Maybe he could tell a lie and make it sound as though it really hadn’t been his fault. After all, he
had told some little lies in the past and gotten away with it—but this time it felt like something big.
He had heard other kids lie with excuses about their homework. He knew that some did, but then
others said that you should never lie.
Previously, his parents had given him talks about lying. “You should always tell the truth,” they’d
said, but he found there were times when he told the truth and ended up getting into more trouble.
Then there were other times when he’d told some lies and managed to escape without punishment.
Brad wrote out the lines secretly and hid them in his room. Come Sunday night, he was about
to burst with the worry of it all. He hadn’t been able to find a way out and knew he had to tell his
parents. Over dinner he said, “I got into a bit of trouble at school on Friday and the principal gave
me a letter to give to you.”
“I wondered what was going on,” his mother replied. “You’ve been pretty quiet all weekend.
What happened?”
Brad said, “Jess and her friends were teasing me and started to push me around. Then one of her
friends got down behind me and Jess gave me a push so that I fell over. When I got up I pushed her
back and she hit her head against the wall. Ms. Brown only saw the last bit, blamed me for it, and
took me to the principal’s office.” With that he handed over the letter and the fifty lines that he’d
written.
“You shouldn’t push girls around,” his father said at first, but as his parents discussed it, they
agreed the girls had been responsible, in part, so Brad’s mom said that she would go to school in the
morning and talk to Ms. Brown.
Oh, no! Brad was really in trouble now. Ms. Brown was the teacher who’d seen what happened
and his mom was going to support his lie about the girls pushing him over first! How bad could it
get?
I bet you would like to know how the story ended. But, to be honest, I don’t know, so I can’t
tell you. However, if you were in Brad’s shoes, what would you have done? Would you have con-
fessed to Mom and Dad? Would you let Mom visit Ms. Brown in the morning and wait to see what
happened? How would you have faced up to the consequences of what you had done? Or taken re-
sponsibility for what you had done? How would you make your own judgment about what was best
to do?
STORY 62
FACING A MORAL DILEMMA: A TEEN STORYTherapeutic Characteristics
Problems Addressed
■ A moral dilemma
■ Conflicting standards
■ Choices between desire and responsibility
■ Lack of responsibilityDEVELOPING SKILLSDeveloping Life Skills 157