Daf Yomi - Sukkah 46 - Teaching Children not to Lie by Reb Dave

The Gemara states that one should not promise something to a child and then not give it to him, because it will teach the child to lie. The obvious question here is, why are we concerned about teaching a child to lie in the future, yet we are not concerned that the person himself is guilty of lying. Perhaps we can suggest that the Gemara is aware of this issue and the Gemara is revealing to us that besides the lie being told by the individual himself, there are further repercussions as the child will learn how to lie. In one of the Hagados Shel Pesach it is recorded that when his children grew older, Reb Yaakov Kaminetsky zt”l ceased performing the ceremony of having a child return the afikomen in exchange for a gift, because Reb Yaakov realized that as the children grew in age, their requests also became more extravagant. Reb Yaakov saw that it would not always be possible to fulfill their requests, so he chose to stop the ceremony outright, rather than issue promises that he could not adhere to.