The young child is really incapable of distinguishing between his dreams and reality on the one hand, and between reality and his day-dreams or imaginings on the other. A little boy came home from kindergarten a few days after he had entered, and, when the experience was still full of novelties to him, he described the workshop: each little boy had a pair of overalls with the name across the bib in black letters; there was a little locker for each child, with the name on the outside; each had his set of tools and his place at the bench. Day by day he narrated his doings in "school" and reported the progress he was making with a little "hair-pin box" that he intended for his aunt's birthday. On the birthday the mother came to the school to see how the boy was getting on; and she asked about the hair-pin box which he was now to bring home. It then appeared that there was no shop, no overalls, no lockers, no tools. The whole story was a creation of the child's imagination, and all the details he had invented were real enough to him to be described repeatedly with such vividness that no one suspected for a moment that it was all a fabrication. To call such stories "lies" would be worse than useless. If scolding or preaching could make a child merely stop _telling_ such stories, there would be no gain; if they stopped a child _thinking_ such stories, there would be a decided loss. Gradually the child may come to recognize the difference between the make-believe and the reality, and he may be helped. When at a certain age you think your child ought to distinguish more clearly between his imagination and cold facts, it would be all right to explain to him that, although there is no harm in his enjoying his make-believe, still he must not tell his fancies as if they were real, but must tell them as "make-believe stories." That will achieve the desired result without making him feel hurt at your lack of understanding in treating him like an ordinary liar whose prime intention is to deceive. But it is not wise to force this development, even at the risk of prolonging the age of dreams.