Amarachi Okeh: Truth Lies in the Heart of a Child

I checked my time again it was ten minutes past four. The driver was supposed to have brought my cousin back at most 2 pm because his school closes at 1:30pm. Finally around 4:30pm I heard a knock on the gate. He dropped the 8 year old boy and zoomed off! Without explanation. I called my aunt and told her what time the driver dropped David. She didn’t believe but found excuses for him. She called back. He had told her that he was stuck in the line buying fuel; David was with him all this while in the fuel station but his story contradicted with what David told me.
David had told me he was in school and was among the last five persons left in the school compound with their math teacher. My aunt came back and I asked him to recount his story but he was inconsistent. Fortunately, my aunt believed him: ‘David won’t lie to me.’ After a few more incidents of such lateness and lying which David was always contradicting, the driver was changed.

Here then lies the problem most adults face when deliberating a case between an adult and a child. Who to believe.
This story is likely the story and confusion most parents, adults face. Who do you believe? The small child or the adult? Sometimes, you want to believe the adult so that you don’t insult him and not trust your child because it’s coming from a child’s mouth ’she’s just a child what does she know.’

Perhaps that’s the reason why a lot of children are being sexually and emotionally manipulated by adults and they keep quiet because their parents don’t believe them and only believe them when they see physical evidence. One of the most valuable things a parent can give her child is trust. Hey, don’t get it wrong, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t investigate because some children are given to lies and mischievousness just to have their way. Trusting your child is a way of boosting their confidence in you and themselves. Knowing your child and his disposition to telling the truth at all times helps inform you on how truthful she is when she tells you something about an adult.
I saw a meme which once had these words: three people that tell the truth are: a child, a drunk and a mad man.There is always a sort of truth in the word of a child (your child), and it is usually questioned when it involves an adult because one is torn between disrespecting the adult or insulting his credibility and the innocent story of a child who only has his words.

Never look down on a child. As an adult deserves respect so does a child too. Show her a little respect by putting in mind what she has to say to you, never brush off anything she says as the knowledge of a mere child. Consider what she says. Perhaps your inability to believe her is why she never can tell you what that teacher did, or that your cousin or brother or family friend. Because she knows that to you, her words amount to nothing. All her words are stuck with her in her mind until she finds a stranger who will let her know that whatever she says is just as important.

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