English
EspañolBe a father and be a mother, not a prosecutor and executioner.
Trust in the family is born and grows through personal openness and sincere embrace between spouses, parents and children, siblings. Each of them knows that they are in the best hands, those who love them unconditionally.
Text
“On the other hand, a family marked by loving trust, come what may, helps its members to be themselves and spontaneously to reject deceit, falsehood, and lies.” (The Joy of Love, n.115)
Commentary
During a counseling session, a person told me: “my daughters knew that we would believe as true whatever they told us, no questions asked, we did not need proof. One day, one of them said she was going to a friend´s house, but she went with a group to a discotheque in reality. When she came back, she was quiet. She soon asked to speak to us to tell us that she felt awful for having disobeyed us, but above all for having lied”. Whoever lies opens the door to mistrust, an inner estrangement, intimate concealment. Despite the error or lie, when one is sincere, he closes that dangerous door again and rebuilds the trust. Hopefully, one time is all it takes, instead of a thousand, to learn such a great lesson: trust requires truthfulness, and lies kill trust, even before they are discovered, for they drive away he who is concealing the truth.
When children notice that their parents trust them, they feel the need to be sincere; they are no longer afraid to tell the truth, show themselves as they are, and speak their minds. It is useless to be suspicious or to be scandalized. And much less to believe that the extraordinary remedy is punishment. It is foolish to “punish” the misstep that has been confessed to you in truth and confidence. If you punish them, you risk creating fear of telling you the truth and trusting you. Do not create hypocrites and deceivers out of children.
There are a thousand remedies for a wrong step as long as you are inspired by the light of love and by taking advantage of the situation, not to instill fear but to increase confidence and help a child improve. Do not make them hate what is right. Do not be a prosecutor and an executioner. Be a father or a mother. Parental distrust leads to children behaving “artificially” as if playing a role in the theater, a role they are sure their parents will not reproach. Moreover, they become false, hypocritical, fearful, and distrustful along this path.
On the contrary, if you create and preserve trust, there is no longer any basis for fear, and children will sooner or later share their mistakes with us. They will know that the first ones to help them improve are their parents. Always keep in mind, the time of harvesting fruits is not the time of sowing. If you love, learn to wait.
