Old Wives Tales

The collection of old wives tales below are based on my personal experience that I have tested over the years. However, I do not guarantee that they will or will not work for everybody.

Old Wives Tales

Mirror Myth

Do not let a baby under 4 months look at the mirror.

Reason

The outcome is the child will be very good at telling lies later.

True or False?

Answer: True

I did not believe this and like all new parents who think that western practices are better at helping the child develop faster I let Marie look at the mirror every day before she was 4 months old.

Marie is a professional liar from 3 years old and even today (she is 10 now) I sometimes still cannot believe everything she tells me. This sometimes put a strain on our relationship and I honestly wished I had taken heed of this old wives tale.

Below is the original image and a couple of extras which are too cute to hide in my file.

Date added: 11 March 2007

↑ Back to top ↑

Next myth: Hammer myth
« Back to Old Wives Tales list


READER COMMENTS
Posted by Sandy Medine 26 February 2008, 07:18:06 AM not very interesting to me.
Posted by Nikki 4 February 2009, 07:22:46 AM This is absolutely ridiculous. You place one child in front of a mirror to get your answer? I have also heard this old wives tale, and the reason was "because it's bad luck". Let the truth be known, that placing a baby infront of the mirror is excellent for their development. Child do tell lies every now and then... that's just kids. But if you feel your daughter is out of control, don't go making up silly excuses for her. It wont help. The reason you may not give a baby a mirror to play with is that it may break and cut them. So supervise them at all times. It's the same as the myth that putting an umbrella up inside it bad luck - not it's not bad luck, but it might be dangerous. Let's be sensible about these things.
Posted by Cecilia 7 February 2009, 10:24:34 AM Hi Nikki I agree with you that allowing children to look at mirrors helps with their development which is why I have a huge mirror at my childcare centre whereby I use it to teach the children about their body, facial expressions, movements and what they look like when they are dirty or clean. The children love playing in front of the mirrors. In fact the image that you see in the myth is of an older child playing in front of the mirror at my centre. To go back to the myth, it says “do not use mirrors before the children are 4 months old”. I did not try it on my daughter only but have asked many friends and relatives and they have confirmed it for me. Please understand that I am not making silly excuses that my daughter is out of control because she is not. I know very well that children do tell lies but what harm is there to avoid doing something that may increase their chances of telling lies. I hope that you are not too upset to come back and visit.
ANONYMOUS COMMENTING DISABLED Our website has been subject to hacking and robot spamming recently, and therefore we have to restrict commenting only to members. To leave a comment, please login. Thank you for your kind understanding!