When Your Child Lies

No one likes it when their children lie. However, like most everything else, children learn to lie from the people around them. Adults show children in subtle and not so subtle ways to suppress their honesty.

“I don’t like this,” a child may say of their grandmother’s gift. “Yuck,” another may say about the food that their friend’s mom has prepared. Adults slowly teach children that this kind of honesty is “not polite” further informing them that there’s a fine line between telling the truth and not hurting other people’s feelings.

Children also observe active lying by the adults in their lives. As parents, we may tell lies of convenience in front of our children and they will watch and learn from us.

I always remind the parents that I work with to not overreact when their children lie in assuming that it’s indicative of some sort of character defect or morality issue. Instead, I suggest that parents become curious about the potential motivation for their children lying.

Younger children may not always know that it’s not good to lie. By around age 4, however, children tend to lie for the same reasons that adults do: to avoid punishment, to gain some perceived advantage, to avoid a consequence, or to perhaps try to attain some power or control over a situation.

Some parents may actually cause their children to lie. Take, for example, the parent who is overly punitive or harsh in their consequences. Such children, may purposely lie in order to avoid an extreme or unfair punishment.

So the next time you catch your children lying, don’t automatically jump to the most drastic conclusion about their behavior. Instead, attempt to explore the motivation for the lying because in that process you're likely to uncover the real issue that needs to be addressed.