Lying

My seven-year-old seems to have picked up the habit of lying. Even when I ask him a simple question, such as, ‘Have you cleaned your teeth?’, his immediate reaction is to tell a fib! What can I say or do to help him to realise that honesty is the best policy? 

Lying rates as the most hated habit of kids.

We feel hurt, betrayed, disregarded, disrespected and so very annoyed. Part of the answer is knowing why they lie because that could give us the lead to the remedy. And there are many reasons or situations where, for a kid, a lie seems to be the easiest option.

Age factor

In that fabulous Schwartz and Wilkinson book, Why Kids Lie, Paul Ekman outlines how kids see right and wrong at different ages. For instance:

• Up to the age of 4 kids see right as getting their own way and their reason to be good as getting rewards and avoiding punishment.
• At ages 5 and 6 what’s right is doing what you’re told and your reason for being good is so you won’t get into trouble.
• It changes for 6 to 8’s where lying hits a peak; doing what’s right is based on the ‘what’s in it for me?’ principle. So if there’s less in it for them if they tell the truth, guess what you’ll get.
• In the 8-12 year age group what’s right is living up to others’ expectations... so if you expect more than they feel they can deliver they’ll lie about the rest.

Avoiding retribution

Lying to get out of punishment is common - check your style of punishment and concentrate on rewarding courageous truth.

Parental over-control

Is the child expected to be good all the time? These kids act goody goody and mature to keep adults happy but deep down want to be baddy baddy and very immature. Their good behaviour is an act.

Outside over-control has left them with inside under-control so when the pressure comes off, so does the maturity. What’s more, these kids will often laugh after accidents or upsets to others as another way of letting off steam. Naturally, if they get caught out, they will use lies to jump the gap between the real and the ideal.

Embarrassment

If you ask the wrong question at the wrong time in front of the wrong audience, a lie might be what you’ll get to avoid embarrassment. Just watch where and when you ask them for some answers.

Risk-takers

If your child wins laughs or status by lying, getting caught can be a small price to pay. Look carefully at how and where you handle the lie and try to use a reflective style back to them, in private. For example, ‘Are you scared of losing friends (or hurting friends), is that why you tell me things that aren’t true?’

Body language is a real giveaway when it comes to lying kids.  Most parents tend to use face cues for honesty, but kids can look terribly sincere when concentrating hard on a lie. Look for twisting and wringing of hands and feet to release tension, and get to know other dead-set give-aways like eye aversion, defensive shouting, stretching the neck, tightening or licking lips, forced smiles or a flushed face.

Once you’ve identified the pattern of behaviour which triggers lying, there are a few things you can try to steer them back to the straight and narrow. One of the ways I use with chronic, constant or serious lies, is to act quite naive and take them at their word so they carry the consequences.

If they say that it was all Larry the liar’s fault, then respectfully and with a straight face organise to catch up with Larry’s mother straight away to sort things out. As you start carrying it out, give them a chance to save face and ask again whether they might have had a teeny bit to do with it.

Once you’ve cracked the ice, you often open a flood gate. Again, reward courageous honesty whenever they manage it. Repeated lies are often a clue to things they may not be handling too well (like school). Talk to the teacher about how your son is coping and if the behaviour is also occurring at school.

Check your own habits - some families get quite a buzz out of putting one over on sales people or the tax man, but that’s one fantastic breeding ground for little lies. Be honest - count the number of white lies, fibs, exaggerations or black lies you use today and then ask yourself whether it’s just that your son is less sophisticated.

Private space is important. If your son is able to go to his own room without the third degree from you, then the chances of lies to protect his privacy are reduced. All young kids will lie so don’t get too carried away with their feeble young efforts to handle conflicting pressures. To be quite frank, from their point of view it’s nothing personal!

However, if you are at the place of not trusting your child, then the job is to work on ways to rebuild the trust rather than torturing him over the lie. Whatever you do, don’t ever label your kid a liar or that’s exactly what you’ll get; we all live by our labels.

But some kids just have all the answers, don’t they? As one 12 year old said to me, ‘Parents are to blame for most of the lying kids do. They insist on asking questions!’

By Dr John Irvine

Dr John Irvine is an educational psychologist, a consultant psychologist, a counsellor and a widely recognised specialist on children’s behaviour. He is the author of significant books for parents such as A Handbook for Happy Families and Who’d Be a Parent? His relaxed and warm advice deals with the practicalities of managing real families in everyday life.

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, February 2004. Updated July 2009.