Should we tell our kids about the real truth of life?

My wife and I try to hold some sort of Bible studies with our two kids every Sunday night as a means of teaching them some Biblical principles.

It was something my wife had started with the kids during the time when I worked at the Newspaper and worked a lot of Sunday nights. It was a great idea and quickly became a tradition in our house. Since that time I have been a part of the Sunday “services” and use it as a means to also try and impart some basic life skills to my kids.

Recently, I began some teaching from the book of Proverbs because I believe the book covers every aspect of life. Besides, I’m convinced that the Book of Proverbs was written specifically for boys. Just a reminder that in some way boys have to be constantly taught wisdom principles because they seem to have something stuck in their brain that causes brain drain. Solomon knew that and dedicated two entire books (Proverbs and Ecclesiastes) to teaching his sons wisdom and principles of how to make right decisions in life.

During a few of those teaching sessions I’ve had to swallow hard to fight off the lump in my throat as I tried to convince my boys on some of the principles of life. I was sitting there telling my sons about how life works, yet, in the back of my mind I knew that I was speaking only from a surface point of view. I was saying what they expected me to say or what I was programmed as a parent to say or what was told me when I was a kid.

But since growing up and living life, I’ve found that some of the “principles” which we were taught may have been true, but they didn’t always work in real life. So I would bite my lips sometimes as I robotically repeat those same lines and sayings that have been handed down through generations.

I wonder how I teach my kids that hard work pays off, when I’ve seen people who didn’t work hard get the breaks and the promotion because of some underhanded deal or simply because they knew someone at the top.

It’s easy to tell children that honesty is the best policy (and it is), yet they will begin to see dishonesty rewarded in some twisted way. We tell our kids to work hard in school, get good grades, go to college, work hard and obtain a college or University degree, only to have them come back home with a degree in hand and placed to work under people who don’t even have a high school diploma, much less a college degree, and who were in no way qualified to hold the position they were given. In some cases they only got that position because of political favor.

We try to teach our kids not to be “tattle-tales”, yet in the work place those who carry news to the boss are the ones who are rewarded. We teach our kids to be individualistic, yet they go out into the world and find that being a part of the cliché seems to be the way to get ahead in life.

As parents, are we obligated to be totally honest with our kids about life? What’s more, when is the right time to reveal such truth?

If I had teenagers, I would have no problems being upfront about some of the eccentric truths of life because I believe at that age, they could better understand such harsh realities. After all, many teenagers are already experiencing the duplicities of what they have been taught and what they experience in their teenage world.

But I have young kids and I’m afraid of “breaking their spirit” by being blatantly honest about life. It’s like telling a child, who’s been fed the fairy tales of Christmas, that there is no Santa Claus.

Some parents are even hesitant in telling their teenagers about the complexities of life because they feel that it is not their duty to “put it all out there for kids”. Their philosophy is just let kids be kids and allow them to find out for themselves later what life is really about.

That’s one of those tricky aspects of parenting. Yes, our children will learn about life as they go along and as they grow into adults, but isn’t it our responsibility as parents to give them a clear view of what life is all about? To give them a “heads-up” on the “other side” of life. Wouldn’t we have failed them as parents if we were never honest with them about some of the “lies” they may have been fed as children?

I believe the failure of some of our own parents and guardians when we were children in telling us what to expect in life is a direct result of why so many of us became messed up adults. Our minds became confused and warped because we learned certain “truths” as children, only to grow into adults to find out that those “truths” does not apply to the crazy world system in which we live.

We live in a world where bad is good, wrong is right and decency and manners are old fashioned, boring traditions.

I feel if we are not honest with our kids, in this world of advancing technology and the continual rise of the information age, they will quickly find out that those “truths” we try to teach them does not apply to everyone in the world in which they live. They will find out that some people succeed by lying and cheating and back biting and that there are people who refuse to work hard, but who still advance.

Where do we draw the line? Would our kids hold it against us for not telling them “the whole truth” about life? I understand that we cannot protect our kids from everything life will throw at them, but we can warn them of some of the fraudulence they will face once they get out there into the real world.

Many of us felt the sting of that “shock” once we grew up and found out that life was not the way people taught us it would be. We were left scrambling mentally and emotionally, trying to “readjust” our mindset to fit the “truth” we suddenly found ourselves in once we left school and found ourselves in the real world.

Some people never recover and many are left emotionally and mentally scarred and unprepared for life.

Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to teach my kids Biblical principles, which I believe holds true in every situation, but I feel that sometimes I also have the responsibility to be honest with my kids about how life and how the world in which they live works.

Even now, at such a young age, my kids are questioning some of the “principles” they’ve been taught, and wonders how it lines up with what they see happening among their peers in school. Already they are asking how is it that dishonest people appear to “get away” with things. They’re questioning why is it that “trouble makers” are hardly ever disciplined, but those who try to do what’s right seem to get punished.

There are Biblical truths and principles, and then there are principles by which the world operates. I feel it is our responsibility as parents to tell our children about both sides of the coin.

If we tell them, then I feel that we would have adequately prepared them to face the real world. We would have taught them how to handle the situation when they go into the work place and find unfairness; when they discover that those who tout news are rewarded for their backbiting and how to handle dealing with lazy people who still end up being promoted simply because he/she knows the right people.

If we tell them the truth, they will go out into the world knowing that there is evil out there, just as there is good in the world and that sometimes in the world, bad is good. But armed with knowledge and wisdom of how both sides of the world works, our kids would be in a better position (hopefully) to make the right decisions, while still holding on to their principles.