When Parents Tell Their Children to Lie

What has become of some parents? I am sure by now everyone has heard of “Balloon Boy”~ poor kid that we are even calling him balloon boy, but I figured you would know who I was talking about better then if I wrote Falcon Hennes.

I wasn’t watching the news coverage as it was happening but I did log on my computer and read the yahoo article, when they still couldn’t find 6 year Falcon. I felt sick for his parents and their entire family, I really felt horrible for them. Then with in a half hour he was found and he was hiding in the garage, horrible, but then to hear that not only was he hiding, but his parents may have put him up to it?!?! Ugh Ugh Ugh, who does that??

Falcon was so distraught he ended up vomiting on television because his parents made him lie. What is happening to parents in our culture?? There is no excuse for this behavior.
I admit to being someone who is completely into television, celebrities, ect… but I would never, ever, put my children in that position for the price of fame.

At least for Falcon, he must have learned to be honest somewhere along the line, that lying about hiding and what happened physically sickened him on television. The sad part, the parents probably don’t even appreciate that their children are sincere and don’t want to lie, and instead the parents only care about the fame.

So instead of just looking negatively at the Hennes, let’s think of what positive lesson we can take from this to teach our children. Also think of how often you tell little white lies in front of your children and how they could grow up thinking lying is okay. We can also take this as a warning to ourselves as how parenting can go horribly wrong, even with the best intentions.

Did your children hear about this incident? And if so, what did you tell them?
Is there a lesson here to teach our children to be honest (even if we are asking them to lie?)