By By Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D.

"Shh! Don't tell! It's a secret!"

     This sounds so innocent. Picture girls giggling over shared knowledge of the Gameboy® making it into Emma's backpack behind mom's back. Imagine the subtle sibling bonding implicit in knowing a computer password to one of their favorite websites normally reserved for weekend use, or the self-conscious whispers among kids admitting first crushes.

     Switch scenes. Lose the innocence, add a threat. Picture the divorced father who allows his son a freedom prohibited in the mother's home and in so doing undermines her authority. "Shhh, don't tell!" Picture a school yard bully, a street corner drug dealer, an abusive caregiver or a neglectful babysitter--any of whom might use the same words.

     "Shh! Don't tell. It's a secret."

     The concern? It can be as simple as the fear that revealing the secret will anger or alienate a loved one. Telling mom will get you in trouble with dad or worse, set the two of them back to bickering. Or it can be as explicit and terrifying as a promise of painful revenge. You know about those stories. They're all around you.

     All too often, secrets are destructive. Even the best intended, most innocent confidence can generate mistrust, worry, fear and can even interfere with the course of healthy development.

Kids are Impulsive.

     If maturation is the process of developing control over impulses, then children are impulsive by definition. Younger, less mature or developmentally delayed kids have to fight against the urges that often overwhelm them. Many want immediate gratification. They want the pleasure of telling your secrets.

     It makes them feel special, that feeling of "I know something that you don't." The secret itself is a commodity of value. By spilling the beans, the child feels himself momentarily valued.

     Asking such a child to keep a secret is often an exercise in frustration. It can be like leaving the same child, hungry, alone in a room with a chocolate bar and asking him not to eat it. The damage may not be done in the telling of the secret, so much as in the child's perception of your reaction to the telling. Your anger and disappointment and punishments are unwarranted. It wasn't fair to enlist the child in the first place.

Secrets Make and Break Bonds

     A shared secret can cement a special bond between peers. For every pair of new best friends, there is inevitably someone who feels left out, rejected and alone. This may be the natural course of identity formation through social bonding in childhood, but it still hurts.

     It can be far more destructive when an adult asks a child to keep a secret. Knowledge of an adult's secret is power that pulls the child away from her otherwise normal bonds. It weakens ties to other elders and seems to lift the child above her peer group and her siblings. "I know a secret" becomes a magical chant that eventually hurts the child in the course of serving the adult's selfish needs, needs that ought to be fulfilled among other adults.

     Consider what happens all too often between immature, angry or uneducated divorcing parents. Insecure and alone, the divorcing father (for example) wants validation that his pain is real. Who could understand this better, he reasons, than his kids? So he shares a confidence, confesses a secret, all with the selfish (although often unrecognized) goal of proving to himself that he's right, that the estranged wife -still and always the children's mother- is wrong.

      The child taken into a parent's confidence feels special. "Daddy trusts me," she thinks. But being parentified in this way is psychologically destructive. It causes real anxiety when the secret must be kept, often at the cost of the bond with the other parent. It cheats the child, in effect, of her childhood. Too often, "Don't tell your mom …." becomes a form of abuse known as parental alienation. This kind of secret can tear a vulnerable and confused child apart.

Secrets Can be Traps

     Then there's the child who comes to you in distress, but will only talk if you promise to keep his secrets.

     Been there? Done that? Was it a major catastrophe?

     The trust between a parent and a child certainly depends on privacy and discretion. You must have some understanding that there are some matters that can be discussed in public, while others are kept at home. But safety must always be even more important than privacy. To keep a secret about something that is potentially dangerous is to undermine a child's basic security.

     A good policy might go something like this: "We can talk about anything. I'll always respect your privacy, but we can not keep secrets about safety. Because I love you, I will always do everything I can to keep you and the world around you safe even if that means that you get mad at me for telling a secret."

     What secrets aren't safe? Where your kids are surfing on the web and who they are talking to online. Anything about drugs and alcohol, about run-aways, skipping school and sneaking out of the house is potentially unsafe. Anything about firearms and explosives and weapons in general in unsafe. Anything about inappropriate touching, abuse (physical, sexual, verbal), stalking and neglect is unsafe. Many concerns about cars and driving are safety concerns. The list is long. When in doubt, err on the side of safety.

     Are you already trapped? Did you already promise unconditional secrecy only to learn that there may be a real danger looming? Safety first. If time allows, sit down and redefine the rules. "I've been thinking about what you told me. Your safety is the most important thing. I'd like to help you tell [the secret] yourself, but if you can't do that by noon Wednesday, then I'll have to tell." And if time or circumstance doesn't allow? Tell any way. Better to lose trust than to lose life.

Surprises, Not Secrets

     Surprises are different. A surprise is an upcoming unknown of little consequence. Consider birthday gifts, outdoor adventures or a special meal or unexpected treat. Like tickling, some people enjoy the tingle of excitement that accompanies a surprise while others don't. As the surprisor, you can ask the intended surprisee whether a surprise is welcome. This kind of permission can defuse the anxiety and make whatever is ahead something that genuinely tingles with pleasure.