Spiritual words

How Can We Wean Children Off Lying?

    • Photo: Oana Nechifor

      Photo: Oana Nechifor

Thus, cultivating in the heart of your children the respect and the love towards truth, you must fight yourselves, with all your strength, against lie. Teach your children, from the youngest age, to despise lie, to know that God is Truth and that any lie is a sin.

Thus, cultivating in the heart of your children the respect and the love towards truth, you must fight yourselves, with all your strength, against lie. Teach your children, from the youngest age, to despise lie, to know that God is Truth and that any lie is a sin.

If you wish them to become people who love the truth, sincerity and honesty, first of all you should provide an example – either concerning faith or in general – but distinguish yourselves through your behaviour and avoid lie, hypocrisy, wickedness and compliance. In everything that you do, be sincere, honest, straight and respectable. Thus, cultivating in the heart of your children the respect and the love towards truth, you must fight yourselves, with all your strength, against lie. Teach your children, from the youngest age, to despise lie, to know that God is Truth and that any lie is a sin. Children should avoid lie, not because they may receive a punishment but because God condemns it.

Show the children, through the words of the Holy Scripture, how ugly is lie before the True and Rightful God: “The disposition of a liar is dishonourable, and his shame is ever with him” (Ecclesiasticus 20:26). Teach them that lie is inspired by the devil and this is why God calls the devil “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8, 44).

(Irineu, Episcop de Ecaterinburg și Irbițk, Mamă, ai grijă!, Editura Egumenița, pp. 41-42)