Today I took my kids (all four of them) to a place called "Jumpin' Apes". It's basically a giant room filled with inflatable bounce houses. You pay a fee, your kid gets to jump and run and holler and nobody cares. There is also a small arcade there, and when you win enough tickets, you can buy some candy, or a little toy or something. These things are kept in a display case in the middle of the facility.
About an hour after we had been there, Logan walked up to me, his mouth full of chalky green sugary goodness. He said, "I eating it." I said, "Ooookaaaay,"...not sure where the stuff had come from. I thought perhaps his brother had bought him some candy at the concession stand or something like that...but then he walked up to me again with more candy in his mouth. "I eating it. It's yummy." I said, "Logan, where did that come from?" He said, "I got it." I tried again, "Logan, who gave that to you?" A slight hesitation, then, "Sarah gave it to me." And I looked into his beautiful little eyes and thought, This kid is lying! He is lying to me! And I was happy.
Shortly after that the manager came up to me and said that some kids had seen Logan getting into the display case and stealing candy. I explained his condition and offered to pay for the missing candy and she was very kind, and said that wouldn't be necessary, but to keep an eye on him because he was getting in there.
You may question why I was happy that my kid was lying to me. I don't encourage my children to lie about anything, but I also recognize that for the first time, Logan thought far enough ahead that he was able to actually concoct the lie. And this pleased me for the simple fact that it's a developmental marker...at about the age of 4, children begin to fib. They'll fib about things that happen at school. They'll lie about things they did that they weren't supposed to do...they'll story about candy they took that didn't belong to them. It's a normal thing. And even though Logan is eight, soon to be nine, his development is much slower than that of normal children in some ways. So when he lied, it was wrong. But it was normal.
When we got home, I sat down with him and wrapped him up in a blanket, and asked him about what really happened. I said, "Did Sarah give you that candy or did you take it?" And he admitted taking it. I explained that we don't take things that don't belong to us, and that next time, if he wants something, he needs to ask first.
And I hugged him and wondered once again where we would be in eight more years.
