华盛顿 、树、乌龟

你的孩子有说谎吗?我相信这必定是很多父母都担忧的事。

好几个星期前，有一天恺文打电话到我办公室，对我说家里的乌龟有一只病死了。我想想早上出门前，三只乌龟还是好好的，怎么会有一只突然“暴毙”呢?心里顿然觉得事有跷蹊。

下班回到家，把恺文叫来，轻巧地盘问一番。一份父亲的第六感告诉我，他在掩饰。

“恺文，不可以讲骗话喔。”

他看看我，顿了一顿，说:“如果我说真话，你会生气骂我吗?”

“当然不会。我只会生气你说谎。”跟着再说了一遍“华盛顿砍樱桃树”的故事。(真讽刺，这个故事教导人要诚实，可是它本身却是一个谎话，一个杜撰的故事。)

他和盘拖出。原来他一时贪玩，把一只乌龟放进马桶里，怎么料到乌龟一时看不开，突然钻进洞内“自杀”，饮恨马桶，随水而去。

(我一面听一面忍住笑。这小孩有时真会做一些啼笑皆非的事儿。还记得他很小的时候，有一天竟然把一块大面包往自己的脸上贴，为的只是要比比到底是他的头大还是面包大！)

后来，我就去买了一只乌龟回来。(图中最小只的就是它。)

小孩说谎，往往是怕说实话后会被责骂或被打。如要处理这种情况，我觉得首要是要得到孩子的信任，其次是要注意孩子平时的行为和举止。这样，如果孩子有些不寻常的言行举动，也不能逃过你的法眼。而当你责问他时，他也更可能会如实相报。

当然，做长辈的，也得言行一致，为孩子做个好榜样。

Washington, the Cherry Tree, and the Terrapin

A couple of weeks ago Cowen called me at my office breaking the news that one of our terrapins had died from illness. I thought it sounded bizzare, as the three terrapins looked perfectly healthy in the morning before I left for work.

When I reached home and asked Cowen to explain the whole incident, he did so, but I wasn't convinced. Something inside me told me that he wasn't telling the truth, so I said: "Cowen, you should not lie."

He looked at me, and said, "If I tell you the truth, will you scold me?"

I related the favourite story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree to him, a story I told him before. "I won't scold you if you speak the truth. But if you tell lie, I will be angry."

(But what an irony. The "Washington and the Cherry Tree" episode, a tale told to celebtrate the virtue of honesty, is but an apocryphal story.)

So he told me the truth. He had put one of the terrapins into the toilet bowl to play, not expecting it to wander its way into the hole and disappear thereafter.

(I almost couldn't resist laughing as I listened to his story unfold. What a comical antic. It almost matches in hilarity one of his other antics, once when he slammed a bread onto his own face when he was a toddler, just to check whether the bread or his face was bigger.)

In the end, I went to get a replacement. (The smallest terrapin in the photo is it.)

Aaron
20 Dec 2009