My daughter broke her precept of not lying

My wife, Wendy, was upset with our daughter this morning for not doing her abacus class homework. So upset that she threw the homework into the rubbish bin and told me that our six year old daughter had lied to her that she had finished her homework when she did not.

Two things came to my thoughts when Wendy told me that- compassion and wisdom, in order to act in this matter.

Compassion
I began thinking back when I was younger at my daughter's age and recalled my wife telling me how she detest going to school and homework. Both us, as parents, were once like that and realised how I had made my parents concerned about me to grow up without the academic skills. This must be our karma due to the causes we sowed (letting our parents concerned) which resulted in such consequences (having to be concern about the well-being of our child).

There must be a reason for our child for not doing her homework and having to break the precept of not lying (one of the Five Precepts).

Wisdom
With compassion in mind for both my wife and daughter, I decided it would be wiser not to tell my wife that we were once like that when we were a child for now. I then woke my daughter up and told her to pick up her homework from the trash and go to mummy to apologize, promise not to do that again and quickly finish up her homework. I offered to be there while she does her work and she could ask me if there is anything she needs me.

My daughter did as she was told and her homework was done before the afternoon class.

At home, we are often faced with issues like this and I can usually apply what I had learn from Buddhism. Things could have been different without the compassion and wisdom to think calmly and deeply, even little things like this. For now, I would work on letting my daughter know how to keep her three precepts (I did not tell her about sexual misconduct and ingesting intoxicants yet) and their importance.