Confession

Tonight the kids were all in our room, in various stages of the bedtime routine. J picks an article of clothing off the bed and discovers it: a fresh, moist, juicy, and slightly bloody booger wiped on our bedspread. After demanding to know who did it, inspecting pointer (digging) fingers all around, and getting pointing (accusing) fingers, we send the younger two off to bed, and settle in to read to S (as per his request tonight). After a few minutes, I tell J that I'm not comfortable letting whichever liar it was get away with their lie. We are trying to teach the boys the importance of honesty and taking responsibility for their actions. We decide to get them all in our room, line them up at the foot of the bed, and wait for an admission of guilt. (That's the beauty of attending a church where the members speak each week and not just one minister all the time -- you get all kinds of random ideas.) The consequence -- no songs or stories for anyone tomorrow (or the following days) until the culprit owns up to it.  They troop in, line up, hear the consequence, start accusing each other and freaking out about the loss of stories and songs, and squirming. We interject a little here and there with questions like, "Who wants you to lie?" (A: Satan) And, "Who wants you to tell the truth?" (A: Heavenly Father, Jesus, Mom and Dad) We also asked each in turn if they did it -- vigorous shakes of the heads. The clock is ticking ever closer to the deadline before they lose their stories and songs when suddenly O says, "I did it!" He immediately drops to the floor crying his heart out. S walks out of the room saying, "Geez! We almost lost our stories and songs! That was close!" H goes back to bed.

I go over to O, who is huddled in a ball sobbing. I hold him close and whisper that I'm so proud of him for telling the truth. When he's calmer, we talk about how holding a lie inside makes your heart tight and uncomfortable. The Spirit can't come into a tight, lie-occupied heart. When you let go of the lie, your heart expands, you feel light and airy, the Spirit can come in. Heavenly Father, Jesus, Mom and Dad are so proud of O. Satan is mad! Isn't it funny that Satan's mad? Let's keep making him mad! O goes off to bed, and I feel happy and proud that we made it through that parenting challenge. We taught our kids something! Honesty is the best policy! Yay! Happiness all around.

Here's the kicker: J goes in to tell O that he's proud of him. O says, "I need to tell you something, but don't get mad, okay? I didn't do it. I just didn't want to lose our stories and songs. Don't tell Mom, okay?"

Huh. Now what?