I overshared with my young child. Now what?
October 22, 2020 6:41 AM   Subscribe

I mistakenly told my 5-year old information he wasn't supposed to know and definitely cannot share. What do I do now?

I told my 5-year-old son the truth when he asked why I was sad. The truth being a piece of information I didn't realise was being kept from my child's friend by his parents. It's nothing sinister but it wasn't my place to share. (Think along the lines of 'Your friend's grandfather is very ill'.) This information cannot under any circumstances get back to his friend. So now that the cat's out of the bag...what do I do?

It was a stupid thing for me to say, but...what now? I have made it a rule not to lie to him and I am never going to ask him to keep a secret from someone (nor do I know that he could), but aside from never letting him see his friend again, what else can I do? Might he just forget if I don't mention it again? Should I plant an alternate story (an idea I also loathe)? Assume the deception is going to be permanent on the part of the family for reasons that are not my business.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (16 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Get in touch with the parents and tell them what happened. This is their secret to keep, they need to be the ones to manage it.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:49 AM on October 22, 2020 [52 favorites]


I'd ignore it and hope he doesn't mention it. It might work, it might not seem like a big deal or worth mentioning, and maybe you won't see the friend for a while anyway.

But you should also talk to the other parent and let them know you spilled it. They may choose not to let their kid around yours, or they may choose to get in front of it and tell their kid, or they may choose to not tell you things in the future. All of which you should accept graciously.

Honestly, for me this is related to that bit about don't tell one person of a couple something and ask them not to tell their partner: I don't tell people things I don't want their kids to know.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:49 AM on October 22, 2020 [10 favorites]


I would intervene at the adult level—let the parents know that, to your regret, you gave an honest answer to the question, "why are you sad?" Apologize, but give them a head's up that the news might get to their son through yours. You say the news can't get back to the friend, but now it might, and they need to know that so they're prepared for the possibility.

For your son, if he's able to understand it, tell him the truth, too: his friend's parents have not yet told his friend, so he should not mention it to his friend yet, if possible. Maybe the two of you could talk about the sadness his friend will experience, and how to be prepared to be a good friend when that happens, and maybe, in the meantime, bring your kid in on sharing the sadness he might feel for his friend, knowing this. "For now, we're going to [pray for your friend and his family, or whatever works for you]."

You're working with the difference here between "private" and "a secret." You accidentally shared private information; you can tell you son that.
posted by Orlop at 6:50 AM on October 22, 2020 [38 favorites]


theres a chance he will forget. how interested in the information was he when you told him?
posted by domino at 6:50 AM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Aye-ing the motion to tell the other parents. That's good general advice for any interaction with younger kids especially, that go a little strange. Kids' own reporting of what Aunt or Uncle Anonymous said or did yesterday or last week or whatever can get a little garbled at the best of times!

Also seconding it being a good teaching opportunity about the difference between secret and private. That also reinforces letting the parents know, because they can reinforce as appropriate.

Also in general: try not to stress about any kid-interaction going weird. Their own calibration of what's weird and memorable and what's not is necessarily different (they're much closer to brand new!), and hinges a lot more on how worked up the adults around them are about whatever. But that certainly doesn't mean just hope they forget stuff, thus the Ayes.
posted by Drastic at 7:03 AM on October 22, 2020


I would definitely tell the other parents as well.

I do want to correct something though. Asking your child to keep something confidential is not the same as lying. Of course at 5, you can’t depend on that. And it is a fine line - those of us who kept abusive secrets as children know how bad that can be. But confidentiality is a life skill. In our home we’ve distinguished between taking about things at home and talking about them with others, when to tell, etc. So you may have an opportunity here depending on your thoughts.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:09 AM on October 22, 2020 [25 favorites]


Explain that since it’s sad news, childfriend might want to hear the information from childfriendsparents.
posted by raccoon409 at 7:35 AM on October 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


Don't frame it as keeping a secret. It's not a secret, it's information that's none of his business. Teach him a lesson about privacy. Tell him that what you said was private, and it's mean/wrong/irresponsible for him to share it with his friend, because it's friend's parent's job to let the kid know. Talk to him about emotional intimacy. Ask him how he would feel if the mailman told him that his grandmother couldn't come to his birthday, how it would feel to have someone else tell him something sad. Teach him to respect people's feelings, and take responsibility for how his actions effect people's feelings.

