“He’s a child! He forgets quickly.”
“We’ll distract him.”
“I just said that to calm him down; we’ll think of something later.”
“Is it wrong to lie to a child?”
These are sentences exchanged between some fathers and mothers, especially when their child makes a request. But what is the correct behavior in such situations?
One of the important instructions of Islam to parents is to fulfill the promises they make to their children. Failing to fulfill promises to children is condemned in the narrations, and parents who make baseless promises to their children are criticized.
It is narrated that “if any one of you makes a promise to their child, they must fulfill it”[1]…
It is also narrated that “lying is inappropriate, whether serious or as a joke; and it is also improper for anyone of you to promise their child something and then fail to fulfill it. Truly, lying leads to wickedness, and wickedness leads to the fire of hell”[2]…
In this regard, Imam Kadhim (peace be upon him) said: “If you promise something to your children, fulfill it, because they think their sustenance comes from you. Truly, Allah does not become as angry at anything as He does at injustice toward women and children”[3].
From the narrations on this topic, we can derive the following:
If we make a promise, we must fulfill it, because breaking a promise, whether to adults or children, has negative consequences.
Just as we expect Allah and His servants to fulfill their promises, our children also expect us to fulfill the promises we make to them.
Failing to fulfill such promises is considered an injustice to the child because the child cannot defend their rights, and violating their rights will provoke Allah’s anger, as He is the protector of the oppressed and weak.
By not fulfilling our promises, we open a door for our children that will lead to the development of a spirit of hypocrisy and lying within them. Children learn more from the practical conduct of their parents than from their words. In this way, they may feel that lying is not shameful and that keeping promises is not important. This means that it’s acceptable to make promises to others just to maintain appearances, while we make excuses and postpone fulfilling our promises, eventually shirking them entirely. In this way, we invalidate not only our past promises but also those we might make in the future.
Without a doubt, such undesirable behavior degrades the personality of children and lays the groundwork for various deviations and leads them away from purity and honesty.
(Adapted from “Children’s Rights in the Teachings of the Ahlul Bayt (peace be upon them)” by Muhammad Jawad Tabasi, with some modifications and additions)
Footnotes:
[1] Al-Ja’fariyat, p. 166
[2] Amali Saduq, p. 416
[3] Al-Kafi, Vol. 6, p. 50