Exploring Reasons Why Parents Use White Lies to Golden Age Children in Al Ghazaly Kindergarten

Abstract

White lies are lying with good intentions without hurting others. Parents sometimes use white lies in communicating with their children. This often happens in golden age child who are active and always want to learn many things. The theory used in this research is cognitive dissonance theory with qualitative method. Data is collected by interview. The subjects in this study were parents of students at Al Ghazaly Kindergarten, Bogor. The results showed that parents use white lies when children ask lots of questions and explore new things. Children curiosity process sometimes makes parents uncomfortable so the way parents reduce their discomfort by using white lies. There are many reasons why parents use white lies, because they want to be quick in answering children's questions, because they were anxiety, and because they think it is not the right time for children to know the real answers. Parents claim they know white lies because it was applied by their parents when they were young.