Kitchen Connections – Lying and Untruths
3 ways cooking together to address sneaking, lying, or untruths in your kids.
Cooking with our kids has innumerous benefits.
Practically ANY skill- both hard and soft- can be taught while cooking or engaging in kitchen connections with our children.
Let’s talk about lying for a moment.
As always, the first step is to pause and wonder: 1- What qualifies as a lie, 2- Why do kids lie, 3- Why do we react the way we do?
It has been recommended to think of lying first as communication, but on two different levels- an untruth, which is a quick response to something or even a wish, and a true lie– a thoughtful, intentional action to deceive or hurt someone.
Thinking of “lying” in this way, encourages an adult to take a moment of pause to elevate our intention in our reaction and response. We can decide if we can use the moment as a teaching and connection moment, (mind-to-mind and heart-to-heart) or as mostly a correction moment -typically- body-to-body.
We take lies as a personal attack- on our intelligence, our effectiveness as a parent, the worthiness of a child, good vs evil, etc. Often, our knee-jerk response sends us into fight or flight. And then, if our child wasn’t in f/f before, they are now.
Not a good situation. No one wins.
3 ways to address lying while cooking:
1- Cooking together can often be calm and neutral. If so, both brains are flooded with feelgood, connection hormones. This environment can set the backdrop of you telling a story of when you lied. Vulnerability is like magic! Kids love and respond really well to adult vulnerability.
2- You can set the child up for success.
Ex- Set two chocolate chips on the counter and let the child know that they will be eaten only after cookies are out of the oven. Get their acknowledgement and agreement to eat them together after cookies are done. (Consider, on a scale of 1-10, how difficult it is to resist the temptation for your child. Address accordingly.)
Set the chips just out of natural reach. The child will have to intentionally exert effort, but reaching them is still a possibility.
Use observing language or sportscasting language-
Ex- “I see you wanting your chip. I also see that you’re working so hard to leave it alone and wait. Nice job. That takes great effort and skill. The front part of your brain is really working with your hands and your hands are listening. You’re not taking it! Me neither. That also helps our trust, because we agreed we can’t eat them yet. Wow!”
3- Don’t ask Yes/No questions.
If the child succumbs to taking the chip, don’t ask them, “Did you take the chip.” Instead, offer, “I see the chip is gone. Oh no. You were working so hard. Why did you take it?”
Listen with compassion. Your child is learning! And we learn best in play and in an environment of love.
4- Bonus! -This may come as a shocker, but I would try again, right then and there. Offer another chip, and now there is an even higher likelihood for success, because the cookies are almost done!
Remember that we are building a skill! Actually many! This is hard work.
We want to take advantage of (or even set up) every possibility for success and practice.
At then end, when the child gets to have that chip in success, he is literally tasting victory. And this will be something he wants to repeat.
I hope you got something valuable out of this post.
Thank you for listening.
Please respond with any questions.
These types of topics are what I live for!
In the spirit of intentional connection,
~Meagan.
P.S.- Check out the ebook for more ideas on communication and connection in the kitchen!
And of course- join the community of parents who are all curious and dedicated to learn more about intentional communication with Littles!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/parentchildcommunication