Reaction


 * What are your views about shielding children from unpleasant truths? When is it important for a child to know such truths? When is it better to keep a child in the dark? And, is it right for an adult to lie to a child to "protect" him or her?

It really is dependent on how old the child is, what their maturity level is and what the individual circumstances are. I don't think that the five-year-old needs to know the gory details of how their parents died in a fire, but the sixteen year old deserves to know if they were adopted. I mean, I think that if the child asks directly then you can tell them the truth, but you don't need to go out of your way to make a child think constantly about the darker truths of life. I don't think you should lie directly to children because I believe that they are really just little people with less experience, but they deserve to have a happy childhood without the constant burden of how horrible the world can be. ** I think that giving children insight into the fact that not everything is peaches, cream and fluffy ponies, but they don't need to know that children across the ocean are being tortured and they don't need to know all of the little horrors of life. Giving them a naive view of the world for a little while keeps them innocent, but lying to them only makes them confused and not ready to face the world as they grow up. So I think that children should be allowed to have a happy and carefree childhood, but they should not be lied to by every adult trying to 'keep them safe', and I don't think children need to be sheltered and trapped in little bubble suits from the dangerous world outside.