Watch yourself for a week before telling your children
Teaching our children to tell the truth is tricky because they observe us before they even hear us preach, and rarely do they just listen and obey. Children learn to tell the truth only if they see you do so. If you engage in lies, small and big, your children know that better than you do. Without your own strict adherence to it, your preaching to them about truth-telling will teach them to preach about it, not to tell the truth. It may additionally teach them hypocrisy, but not telling the truth.
Four steps to becoming truthful and stop lying
Getting used to telling the truth and to stop telling lies, especially the seemingly small and harmless lies, is not easy. It requires restructuring your most ordinary habits. Lying is often learned as a way to facilitate ordinary life, to oil the rough interactions, and hence becomes a survival mechanism. To break such habits will require thorough self-examination and discipline.
1) First evaluation (Muhaasabah)
Take a few peaceful hours, like after Fajr or Maghrib prayer, preferably before the beginning of Ramadan, to engage in a thorough self-evaluation, muhaasabah. After performing a few extra Rak`ahs, ask Allah to show you your errors, which if you do not cure, will cause your ruin and will render all your worship and fasting futile. Call on Allah by His name Al-Haqq, the Truth.
Examine your speech and interactions with others, and think about when you lied and when you tend to lie. Think about what you gained as a result, and what you lost. According to a Hadeeth, "Repentance is regret.
Think about what it means to lie. To gain some short advantage, to please someone momentarily, to get out of a little trouble, at the expense of what? Flauting the very essence of your relationship with Allah, the Truth?
Lying and misrepresenting is to declare lack of confidence in Allah Almighty. A heart that can lie to others in order to deceive cannot be the receptacle of the Light of Allah Almighty, the Absolute Truth. Are the advantages you obtain from lying, even if you lie once, worth unsettling the very foundations of your faith?
Catch yourself lying to Allah Almighty, which is to do Prayer or fasting or any act of worship for any but Allah Almighty, and to prefer anything over Allah Almighty after saying with your tongue that Allah is your ilaah and rabb. This type of lying is the most dangerous, but easiest to cure, because you are dealing with the Most Merciful Lord who is eager to turn to you.
Catch yourself telling lies to yourself, such as making excuses about your bad choices. Allah Says (what means): {But man sees himself, even if he were to make excuses.} [Quran 75:14-5]
Catch yourself telling lies to others, big and small. When you do, examine your motivations for lying. Think about how little human worth it actually has, yet how great is its price in the Hereafter.
2) Daily Muhaasabah during Ramadan
Examine your speech and interactions at the end of every day. The Prayers of Maghrib and `Ishaa' tend to be the best time for Muhaasabah in ordinary days, but during Ramadan, fasting is the best reminder to engage in constant Muhaasabah. Sit before Allah Almighty half an hour before the breaking of the fast, and examine all your actions and thought for their truth-content. Have you been truthful to Allah Almighty, to yourself, and to others?
3) Seeking the company of the truthful
Allah Almighty commands the believers to be in the company of the truthful, for that will protect and perfect their faith. He Almighty Says (what means): {O you who have faith, fear Allah, and be with the truthful ones.} [Quran 9:119]
4) Worship Allah by His Name Al-Haqq, The Truth
By being truthful in every aspect of our lives, we will taste the bliss of worshipping Allah by His name, Al-Haqq. The Lord of Truth Says (what means):
{On that Day, Allah will pay them back (all) their just dues, and they will know that Allah is the Manifest Truth.} [Quran 24:25]
If we are able to achieve this one change within ourselves this Ramadan, we will have savored the taste of the company of the Truth, which may last us a lifetime, and change our eternity. Let us end with the prayer the Lord of Truth taught His Messenger of Truth :
{Wa qul rabbi adkhilnee mudkhala sidqin wa akhrijnee mukhraja sidqin wa ij'al lee min ladunka sultaanan naseera.}
{Say: "O my Lord! Let my entry be by the Gate of Truth, and like-wise my exit by the Gate of Truth; and grant me from Your Presence a triumphant authority."} [Quran 17:801]
Ameen.