Raising Kids With Character

In Pursuit of Truth

  • Thom Van Dycke, Author
  • Speaker, coach, writer

I was recently watching an older lecture by the late philosopher Dallas Willard and he said something that just absolutely grabbed me. “Truth does not accommodate belief, belief must accommodate truth.” That’s an interesting, succinct thought isn’t it? That statement accompanied by my long-time favourite proverb, “Behaviour always follows belief,” forms the foundation of my parenting philosophy. Truth – Belief – Behaviour.

If it is true that behaviour is merely an outward expression of inward beliefs and belief must accommodate truth, then in our homes, truth is essential if our children are going to be well behaved. So how do we work to grow truthfulness in our homes?

First of all parents must live honest lives. If your kids lie, there is likely a reason. Perhaps they don’t feel like they can be honest with you because they fear your reaction. Perhaps they are afraid of disappointing you because they love you, or because they feel you expect them to be perfect. However, I would suggest that if your kids are deceptive, that they may have learned that behaviour from somewhere or someone. So we need to check ourselves carefully as parents. Do we live truthful lives? Do we cheat the cable company? Do we steal internet from our neighbours? Do we cheat on our taxes? How can we expect our children to value truth when the adults in their life don’t demonstrate honest integrity?

Then we need to talk to our kids about truth and how essential it is. Clearly the way we talk to our story-telling four-year-old is going to be dramatically different than how we talk to our sneaking-out-of-the-house teenager. But regardless of the age, our children pick up on what is important to us by the amount of attention we give it. If you give the TV more attention than you give your son, then chances are he will feel that he is less important than mom’s shows. If you never speak about honesty, you can expect the same to happen.

Part of talking about truth is dealing with deception when it happens. What do you do when the kids bold-faced lies to you? When my dad was growing up in the black and white world of the 40’s and 50’s there were two cardinal sins in his home. One was disrespecting mother (the kids were not allowed to call their mother by a pronoun, mother had a name! But that’s a story for another day) and the second was lying. Lying was dealt with swiftly and firmly and always with love. And that’s a good point. Loving parents must discipline. We need to help our children see that a very close companion to truth is trust. How can you trust someone who you are unsure is telling you the truth? It is actually loving to help our children understand this.

Calling our kids on their deception will certainly save them grief and could even save a lot more. I wasn’t much of a liar growing up, partly because I didn’t like lying, it made me feel bad, and partly because I was terrible at it. I remember my dad coming in my room and asking if I had been lighting matches. I had been. I was actually lighting Q-Tips on fire in my room, which is really stupid. More stupid is the fact that I lied about it because I hadn’t had time to open the window so the room was a bit hazy and I stashed the charred cotton remains in my toys. It was dealt with and from then on I only played with matches outside where it was much safer.

My dad’s discipline actually did keep me safe, it inhibited further similarly potential catastrophes.

But playing with matches kind of IS black and white in that there could have been real consequences. Other lies are tougher to deal with; at least at first. Stealing a cookie and lying about it may not seem like a big deal because cookies are cookies. But what if cookies get boring and it turns into Gobstoppers at 7-eleven. (Gobstoppers are possibly my greatest weakness.) If the small action isn’t addressed it will invariably turn into actions of greater consequence.

This is why parents of small children need to tackle lying now. You don’t want to deal with a teenager whom you can’t trust. There have been plenty of news stories about the epidemic cheating and plagiarism in our universities and colleges. We live in a deceit-permissive world. In fact in many cases we live in a deceit celebrated world (so long as we aren’t the ones who are duped.) No wonder we don’t feel we can trust anyone anymore; we can’t. If truth, belief and behaviour are all connected, then we can’t even be surprised. What an awful reality.

The long-term consequences that come with neglecting truth are severe. Parents, do the right thing and address truthfulness with your children. Truth is, quite possibly, the most important thing we can possess in all the world.

Thom Van Dycke has worked with children and youth since 2001 and is a passionate advocate for healthy foster care. Together with his wife, since 2011, they have welcomed 30 foster children into their home. In 2017, Thom Van Dycke was trained as a Trust-Based Relational Intervention Practitioner.