never tells the truth to a child insults the child’s right to reality. The child exists in the world and deserves to know himself or herself according to reality, not according to fantasy, fiction, or outright lies.

On the child’s side as well, the problem with this instance is that he or she will be unable to handle constructive criticism and will grow up entitled, believing all their ideas and thoughts are always "amazing." Further, this lack of dialogue and respect for their capacity to reason will result in the child having extreme difficulty engaging in critical thinking. Not to mention, the child might eventually realize that the adult was dishonest towards them, which consequently will hurt their relationship and leave the child feeling as though they cannot trust adults to have a genuine conversation with them.

Thus, children should be spoken to with kindness and honesty. They notice when one is honest, and they notice when one is kind. Conversations that have both can have a powerful and positive impact on them, through which they learn to trust and cherish the words of the adults they look up to. Moreover, they are able to truly grow from these conversations. Children can learn from these conversations that tackle difficult topics or are important to their processing.

Further, in cases of more whimsical topics such as whether unicorns and elves exist, it is important to allow the cultivation of one’s creativity and imagination so as to foster wonder for the world around them. However, the importance of raising children in reality doesn’t mean cut out all fairytale stories and fiction from their lives; quite the opposite. To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, "Fairy tales do not tell children dragons exist. Children already know the dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be beaten." Let children dream and play; and tell them whimsical stories, and let them think up many of their own. But teach them how to appreciate and be inspired by such stories in right order with reality, allowing them to see the deeper truth, beauty and goodness of them.

Children need patience, engagement, and encouragement as they uncover the world around them. Some things they will have misshapen ideas about, and that is a part of being a child; here, however, the responsibility of the adult is to tell them the truth when they are wrong and give them the tools on how to think about it in the future. Honesty and kindness are crucial to any conversation with children. Certainly, such conversations that have both may be more difficult, but they allow for the child to grow and to have a greater respect for themselves, and for the adult who loves them enough to graciously tell them the truth.

Read other articles by McKenna Snow

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