A personal matter

N was late to school yesterday and was embarrassed to tell his classmates the reason. So, he made up an "acceptable excuse" that he felt was a "Green Lie". I argued most such excuses are unnecessary, risky and plain wrong. Unnecessary because it is usually possible to provide a generic explanation such as "I was late for personal reasons". And leave it at that. "What personal reasons?". "I would rather not discuss". End of the story. No lie. No embarrassment. No risk of being caught lying. While yesterday's example was trivial, it is easy to get into the habit of making up excuses to justify our behavior. I see people who do this all the time. Instead, I encouraged the kids to get into the habit of always providing truthful explanations that contain just enough information, but not more than they want to share.