Trust

Trust is vital in any relationship; without it there is nothing. If you don't trust someone, you can't rely on what they are telling you, or agreeing to is what they mean or can deliver. Yet traditions mean that parents all over the world are breaking the trust of their children by blatantly deceiving them and lying to them. The fact that it's "for a good cause" does not change the fact that the bond of trust is being intentionally broken.

When children are young, their reliance on adults around them is very high, they have nothing to compare to, they have no bullshit filter to take what they're told and get any deeper understanding. They have to assume that what they're being told is the exact truth. Other children may contradict this version and often will, but they have to assume the version their parents tell them is "the truth". This relationship is vital. This allows for cause and effect, and the ability for adults to protect and teach their children to avoid making the same mistakes they've made, or to do things the adults know will have a negative effect.

"Don't touch that radiator, it's hot and will burn your fingers"

This is easily proven or dis-proven by the child ignoring the warning, touching the radiator and immediately yanking their hand away because of the heat. There is an immediate cause and effect which can reinforce the warning as "truth". The child may forget that incident and warning, but the effect is still there, regardless of whether a warning comes before it in the future. The radiator will still be hot.

Things that have an immediate effect are one thing, but things that take a long time to surface are something totally different. "Remember to brush your teeth and don't eat too many sweets or your teeth will rot and you'll get fat". There is no immediate cause and effect relationship to be proven or dis-proven. The child eats sweets, does not brush their teeth,  their teeth don't rot and they don't get fat. They need to have trust in the adult and that what they're being told is true.

Discipline involves immediate cause and effect too. Adults who study teaching know that any child who needs to be disciplined for knowingly being naughty should be disciplined as close to the time of the offense, so they link the punishment with the offense. If the child is disciplined a while afterward, they can easily be confused as to why they're being punished. Be knowingly naughty and get punished. Cause and effect. Otherwise all they have is effect.

All of this relies on the adult knowing better than the child, and being truthful with the child. It relies on the child accepting what the adult says as "truth", whether or not they agree. So how does this start to erode?

It's one thing to answer a question the child asks in a way that's appropriate to their age. That is a judgment call only the adults close to the child can gauge. The age old "where do babies come from" is a perfect example. They do not need to know all the details, but adults should answer it truthfully in terms the child understands. Many choose this moment to lie and deceive their child. They rely on the trust they've built up that "the adult is always right and will always tell you the truth" to get their lies accepted.

The results of this is that children have to learn this from their friends, who are just as clueless as they are. They will learn from the internet, and find porn without the context. This will shape their actions. This is exacerbated by the very same parents being outraged that schools have the nerve to fill the gaps and prepare their children for adulthood by teaching safe sex etc. They will insist that "this is the parents role" while in most cases choose not to play that role themselves. One look at the rate of unplanned pregnancies and STDs among young adults is testament to this approach. In most cases they're experimenting with bad information, in addition to the lesson that "adults lie" firmly learned.

It's something completely different to initiating the deception by telling the child "if you're naughty, Santa won't come and bring you presents". "Santa" "Tooth Fairy" and "God" are only a handful of examples the adults initiate with their children when their minds haven't developed the bullshit filter, so that by the time the bullshit filter has developed, the lies are been glued in good and proper, to become "immutable fact, regardless of the gaping wide plot holes". This is made worse by all the other adults around them conspiring to keep the lies up and back each other up, knowing that every time is a lie. "What did Santa bring you?"

When the bullshit filter kicks in to the Santa deception, the questions the child inevitably has at some point are:

• "How does he get round every house in one night?"
• "How does he get into my house if I have no open windows, doors or chimney?"
• "How does he know if I've been naughty or nice?"
• "How does he know what I want?"

Any one of these gaping plot holes would get caught in the bullshit filter if the deception was initiated later in life. That's why it's initiated early, where there is no bullshit filter to pick up on them, or spot the layers of bullshit used as "answers" to the questions. Every time an adult makes up more bullshit in response, they are scraping away yet another layer of trust between them and the child.

