My Child Will Never Lie To Me

A tall story, white lie, fib, fable, half-truth, humbug or a whopper. Whatever you want to call it, you feel physical gut-wrenching pain when your child drops one of these into a conversation for the first time. The betrayal you feel is devastating! Especially seeing as you told yourself that your child will never lie to you. Same thing your mom told herself when she had you. Quite sure your gran said the same.  It hurts, I know, but let’s see if I can help put this dilemma into perspective for you.

Let’s start off with an interesting fact: the people who have made a living from studying children and their lying patterns (yip, people actually get paid to do that), all agree that preschoolers with higher intellectual quota scores are more likely to tell tall stories. Children who fib from an early age may also be good with social skills. Crazy hey?! They all agree that there is nothing wrong with a youngster telling a fib every now and then because they actually don’t know the difference between fiction and truth yet.  So there you have it – lying is actually considered to be an important stage of development.

Here are some statistics for you:

• 30% of 2-year-olds, who are slightly more advanced in their verbal development, will give lying a try at some point.
• 50% of the 3-year-olds are trying it regularly
• By the age of 4, 80% of them are fibbing.
• And last but not least, children between the ages of 5 and 7 have all lied at one time or another and I suspect some a bit more often than they will answer honestly too if questioned.

Now before you really start to freak out, let’s discuss why children lie. It is often for the same reasons that we, as adults do. But when we lie, depending on how skilled we are at it, we involve a complexity to the tale that we hope ensures the tales ‘believability’. We are also aware of the consequences, and even then we still risk it! Children don’t fully understand the consequences of their lie like you do when you drop a whopper. When a four-year-old tells you they have absolutely no idea where your car keys are, when they actually flushed them, they don’t realise that if they told you the truth, it would save you time looking and enable you to move on to a very expensive plan B. The reason why they continue to hold on to that lie is because they are focusing on the consequence of getting into trouble for the action, not what consequences the lie may hold for you.

Another big difference that you need to take into consideration is that a lot of the time your little one genuinely believes that what they are saying is the truth! Their imagination is so vivid that they truly do believe that they have an imaginary friend, or that the blue headed, pink-eared, furry creature that they saw living in the cupboard will eat all the curtains if you leave the door open.

Self-serving lies are usually the beginning of your little one’s fable fabricating journey. These are either in denial of an action to avoid the consequence or to gain something for themselves. There are also times when your little one will lie to you just to see what happens. This will be one of the very many times and ways in which they will test your reaction. Prepare yourself. It gets rough.

They will also tell little white lies in the form of exaggeration. Have you ever thought of that? Exaggerating is a lie. How many times a day do you exaggerate? Even just a little? This little-exaggerated tale is often to promote their own self-esteem and gain approval from the receiver of the lie by making their tall story ever so much more interesting! On the other end of the spectrum, you get the little individuals who lie to get the attention focused elsewhere and off themselves. These little ones don’t like the spotlight so they will deny doing anything that merits reward or attention.

As a child ages, self-protection becomes the main reason why they will tell a fib. They will do anything to avoid having to face the consequences so they will deny the action as much as possible. Here’s an interesting fact – Did you know that your child might tell a lie to protect you? They might bend the story a bit because the truth will hurt your feelings and believe it or not, as crazy as they may drive you, they do love you. It’s just buried deep beneath all the mischief and defiance.

Now that you, hopefully, have some clarity on why your darling feels the need to lie, let’s focus on the best ways to respond and encourage honesty. If a young child does something that is surely going to get them into trouble, and their deed is met with an angry accusation by an adult, the default response will be to lie.  So avoid the whole – “You did it!”-“No, I didn’t!”-“Yes, you did!”-“It wasn’t me!” – scenario, by calmly commenting on the vase being broken and ask if the child (who is obviously looking very guilty) had any idea who did it. Continue to say that you would just like to make sure that whoever did it is okay and that the culprit didn’t cut their hand in the process… This should hopefully let the guilty party know that the adult isn’t about to turn into the ‘scary, shouting giant’ and they will be more likely to confess.

Once you have the confession, you can tell your child that it’s okay to make mistakes and they must not be afraid to tell you the truth in the future. That last bit is very important. You don’t want your child to get to a place where they are too scared to tell you the truth because of your past reactions to it. They do need to understand that there are consequences, but that the consequences are fair ones and not given in the heat of anger.

• If you know with 100% certainty that your child is guilty, don’t press them for a confession. This is just creating an opportunity for them to feel the need to fib. Confront them with the truth head-on. Don’t make them squirm under interrogation. (You can pack away the metal chair and polygraph machine. Save that for when they are teenagers!)

Even though it is normal for a child to fib, it should not be a reaction that you would want to encourage.  Use opportunities of honesty and dishonesty, whether it be displayed in public by strangers or at home by family, to show your child the different choices the liar or confessor had and discuss the consequences of these. Whether you are teaching against lying for moral or religious reasons, begin from an early age. Show your little ones that there is value in telling the truth. Lessons in moral values are a huge part of parenting. If you don’t pass these values on, others will — friends, social media, media and the rest of the big bad world out there. You, yourself, need to be a role model. Those are big shoes to fill. This means following through on promises or not making them at all. It also means that you will need to avoid the temptation of encouraging your child to tell a white lie when the situation suits you. e.g. “If the man at the ticket counter asks how old you are; mommy wants you to tell him you are 5.” Is saving a certain percentage in costs worth getting your child to lie?

The biggest nugget of advice that I can leave you with is to listen to the reason behind the lie, not so much the lie itself. When you figure out what the hidden message is entwined in the lie, be it one or all the reasons listed above, you are better equipped to handle the situation and hand out consequences. So put on your detective hat, tip it stylishly to one side and good luck with deciphering fact from fiction. Very soon you will become a pro at detective hat-tipping and sniffing out far-fetched fables!