ISSUE 2
presented by:

 little thistles:

• Monsters
• Picture dictionary
• Lingva zoo
• My family and me
• There's no place
  like home

 and the older ones:

• Diaries
• Polemics
• People around us
• That wicked music
  by Van Gogh
• Come to my place!
• Echoes of my country
• 2 cool actors
  and a movie
• Give us a chance
  to travel
• My favourite magazine
• Buildings in Valjevo -
  beauties or eyesores
• Family festivals

Polemics

The Polemics for this issue of Lingva Web Thistle concerns dishonesty to children. Is it for their own good? Is it sometimes hypocritical? Here are some views of a teenager and two young mothers.

Dragana Petrovic:
I think that dishonesty in general is a wrong way of educating children and providing their good behavior. Everybody lies; parents, children, teachers, presidents... I can remember that when I was little only one woman lied to me in order to stop me from doing something. My parents usually tell me everything about a problem we have and try to make me understand their explanation. Many of my friends are forced not to talk and bring out their ideas and feelings because their parents think that they are the only ones who should do the talking.

A large number of my friends were lied to that they were brought to this world by a stork. Much later they still didn't know some basic things about life and about some biological processes. Sooner or later the truth must see the light of the day. The sooner, the better. When I was little I wasn't lied to in order to be prevented from doing something, like drinking coffee, putting on my mothers perfume, or my sister's clothes... I think we should lie only if by doing so we can protect some aspects of our personality or some of our interests.

When I was a child my grandmother told me that when somebody dies they go to the the sky from where they can see what I do, say, or learn... So then I got scared of any dishonesty and now I still try to keep clear of it as much as possible. I really don't know whether it is true or not but I respect it. I think that dishonesty is wrong and bad in any way and that we must keep our children away from it.

Katarina Marinković-Tošić:
There are so many categories of dishonesty. Some of them are very practical in the real life. The others are impractical, bad and can make a confusion in the children's head. In my opinion, a very important situation when parents shouldn't tell lies is that connected with birth, or how a baby comes to this world. Another problem appears if we talk to children about some rules, and after that we do something opposite. This is a kind of dishonesty. Or when parents punish their child but they are not consistent in doing this. This is also some kind of lying about rules.

Some types of dishonesty, however, are maybe practical for the child. Sometimes, if we don't tell the truth we protect the child. The stories about death are an example. We can tell the stories about sky, and God or stars if the child is very young, two or three years old. After that period, maybe we can tell half the truth about death.

Children are very sensitive and intelligent. We can never be sure how they understand a story. I am sure they read between the lines. Every day they think about what you told them the day before and are usually more capable of distinguishing between what is true and what is a lie than we are aware off.

Milka Vujić:
Dishonesty? Are we living in a world of Dishonesty? How can we fight against dishonesty?

If we lie to our children, are they going to lie to us in the future? Or we might not need to controvert, because there are some situations when dishonesty is needed - and it will not badly influence on our children.

I really think that, from time to time, we need to be dishonest to our children. It mostly happens in some sad and shocking situations when we are supposed to protect the little, innocent human beings. Children all over the world love their grannies. They naturally often die when children are quite young. A little piece of dishonesty cannot hurt any child as it would if we told them the truth. In other cases, if we lie to our children without a particular reason, that can contribute to their own lies - first, small and minor, and later - who knows?