Also, yeah, tell the parents so they can make an informed decision.
posted by FirstMateKate at 7:47 AM on October 22, 2020 [12 favorites]


> This information cannot under any circumstances get back to his friend.

This is the source of the problem, not anything that you did or that your kid might do. All of those "cannot in any circumstances" type of arrangements are inherently brittle, and typically don't survive for very long. You seem to know the Truth, and from what I can tell you're an uninvolved bystander, at best - so whoever originally tried to keep the secret has screwed up pretty badly by telling some people, but not the people who would actually care enough not to blab.

So - yes, tell the other kid's parents - with whatever sympathy you can muster / you feel is appropriate in the circumstances. Let them resolve their own problem as they see fit - and then go on with your life. Don't burden your own kid with any of the fallout or other emotional labour. You might ask them kindly not to tell anyone _else_, but I probably wouldn't go much further than that.
posted by rd45 at 7:58 AM on October 22, 2020 [15 favorites]


"I have made it a rule not to lie to him and I am never going to ask him to keep a secret from someone..."

The first part of this sounds very admirable but I can't quite get my head around the second part. As warriorqueen said, keeping information private isn't the same as lying, although I understand you feel you are putting him in a position where he must lie to keep the peace.

Discretion and tact are important life skills, even if your son might be too young to learn them right now. I remember my parents telling me that the children of another family were adopted, but that my parents weren't sure if the children had yet been told. I think I was around 10 and I had no problem understanding "why" it was not my place to pass that information along.
posted by cranberrymonger at 10:23 AM on October 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


You seem to know the Truth, and from what I can tell you're an uninvolved bystander, at best - so whoever originally tried to keep the secret has screwed up pretty badly by telling some people, but not the people who would actually care enough not to blab.

Just on the social end of this - this might be true in an adult peer group.

But in the parenting circles I'm a part of, lots of "adult only" information gets passed around the group. Examples are a dad struggling with suicidal impulses, a cancer diagnosis for a relative, financial struggles, etc.

I think it's pretty common for parents to share information with other parents without the expectation that a parent will share it with the child.

I'm not saying that's wrong or right, I'm just saying that if the OP is in a parenting group like mine, a totally hands off "well you shouldn't have told me if you didn't want me to tell my 5 year old" approach would definitely put them outside of the social norm, and probably result in a lot less information being shared...which can be good or bad, parent networks are pretty powerful when it comes to say, unwritten school information, but can also be gossipy, etc.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:32 AM on October 22, 2020 [10 favorites]


I think it's hard to answer this without knowing what was shared. I can tell you, if it's like your example of the child's grandparent being near death, your child WILL tell their friend. Probably as soon as they see them. I know from my experience of having my child (about 7 at the time) having her good friend dramatically tell her, "your grandpa is dying!" after overhearing a conversation her parents had about my FIL, who had just had what later turned out to be a fatal heart attack.
I was a little annoyed with my neighbors, the girl's parents, about that because it felt like they were gossiping about my family's catastrophe. But the annoyance I felt was really overshadowed by my own stress in the situation and my concern for my kids feelings. It helped when my friend (the neighbor girl's mom) apologized and also told me she'd have a talk with her kid about being more sensitive, which did seem like a good idea after that situation and knowing the child's personality in general. So I forgave her, of course, and moved on. My big concern was helping my child deal with the news, which I suspect will be your child's friend's parents concern too.
And I'm having a strange suspicion - probably also based on my own projections of friends I have - that what you told your kid might be about a divorce. That's a big leap, I know. But if I'm right, you absolutely need to tell your kid that news is private and while they can someday talk about it with their friend, that conversation will need to be very careful and only after the kid has been told by their parents. I realize that seems difficult! That's a lot for a five-year-old to understand, so I think you'll have to not let them see each other until the other child knows. Because a 5-year-old telling their 5-year-old BF about how their own parents are divorcing is .... not something that friend's family is likely to forgive.
There's something in the phrasing of this question that makes me wonder if you could invest in reflecting over what's appropriate to talk about with kids. 5 year old is really young to handle grown-up emotions. It's not secret keeping to not share everything with our kids. Sometimes it's necessary to be reserved about situations or feelings in respect of a 5-year-old's own maturity and emotional limits. I get how this situation is sad for you and don't mean to pile on, so sorry if it comes off that way.
posted by areaperson at 11:09 AM on October 22, 2020 [6 favorites]


