Be Honest

I work real hard to teach the kids honesty. Is there a such thing as being too honest?

The other day while at the pool, a lady said something to Alivia as she was leaving the pool area. Alivia responded to the lady's question, which was fine as the lady was being nice and I was there (so okay to talk to strangers in this circumstance). The lady was maybe 2 steps away from Addison and Addison said,
"Mommy, Alivia just talked to a STRANGER and a SMOKER!"" as the lady had been smoking on the other side of the pool.
Addison said this as if being a smoker was as bad if not worse than being a stranger.

Asher asked someone who visited recently,
"Why are you so mean to my Mommy?!"
I was mortified. First of all, I never said this person was mean to me, so this was clearly something he picked up on his own. But, it looked like I had been saying to Asher that this person is mean, which I would never do. AWKWARD. When I asked Asher later about this incident, he said it was something about this person's lack of a sleepover. What? What does that have to do with me? He made me look bad by saying something that really did not make any sense!

Alivia has been known to be a little on the too honest side, too, telling people their teeth are yellow or their arm skin giggles (OMG!! AWKWARD).

My kids put me in awkward positions as they are just being honest, but there is a difference between being honest and lacking tact. Clearly, some people we can be more honest with than others. But, it really annoys me, too, when people are so far from being honest out of fear of hurting your feelings or something. I mean really, if someone truly does not care for me, make that clear to me! If I know that is what you believe, I can stay well enough away from you. If you can email me the mean things, then I want you to say them to my face, too (not be super fake nice to me in person but email me unkind things).

I want my kids to be honest, even sometimes too honest, in order to stand up for themselves. With that said, pointing out yellow teeth, or that someone is a smoker, is something we are still working on keeping to ourselves. There is a difference between being honest and being rude.

We will keep working on that.