Please instill in your child/children, that safe adults and other safe children, DO NOT ask kids to KEEP ANY SECRETS. Please note that surprises are things that will be revealed in the open. Secrets are those things that will not be made known. Teach your child that withholding information is a secret. Secrets will eventually confuse a child's loyalty. When children learn that secrets are a normal part of a parent-child relationship, these little white lies can build up and turn into something extremely serious and dangerous. In hindsight, this can be a key ingredient to abuse or extreme cases of manipulation. The pressure of "keeping a secret" can prevent a child from telling someone something very important or it can directly get in the way, of keeping them safe or cause immediate hesitation, when asking for help in dire situations situations.Secrets can pit one parent over another, especially when it comes to parents who are split or divorced. We don't want to give our children the responsibility of carrying a bag of our secrets and we don't want to force them into a corner where they feel they must choose one parent over another.