OMG my mother did this with me, like, at least every other month. She would follow it up with something like, “X would feel really bad if they knew this, so make sure to keep it just between you and me.” Maybe that wasn’t the healthiest way to handle it? But it worked.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:05 PM on October 22, 2020 [1 favorite]


Is your child is regular touch or contact with this child, perhaps through school? Or are you neighbors and your kids are seeing each other regularly, and you might not know when that would happen? If you don't expect your kid to see this kid for a long time, this might not be an urgent issue.

If they talk or play regularly, I do think you should tell the parents (or maybe you already have?). If it is imperative that the child not learn this information, then it's best if they know that might happen. Let's imagine your child told the friend, and then the friend told the parents--you really don't want them to be surprised by this.

I imagine some of your stress is related to the possibility of telling the parents you told your kid, right? So maybe think about how your boundaries with your kid are making it difficult to manage your other relationship.

I have made it a rule not to lie to him and I am never going to ask him to keep a secret from someone (nor do I know that he could), but aside from never letting him see his friend again, what else can I do?
In the big picture, I would encourage you to re-think boundaries around lying. I don't know if you are suggesting that anything short of radical honesty is lying. There's age-appropriate information, and there's also deflection. What do you do when your child asks what you've gotten them for their birthday next week? You might say, "It's a surprise!" So if your child asks, "Parent, why are you sad?" -- you can answer honestly but without detail: "I just learned some sad news. How are you feeling today? I want a distraction, so can we draw a picture or do a puzzle?" or even "I am sad because I'm thinking about something that's making a friend sad, and I'm wondering how to help my friend feel better."

In these answers, you can be quite honest without sharing private or personal details. You can also be more directly honest: "I'm feeling sad because a friend told me something sad" and if your child asks what your friend said, you can say, "Well, my friend asked me to keep that private, so I'm going to respect that and keep this information to myself."
posted by bluedaisy at 1:30 PM on October 22, 2020 [9 favorites]


There seems to be a lot of confusion about the idea of secrets in the response. The idea of not keeping secrets largely comes as an abuse prevention effort. A common tactic is for abusers to tell children that it’s their secret and bad things would happen if they told anyone.

A response is instilling for kids early on that it’s the not the job of a child to keep a secret. . Obviously you don’t always want kids saying every dang thing they’ve heard and some responses to this issues is that we have surprises (which are revealed eventually) not secrets (which are never told). The bad part in this scenario isn’t necessarily that the kid EVER finds out, but when and from who.
posted by raccoon409 at 3:27 PM on October 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


I agree that you should tell the parents as soon as possible. Other posters here are surmising that they’ll be eventually telling their child in their own time but you’ve already said that they don’t EVER want them to find out. Which makes it much harder to hide long term than just waiting out a week or two.

And on another note, if you are committed to what sounds like radical honesty with your five year old in that you’ll tell them the truth regardless, (which is your right) you will be doing the people around you a favour by telling them this. They need to know that whatever they discuss with you won’t be kept confidential if your kid happens to ask and decide what they’re then comfortable sharing with you.
posted by Jubey at 10:56 PM on October 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


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