The Shaving Mistake 

Friend September 2019 “The Shaving Mistake”

When Elder Allen D. Haynie was nine years old he thought he could grow a mustache if he shaved, so he used his father’s razor for several days.

One day his father saw him shaving and warned him not to do that because he could get cut. He disobeyed and did it again. The razor slipped and cut above his lip.

He lied to his father about what happened and felt terrible, so he told his father the truth. He learned to tell the truth from that experience.

Activity: Use the code to fill in the blanks with the right letters. It makes the message “I can be brave by telling the truth.”

Get the printable FREE by clicking the picture below.

I Believe in Being Honest Beanbag Pass

Everyone sit in a circle. Pass a beanbag around while singing “I Believe in Being Honest” (Children’s Songbook, p. 149). Stop singing randomly. When the music stops, have whomever is holding the beanbag suggest an honest way of dealing with situations (use ones from the "Bee Honest" board game or make up your own.

• You found a five dollar bill on the floor at school. What should you do? 

• Your friend asks you if you like their outfit. You think it's really ugly. What should you do? (Instead of lying and saying they look fine-which sometimes might be ok-, tell them in a kind way something you do like, or say something like, "I don't like it as much as xyz outfit but...") 

• You borrowed your siblings shirt and accidentally stained it. What should you do? 

• Your friends start teasing someone at school. What should you do? 

• You pushed your sibling and they cry and your parents ask why they are crying. What should you do? 

• Your child wants to go to the park and you tell them "We have work", but instead you go to the shopping center. [Your child will begin to think that it’s normal to lie according to their priorities]. 

• You don't want to go to bed when your parents say it's time. What do you do? [Social Lie: Children who do not want to go to school, feel sleepy, or have different plans for the day may want to refuse their responsibilities for a short time by telling others that they are sick. Adults often do this as well]. 

• You didn't finish your homework and your parents ask if you did. What should you answer? 

• You didn't get home before curfew and your parents ask why. What should you do? 

• All your friends are allowed to wear make-up at 14 but you aren't and you want to. Do you wear it outside of the home when your parents don't see? What should you do? 

• Your friend asks you if they can copy your homework. What should you do? 

• You are playing a school golf competition game. You move a tiny brush twig away from your ball and the ball moves just a tiny centimeter. No one else saw the ball move? Do you call a stroke on yourself or not?

Puppet Role Play +

[Idea credit: ArtsCrackers]

Learn what it means to make promises and how it feels when they are broken.

Have a puppet say various promises like, “I will help you put away your toys” or “I will sing a song for you” and have the puppet perform what he said he would. Then use another puppet to do the opposite – say they will do something (such as get a snack or do a dance) and then not do what they said they would. Talk about the importance of doing what you say you will do. This is a good opportunity to review the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Talk about how important it is for us to tell the truth so that people can trust us.

Storyboard

[Idea credit: ArtsCrackers]

Learn about how you can sometimes be nervous about telling the truth, but that the effort is always worth it.

Draw four boxes on a piece of paper. In the first one, draw a child breaking something and feeling nervous about what would happen. In the second, draw how the child told the truth about what happened. In the third, draw how the parent reacted. In the fourth, draw how the parent helped the child fix what they broke.

Tell the story to your child or ask them to tell the story using the pictures. Discuss how it can be hard to tell the truth, but that being truthful is always best. Explain that parents may be sad or disappointed by something that happened, but that they always want their children to tell the truth. A parent will do their best to help the child through a situation, and will be very proud when the child tells the truth even when it was hard. [Make up other situations as well, fit for the different ages of your children]. 

Completely Honest?

Is there such a thing as "mostly honest?" Learn about complete honesty vs. fibbing and when and where, if ever, it may be appropriate to not be honest.

Also see the post here to build Pinocchio a nose each time kids identify a lie. 

While "little white lies" may seem fairly harmless, those white lies can add up—and also make you more prone to fire off larger lies down the line. One study published in Nature Neuroscience revealed that when, minor untruths go without consequence, our brains are more likely to believe that it's then ok to justify major untruths.  

Copy and paste the situations below, plus make up your own. Print and cut into strips and put into a bowl. Let kids draw and discuss each situation in terms of little truth, some truth, no truth, or all truth.

