“Did you eat a Whopper?”
“No,” our five-year-old answered, “I did not eat a Whopper.”
Her brother had spotted her, and now she needed to admit it. Kath and I took turns interrogating her (and trying not to laugh).
“Are you sure you did not eat a Whopper?”
“No, I did not eat a Whopper,” she said adamantly.
“Let me smell your breath.”
“HHHHHHAAAAAA.”
Her breath smelled suspiciously like chocolate malted milk balls.
“It is important to tell the truth. I can tell you ate a Whopper because your breath smells like it.”
Her eyes roamed the room. “No I did not eat a Whopper today.”
“When did you eat a Whopper?”
“Daddy gave me some.”
“That was yesterday. Did you eat a Whopper today, because you have some chocolate on you face?”
“No,” she said as you could see the gears turning behind her eyes, “I did eat some other chocolate.” Her tongue reached out to the corner of her mouth to erase any evidence.
“Show us where you got it.”
She took us to the pantry and showed us a bag of piñata candy, which did not contain chocolate.
“Where did you put the wrapper?” Kathleen asked.
“In here,” she pointed to the pantry trash.
As Kathleen started digging through the trash our little girl started rethinking where the mystery chocolate wrapper had gone.
“Maybe I put it in the other trash,” she decided.
“Okay sweetie, that is enough. You are lying to us.” I very calmly explained, “I am going to spank you for lying and then I’m going to ask you to tell the truth. If you lie again I will spank you again until you tell the truth.”

We had actually had a similar round of discipline a few weeks ago, so I didn’t expect this one to go very long. Hopefully she learned that she would not win this battle.
I took her to the bathroom and gave her a good long controlled spank. Snatching a Whopper is not that big of a deal, but telling a whopper is. After I finished I stood her up and gave her a hug. “Okay honey, tell me the truth now.”
“I did not eat a Whopper.” (She’s got some spunk to her :-))
“I have to spank you again for lying.” Round 2 commenced. As soon as I finished and stood her up she broke.
“I DID eat a Whopper.” This time her cries were not from the pain, but from the relief of getting the lie off her chest. I hugged her again.
“Thank you for telling the truth. If you had told the truth in the first place you would have saved yourself a lot of trouble, and from telling more lies. That’s the way lies grow. When you tell one, you end up telling more. If you tell a lie, get it right at once so that it does not grow. I love you honey. Now go apologize to your mommy and your brother…”

Proverbs 12:22 The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful . NIV