Truth-Challenged

Sadie is three and is a bit "truth-challenged." I think she understands the difference between a truth and a lie, but when the lie will keep her out of trouble, it just seems the obvious choice to her. We've been trying and trying to help her understand this, but we aren't making much progress.

This morning Eric discovered that someone had drawn all over one side of a little round table in our breakfast nook (incidentally the table belongs to our home owners). Everyone denied it. But our suspicions still rested on Sadie. Her track record for lying plus her age made her a prime suspect. But she repeatedly denied knowing anything about it.

A few hours later I discovered ink stamping had been done all over some puzzles downstairs. Sadie pled her innocence but I was pretty certain who the culprit was. So I got tricky. Here is the conversation that followed.

Me: Sadie, when did you do the stamping on the puzzles?
S: A long, long time ago. In Arizona.
M: Hmmmm, I don't think so. I think it was when we had all the stamps out last week with Clara.
S: Yeah, your right.
M: Is that when you drew on the table too?
S: No, I did that the day before THIS one.

Gotcha! I got her to admit it. We then had a nice conversation about honesty and trust and telling the truth. I think I really got through to her. And this was her final comment on the subject:

"Mom, when I draw on the OTHER half of the table, I will tell you the truth right away."

Lovely. Perfect. Can't wait.