Grand Magazine - July/August 2008 - (Page 32)

grand gestures “Thanks for the ugly gift” By Florence Berger-Doyle “Polite” does not have to mean insincere I Bought my granDson a gorgeous sweater. I asked the clerk to wrap it in special race-car paper and tie it with a huge red bow. When Timmy worked his 5-year-old fingers and completed the opening, he tossed the sweater on the floor. “It’s clothes again!” I was hurt. His mother was embarrassed. We teach our children by example. Other lessons also have to be explained. What do you do when you receive a gift you don’t like? (On my last birthday, my husband gave me a very small green blouse with orange fish swimming on the front of it.) We learn from an early age not to hurt feelings, to tell little white lies (“Thanks, honey, it’s me—I love it!”). And that’s part of the problem. Dr. Victoria Talwar says we are teaching our grandchildren to lie. Dr. Talwar is an assistant professor at McGill University in Montreal who leads a team of researchers studying children’s cognitive social development (especially how children learn and develop different social behaviors, such as honesty, politeness and understanding the feelings and beliefs of other people). Believing that children start lying at about age 2 or 3, Dr. Talwar says, “Children may at first tell lies because they are told to be polite by their parents ” Are our polite white lies unintentional lessons in lying? Can we direct a grandchild’s behavior to be both gracious and truthful? Of course we don’t want to hurt the feelings of others. The trick is to be kind without lying. It takes a bit of finesse— and practice—but it is not difficult to do, once we learn how. In her research lab, Dr. Talwar runs an experiment in which children play games to win a present. The gift is a bar of soap. After the initial shock the researcher asks the child how they like it. About one quarter of preschoolers can lie that they like the gift. By elementary school this goes up to half. “Often parents are proud that their kids are ‘polite’—they don’t see it as lying,” Talwar remarks. She would agree that the children are being polite. She would like to see them able to be so without being glib or insincere. If we used a no-lie ethic, an appropriate reaction would be “It’s fun to be the one to win the prize.” Polite. No lies. Every Thursday I meet with eight other grandmothers. Among us, we have more than 500 years of life 32 GRAND JULY AUGUST 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Grand Magazine - July/August 2008

Grand Magazine - July/August 2008 Contents Grand View: Love Is All That's Left Isn't It Grand?: Reassessing the Postponed Life Grand Central Just So We Know: One Mixed-Up Lemon Long-Distance Love: Cuttings Ask Grand: Stuck on Stuff Grand Gestures: "Thanks for the Ugly Gift" Tips on Teens: All That Doesn't Meet the Eye Live Long and Propser On the Cover: Peter Yarrow Presents of Mine Thicker Than Water? Reunions: White Water, White Knuckles The Grand Gourmet So We Are Not Alone Looking Grand: Suit-Able Grandbloggers: Why Watch TV When We Can Talk? Grand Bazaar Resources Grand Finale: What Boat

Grand Magazine - July/August 2008

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