Should A Kid Be Guided to Tell a White Lie? It's my family's tradition to exchange girls on Christmas Eve. Before we did so, I whispered to my uncle and his wife, 'Just want you to know: I think what I got you is really cool, so just tell me you like it, no matter what, okay?' I know that sounds rude, but there's another Christmas custom in my family: we give each other weird gifts. There is a sweet reason for this. My grandparents grew up during the Depression, and there were years when they had no gifts at all. So my grandmother and her siblings(兄弟姐妹) would gift-wrap their old socks and clothes, just so they had something to open on Christmas. Pretend presents were better than none at all. My grandmother never really got over those early years, so, for the rest of her life, she went a little crazy at the holidays. She'd start buying gifts in October. It didn't matter what it was. Socks, toothbrushes, used paperbacks she'd read but didn't like, all went under the tree. Contents of catalog 'mystery boxes' meant we spent another hour unwrapping presents. One of my more memorable gifts: a single piece of clear plastic labeled 'face shield.' I was apparently to hold it in front of my eyes when I used hair spray. We all thanked Grandma greatly no matter what we got. As a little kid, this pattern of gratitude for the terrible presents puzzled me it took a long time for me to understand it was all right to laugh at some of her gifts. Now I don't really know if my aunt and uncle actually liked the gift I gave them. They said they did, but since I coached them to tell me they love it, I'll never really know if that was the truth. All of these make me think of the work of McGill professor Victoria Talwar. As an expert in children's lying behavior, Talwar has been studying how kids respond to unwanted gifts. When they get a gift they hate, can they still thank someone and pretend to love it? Talwar tests kids' ability to do this, by asking kids to pick a toy they want if they win a game, they get the chosen toy. There are plastic horses, a small car, a few other items, including an unwrapped, dirty, worn, used bar of soap. At some point in the game, there's a switch in the adults who play with the kids. So, instead of giving the child her chosen toy, the late-arriving adult gives the child the soap. Then, the researchers watch what happens. 68% of kids, aged 3 to 11, will spontaneously say they love the gift of old ugly soap. The older they are, the more likely they are to say a white lie about the gift. And if parents encourage the children to say how much they like the present, the percentage of kids lying about the gift increases to 87%. At this point, some may be saying that a white lie isn't a lie. That's because you are looking at lying from the adult perspective--that lies are acceptable, when told with the intent of helping someone, or protecting another's feelings. But kids don't think of lying in the same way. For them, the intent behind a lie--for good or for ill--is irrelevant. It is so irrelevant that, for very young kids, you can't even lie by accident. Someone who gives out wrong information, but believed it to be true, is still a liar in these kids' book. Kids just don't believe that lying comes in shades of white or gray. Lying is much simpler than that: lying is telling somebody something that isn't so lying is really bad and lying gets you punished. And if it gets you punished, you shouldn't do it. In Talwar's lab, parents have literally cheered to hear their kids lie about how great it is to have received the old soap. The parents have pride over their children's knowing the socially appropriate response. Talwar's regularly amazed by this. The parents never even seem to realize that the child told a lie. They never want to scold the child afterwards,