If there's one thing I remember from my own childhood, and know from my various nieces and nephews - children can't be expected to tell the whole truth, or sometimes even remember the whole truth.

One bad test, one missed homework, turns into a spiral of shame that makes children hide the truth out of a fear for their parent's and other trusted adults' disappointment (real or imagined). If my parents knew the truth - when I know the truth - we can fix it before it spirals into an unfixable situation, and not after.

Not all children are perfect, nor perfectly able to remember every event and assignment they have.