I’m very sorry. My child has a wonderful imagination and loves to tell stories. Sometimes the stories happened (they are true) and sometimes they didn’t really happen (they are stories). In our family, we have telling truths (these are things she saw and that I can ask other adults about) and telling stories (these are things that she didn’t see with her eyes). We don’t have a concept of lying yet, but that will likely come this year. For now, ‘telling stories’ fills the role of lying.
I can remember stuff from quite a young age, I think that one thing I took from getting books read to me was that inventing worlds and setting stories in those worlds was just something that everyone did.
We read almost constantly and she has been surrounded with books since she was an infant. Now that she’s a little bit older, she ‘reads’ and I read to her. At bedtime, she’ll often ‘read’ a book with a lot of pictures, then I’ll read it back to her and then we’ll switch to a book with fewer pictures and I’ll read it to her until she goes to sleep.
Do you have any book recommendations? I’m always looking to add to the library! :)
Our system (king county library system) is top notch, and their children section is organized with books specific to children development: life events, feelings, bedtime, concepts, etc.
Every two weeks I go and pick out new books, rotating topics.
We live two blocks from a library and she goes regularly. It’s great on weekends (especially during the winter) - it’s full of kids and it’s a lot of fun.
I like asking people for book, television or even website suggestions. We’ve found some unbelievable gems that way, including a site she uses to ‘wave to the International Space Station.’ :)
I guess it's more the fanciful sort of talking about things that don't actually exist like a book does, versus the impact intent to deceive that goes with lying.
That’s a perfect description. She’s a kind, innocent little person with a big heart and a big imagination. Sometimes the line between imagination and fact is a little fuzzy, but I don’t think it has the intent of a lie. They’re just stories...
Ha that line is really blurry sometimes. I told my kid that I fly to work, thinking he'd do that sideways glance nose-scrunch thing and realise it was a fictional story quite easily: instead he got worried that I shouldn't fly too high.
I suggested I could tunnel like a mole instead, but apparently that's ridiculous!
It's cute when kids with their not-yet-developed brains to it, but when adults do it pathological lying, narcissism, psychopathy, or various other personality disorders.
This is a good point and it’s one that I try to be mindful of. At this point, it’s age appropriate but at some point we’ll start talking about consequences, truth and lies.
The strangest part of parenting is how quickly time flies. A little over four years ago, I sent my parents pictures from the first ultrasound. Today, the baby in the ultrasound is sitting here, eating an orange and watching My Little Pony. It’s been years, but it feels like minutes...
It’s wonderful but it goes by too fast and there’s a heck of a lot of responsibility crammed into a short number of years.