• "He has a magic sleigh and magic reindeer"
• "He has a master key"
• "He has helpers everywhere, they see everything. Even when you're alone in your bedroom"

In many cases it's flat out (imaginary all knowing third party) bribery as control too. "If you're good Santa will know" "Remember to write your list for Santa". Even when the penny starts to drop that Santa is actually the parents, they are obliged to deceive in response, as part of the hook is "if you don't believe in Santa, he won't come". This means the child has to pretend too. "What did Santa bring you?" "He brought me a new PS3" knowing it was mom and dad.

Adults have brought the child's deception on themselves, and welcome it if it helps continue the tradition and avoid the "hey, you've been lying to me all these years" argument. For many families, there are enough arguments at Christmas without adding another one they planted years before and have been watering annually.

What that does to the child is that they can no longer take what their parents tell them as "truth". They know they've been intentionally lied to for years on at least one thing, so what else? If their parents have been willing to knowingly lie to them, why shouldn't they knowingly lie to others, including their parents? Parents are role models after all. It spreads out much further than just the parents to adults in general, from teachers onwards. They've all perpetuated the deception. The lesson sinks in that "deceiving people is not only the norm, but the accepted state of affairs, as everyone is doing it". As they become parents themselves, they're obliged to lie to their children in the same way or society decides they're "bad parents".

When the child has a problem and adults try to get them to "tell a grown up you can trust, we want to help you" has the trust been broken by that time? How can they trust adults? Who can they trust? This is especially true if it's one or more adults who are causing the upset. They've been deceived for years by adults. When they do open up to a teacher or parent about being bullied or abused, how can they trust that adult's word on what they say they'll do?

So many controversial issues today involve some groups wanting video games, movies, books or toys banned as they're "harmful to children". A pathetic example of this was the Harry Potter novels being targeted by some stone age religious groups in the US who claim it "promotes witchcraft". This is the effect of their parents deception, and in turn their own. They teach children all sorts of fantasies as "truth" before the bullshit filter is developed. They are not able to recognize "fiction" because they have all sorts of "real life" examples from works of fiction, all set in stone in their minds. They believe that every child is potentially like them, and subsequently unable to tell the difference between "real" and "made up". They therefore feel the need to have anything they don't approve of censored and banned. They see it as their tradition to "educate" children in these fallacies, get them while they're young and don't know any better.

Any concerted effort to make sure children are trained to be able to judge fact from fiction is a worthy one, as it prepares the child for adulthood where they will have to make these decisions on their own and face the consequences of those decisions. It would be met with a flurry of groups who wouldn't want it. They rely on their bullshit sinking in before the filters go up to detect it.

Cults use the same practice, it's called "indoctrination". The idea is that you get someone in a vulnerable or undeveloped state who is incapable (for whatever reason) of spotting the bullshit, and who is sufficiently rewarded as they see it, for compliance. Whether that's "if I behave, Santa will bring me a PS3" or "if I wear a funny dress and take part in this orgy God will bless me". It amounts to control over people using deception.

How many politicians would manage to get elected today if the electorate has a tuned bullshit filter? They rely on the electorate being dumb enough to bite at the emotional bait they throw out, not question the plot holes in the pledges and vote for someone who won't act in their interests. They also rely on the electorate thinking they're smart enough to have made the right choice and to spread the word so that others can vote against their own interests too. All of these deceptions as children help pave the way for this.

We grow up knowing that adults lie and deceive, so we expect the same of our politicians. We see all parties all trying to smear the others. We see all of their pledges as lies or part truths. We conclude that voting is a waste of time as nothing changes. The result is that those who use the political system to enrich themselves and their mates at the tax payers expense get an even cleaner run, with even less chance of being caught or held to account.

Remember that the children of today, are the adults of tomorrow. Some of those adults will go on to lead in various industries, as well as government. We need to be able to improve as a species, to gradually find solutions to things, not go backwards and continue to perpetrate wrongs we know to be wrong and know to have a long lasting effect.