• Your mom asks you to clean up the toys. You don't want to so you tell her you don't feel good.
• You tell your parents, “At my friends house their mom said I can have ten pieces of candy and don’t need to brush teeth" when it's just what you want and not something they actually said. 
• You and your friend come up with a great idea and when someone gives you the credit without mentioning your friend, you say you brainstormed together but the idea was yours and you take all the credit.
• Your dad asks you if you cleaned your room and you did put away a few clothes but still have more to do. You say you did. 
• You told your parents you were going to a friends house but you really went to another kids house for a party. When your parents ask if you had a good time at your friends, you say yes. 
• Your parents ask you if you ate your corn at dinner and you ate 2 bites but threw the rest away and you say you ate most of it.
• A vase in the house broke when you bumped into it accidentally. When your parents ask who broke the vase, you say you did, even though you are scared you might get into trouble.
• Your friend asks you for the answer to some test questions. You tell them you don't think you should but they keep begging so you give them one answer but no more. 
• You went to the skate park and rode around on your skateboard. You want to sound cool to your friends so you tell them you went off the second biggest hill in the park when you didn't. 
• You are having trouble with math so when your parents ask if you have homework and you know it's all finished except math, you say no you don't have any. 
• Dad asked you if you brushed your teeth. You did for 10 seconds so you say yes. 
• You don't want to eat all of your dinner so you tell your parents you are full when you really aren't. 
• You have a daily reading log to fill in once you read each day. Mom promises not to ask you about it for a whole month, which she does if you promise to do your reading every day. You did read a day or two every week, here and there but you fill in almost all of the days on your log so Mom won't bug you about it again. 
• You see someone get bullied at school and when the teacher asks if anyone saw what happened, you don't say anything. 

FOR OLDER KIDS/ADULTS

• You fib and tell the move ticket person your young child is younger than they are so you can get a cheaper movie ticket. 
• You say, "It's nothing. I'm fine," when you actually aren't. 
• While at work, John uses company stamps to mail letters to his sick mother (see D&C 42:54).
• When you borrow something, you usually promptly return it. You borrow something from a neighbor but forget to return it. (See Mosiah 4:28; D&C 136:25.)
• "I'm listening..." [You are listening to someone talk to you and kind of respond but are you really listening?]. 
• You tell your family you are five minutes away when you might be a bit more than that.
• The cashier at the store accidentally gives you back too much change. You go back in and give the extra money back.
• You are late for work and say that traffic was horrible but the traffic was only bad in a few small spots.
• "I totally forgot to do that!" [To be fair, sometimes it really is easy to forget. But that's not always the case. Sometimes you didn't do the thing your loved one asked you to do because you just didn't feel like it].
• You call in sick for school or work...[Are you really sick? Is it acceptable to your employers to take a sick day from work as a day off even if you aren't sick?]
• "I'm allergic to..." [It just seems easier to tell a restaurant server you've never met that you have an allergy to mushrooms rather than admit that the creamy mushroom soup-of-the-day sounds really terrible. But as it turns out, servers really wish we'd be more truthful. "If you have a serious dislike of some particular food, that's fine—tell us, and we'll recommend something that doesn't contain that ingredient, or we may even be able to alter a menu item for you," one server said in an interview. "But if you lie and say it's an allergy, it's a huge deal for the kitchen."]
• "I'm fine." [In most cases, this is perfectly acceptable. Even if you're not fine, we're not always obligated to delve into a deep discussion of life's complication and worries just because somebody asked, "Everything okay?" But if you really are hiding something that your loved one needs to know, there will eventually come a time when you need to have that difficult discussion].
• "I'm busy that day..." [Are you really or are you using that as an excuse? When it this ok to say and not? Depends on what you are trying to avoid.... Ex: A neighbor asks if you can drive them to pick up their car at the shop...].
• "Don't worry, it's ok..." [This is a tricky one. Sometimes it's a white lie that a person needs to hear, if only because the truth will be too crushing. We all make mistakes, and some of us make many mistakes, so having a loved one who tells us "it's okay" even when it's very clearly not okay can be a gift. Yes, letting somebody off the hook once in a while, even when everything in your head wants to scream at them for messing up so spectacularly, is a good instinct. But every now and then, mistakes shouldn't be so quickly forgiven. It depends on the severity. You'll know when it happens. Did they spill wine on your rug? Feel free to tell them, "Don't worry, it's okay." Did they crashed their car into your yard? You're under no obligation to shrug it off.

Ananias & Sapphira (Acts 5: 1-11)

Help the children act out the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Explain that although we won’t die when we tell a lie, this story shows how important being honest is to Heavenly Father.

Sing together a song about honesty, such as “I Believe in Being Honest” (Children’s Songbook, 149). Help the children understand that being honest means always telling the truth and not taking things that belong to someone else.

Paper Bag Puppet

Use paper-bag puppets to act out simple situations in which someone is being honest or dishonest. Ask the children to stand up if the person was being honest or sit on the floor if the person was being dishonest. Help the children understand why it is important to be honest.

Kids of Integrity 

has a lot of great fun and easy lessons on honesty for kids, from experiments, to treats, stories, crafts and more. Check out all of them HERE.

Read It. Write It. Pray It. Do It. Activity Pgs.

A great activity for kids who are old enough to write - elementary to teen! 

Read scriptures and write down what God says about honesty. 

Write how you might be tempted to be dishonest and things you have been dishonest about and how you can fix that. And say the prayer together about being honest. 

Get this printable in the printables library.