So by now anyone who reads this knows that I have a relatively strict policy of Not Lying to My Kids. (The whole Santa Claus thing excepted.) But lately I'm wondering if I'm too literal in some of my answers to Tai's questions and if that might be squashing his imagination.
I started thinking this when we were at the mall last week and there was a (person dressed as the) Easter Bunny upon which kids could sit and have their picture taken. We walked over to watch and asked Tai if he wanted a turn. He shook his head and asked me, "Is it real?" I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. Is that a real rabbit? Is the Easter Bunny a real entity? (Not being religious, we don't talk much about Easter and had not decided whether to play up the Easter Bunny thing or not.) So I said, hesitantly, "I think it's a person, dressed up like .....er....The Easter Bunny"
Now don't get me wrong. Tai has a pretty great imagination. He makes up stories and all manner of pretend play. And when he tells me Emmit is sick it's not like I say, "That's impossible, Emmit is a stuffed animal." I'm not that literal. But what I don't tend to do is talk about fanciful things like fairies, ghosts, monsters, leprechauns, or the Easter Bunny.
So, Easter. We will be coloring eggs. I love a good Art Project. And we will be (coincidentally) having brunch with friends that day. Easter Basket full of candy? Easter egg hunt? Discussion of The Easter Bunny? Undecided. And time is running out.
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2 comments:
Do the Easter Egg hunt. You can just tell him you hid the eggs for him and Quynh to find and that it is a Spring Tradition.
You can tell him that every year people dress up like the Easter bunny to celebrate Spring's arrival. Kind of like the St. Lucia festivals in Sweden. Children dress up as Star Boy and St. Lucia to represent these entities, but no one tells them that THEY are Santa Lucia.
No Tooth Fairy, though. Hmmm, that is hard one. You're probably right about that one, but it does seem fun, albeit deceptive. It's tough because I want to preserve the traditions, but do away with the deceptions.
I don't know. Childhood and the fantasies that you have when you're a kid are so short lived. Before long you're an adult and you have the rest of your life to deal with all the "realities" that life throws at you. Why not indulge a little bit of fake stuff? We all wish we could go back to the days when we believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
It's a rite of passage to believe in that stuff as a kid! Plus otherwise you're going to have to deal with either a) him asking why the kids at school got money for a tooth or got candy from a ginormous bunny or b) calls from parents of other kids asking you to tell Tai to not tell their kids that none of that stuff is true.
Lying to your child and giving your kid a little fun thing to believe in are different things. He's a smart kid, if he figures stuff out on his own that's something altogether different and you can tell him what's up then.
That's my four cents! :)
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