[scoutt]

I have 1 one year old boy and I often think about how should I behave. While the Santa issue is trivial to me, I decided I will lie, or hide the truth for that matter, about some topics to protect his innocence until he's mature enough to understand.

> your kids will know that there are things you will lie to them about

And that's part of growing up. I now know that the dog I barely remember (when I was almost 3 years old) didn't "went with his mom that came to pick him up one day", and understanding why they lied is part of growing up. Instead of triggering a loss of trust now I can say "I see what you did there, now I understand".

[verisimi]

Yes - but I agree with your dog story - kids can't really understand about a death. Its not a lie - its an attempt to explain at the level you were at when you were 3.

Its a different thing to go along with the social convention of tricking the younger generation, and allowing these external conventions to cleave the trust between a parent and child.

[TeMPOraL]

FWIW, we tried to explain my grandfather's passing to our then 3.5 year old without lying, and she herself crafted a story that "he's with the ants", and now, after listening to a truckload of astronomy songs, she says he's "in space" and "fell into black hole". We can see she pattern-matches the event to any other concept of "lost and not coming back" she comes across.