Humming Your Words

You'd be surprised how many people will answer questions with a slight hum. Unless you are from the northern region of Brazil, it is not normal to sing/hum your words.

This actually happened in my own home last week. A skateboard was left behind my wife's car and she backed over it. Evidence showed my high school son had moved his bike to go to his girlfriends house. My wife asked everybody in the house who moved the skateboard. Denials. She had to ask them all several times, and was on the war path- wanting someone else to replace our elementary girl's expensive toy.

Then I heard my son's "I didn't do it" and I knew he had- and I knew what had happened.

So I told him, "You don't remember specifically moving the skateboard, and certainly do not have recollection of leaving it behind your mom's car, but your voice gave you away- you hummed your words. You're not sure, but you think you probably did move it when you got your bike, but because you do not remember the specifics you have been denying it."

Both my son and wife smiled and he admitted that was probably what happened. Case closed. Aftermath, my wife promised to buy my daughter a new skateboard.

This happens all the time, and is unmistakable when you actually hear it in person. It is residue from our childhoods where we would whine to our parents for things and in denials. In childhood, somewhere along the way, we learn it is not good to lie. We also learn if we do not outright lie, show some remorse, and if caught in a lie it is better not to be caught in a lie where we deliver it stone cold without emotion.

Post script, it comes in really handy to have the ability to tell what is going around the home, but I will let things play out as if I couldn't see a half shoulder shrug, or the lies by omissions when they are not really asking to ride their bike and instead they are really asking to go to a friends house- for that I simply say ask what you really mean. For every PRO there is an equal CON- trust me.◦

Humming Your Words