I’m Not Lying: This Is the Worst Parenting Hack Ever

Overheard on Instagram:

Here’s a dialogue to use with ChatGPT to make your parenting easier.

I’m going to pretend I’m calling a store when I use voice mode, and I’m going to ask if you’re open and if you have mac n’ cheese, and you need to say no. I’m trying to convince my 3-year-old son that the store is not open right now.

In true, obliging ChatGPT fashion, the response was:

Got it! Whenever you’re ready, I’ll play along and let your son know that the store isn’t open.

The poster explained that this “hack” has really made parenting her 3-year-old easier.

It’s easier.

But is it good parenting?

Research demonstrates that parenting by lying is a bad idea. Parenting by lying has been associated with more lying to parents as children mature, particularly once children realize that their parents tend to lie. Parenting by lying is also associated with greater emotional maladjustment for children, children developing more dishonesty in their peer groups as they mature, and lower-quality parent-child relationships.

More importantly, we know that children learn their social skills, social competency, and basic behavioral repertoire from their parents. They’re wired to do that. We certainly don’t want to demonstrate lying as a key social skill for handling a potentially awkward situation.

Basically, the research tells us it’s a bad idea. Perhaps the best use of ChatGPT in this context would be requesting the AI to summarize the many, many studies that demonstrate all sorts of negative outcomes for parenting by lying and asking what child development experts suggest we do instead.

The Missed Opportunity

But there’s another disadvantage that this type of parenting “hack” creates. By lying to the child to avoid a meltdown, we miss an important opportunity.

Sure, it’s a lot easier to avoid the classic toddler meltdown when we’re out of mac n’ cheese.

I’ve parented my fair share of toddlers, and every one of them has melted down over Shakespearean tragedies like:

• The Day My Brother Pushed the Elevator Button, and I Wanted To
• The Time My Mother Poured the Milk Into the Red Cup, and I Wanted the Blue Cup
• The Time My Mother Poured the Milk Into the Blue Cup, and I Wanted the Red Cup
• The Time My Mother Poured the Milk Into the Blue Cup, and I Wanted My Dad to Pour It
• The Day My Favorite Shirt Was in the Wash, and I Wanted to Wear It
• Shoes. Just Shoes. The Fact That They Exist.
• My Sister Is Playing With a Toy, and I Want It
• Leaving the Playground. A Tragedy in Four Acts. (This one has a particularly sad ending; I do not recommend it.)

A strategic hack like having ChatGPT pretend to be the playground and warning us that people who hit their sister can’t come later would be so easy. It might shut down the behavior in the moment.

But would that be good parenting?

Parenting is about being the adult in the room, and the adult in the room needs to teach the child in the room how to handle frustration.

Meltdowns are a feature, not a bug, of toddler development.

Source: watcartoon/123RF

Bending down to my son’s level and saying, “It’s so hard to leave the playground. You are having so much fun, and you really want to stay. You are so full of mad feelings, from your toes to the top of your head. I know. It’s OK….” and talking him through the meltdown is a lot harder than having ChatGPT pretend to be the playground police or a cartoon character. It takes more self-control, energy, and patience.

It also teaches my son some skills. He can understand that the feeling he’s feeling is called “frustrated” or “mad.” He can understand that it’s OK for him to feel mad and that I’m not mad in response.

Giving language to the somewhat terrifying sensation of being overwhelmed with big emotions helps to tame them a bit. As Daniel Siegel says, to name it is to tame it.

To name it is also to claim it—it allows my son to understand that these are his very own emotions and that he has a parent who will help him handle them.

The tragedy of “We Are Out of Mac N’ Cheese and I Really, Really Wanted Some” is a familiar rerun in many homes that feature a toddler.

In some ways, the very familiarity of the challenge makes it easier to validate, mirror, and teach the child a skill. Sometimes, that skill is the simple perspective shift that frustrating situations are tolerable, that there are adults around who care and who want to help, and that nothing permanent has happened.

Parenting Essential Reads

Why Is It So Hard for Parents to Apologize to Their Kids?

Why Talking To Your Child Matters, and 5 Ways to Do It

One key self-regulation skill that kids must learn is that discomfort isn’t dangerous. If we don’t expose them to small, tolerable, manageable discomforts, they will never learn this.

Yes, it’s very likely that simply telling a toddler that we’re out of mac n’ cheese and we can’t go to the store right now will result in a meltdown. It may even be a meltdown of epic proportions.

But you know how we said we want to teach them that discomfort isn’t dangerous? We first need to know that ourselves. Our own discomfort isn’t dangerous either. There may be a little dialogue in the back of our heads going, “If I were a good, competent parent, my kid wouldn’t be having this meltdown right now. If I were a good parent, I could make this meltdown stop. If my kid is this distressed, I must be doing something wrong.”

Let’s rewire that.

Guess what? Toddler meltdowns are a feature, not a bug, of their development. This is how they learn to manage their big emotions—by not managing them and then being taught how to. We can’t learn how to master our meltdowns if we don’t first have them in a tolerable, manageable, and supportive environment.

Using the ChatGPT hack would be a lot faster and easier.

It just wouldn’t be good parenting.