Behind children’s lies, there’s more than just routines hidden behind them

A few weeks ago, my almost three-year-old son went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and crawled into bed as usual before bed. When we were saying good night to him, he suddenly said, \”Mom, I need to pee.\” However, he had just finished peeing six minutes ago. I suspected that he wanted to go to bed late, so he was deliberately playing tricks, but I didn\’t want to tell it like this. So he sat on the potty, and after a while he said, \”I don\’t want to pee.\” This was the first time I caught him lying. The next night, he did the same thing again. I\’m a bit at a loss what to do. Is it normal for children to lie? Later, after reading a lot of psychological research on children lying, I suddenly began to realize that – children lying is not only a very normal thing, but also one of the signs of their healthy development. Professor Kang Lee, a developmental psychologist at the University of Toronto who has studied children\’s lying for 20 years, said that it is very normal for children to lie. Typically, children start telling lies when they are two and a half to three years old, often to cover up their minor misdeeds. In a classic study in 1989, researchers at the Medical University of New Jersey brought 3-year-old children into a room equipped with hidden cameras and a one-way glass mirror and asked them to sit face to face. The researchers told the children that they would place a \”surprise toy\” on the table and asked them not to peek at it. The researcher then left the room. Whenever they caught the child peeping (which the vast majority of the children did), or every five minutes, they would go back into the room and ask the child if he had peeped. As a result, 38% of the children lied and said they did not peek at the toys. In 2002, Professor Li Kang\’s team conducted a similar experiment and found that 54% of 3-year-old children lied, while among 4-7-year-old children, the proportion of lying exceeded 75%. Lying Is Growing The theory of mind believes that this is the ability for children to realize that others have different beliefs than themselves. For example, the child must know very clearly that he broke the vase and that he knows it but you don\’t, so that he can lie. There is also a psychological skill that allows children to consciously control their thoughts, behaviors, and emotions, which is called executive function. This is a complex skill set that includes memory processing, inhibitory control, and planning abilities. In order to lie, your child must conceal the truth, invent an alternate reality, tell you a story, and remember it without being inconsistent (it’s not easy for kids!). So, lying demonstrates that children are developing important cognitive skills, but paradoxically, they also lie because their cognitive abilities are immature. Part of the reason is that they have difficulty controlling themselves but don\’t want to face the consequences of disobeying their parents. How to prevent children from lying. The simplest way to reduce children from lying is to not set up a situation for them to lie. if already knownIf your child eats the last biscuit, don\’t question him again: \”Did you eat the last biscuit?\” Such questioning actually leads him to lie, because he can feel that he is in trouble, and he I will definitely try my best to avoid it. In fact, you can say this: \”I know you ate the last cookie, so you don\’t have the stomach to eat now. The price of doing this is that you will have no cookies to eat tomorrow.\” Angela, a developmental psychologist at the City University of New York Crossman suggested. If you really want to hear the truth from your child, make him promise ahead of time that he won\’t lie. It may sound silly, but sometimes it works: One study showed that 16% of 3- to 7-year-olds were significantly less likely to lie after they agreed to tell the truth. Another thing you should never do is if you tell your child that you won\’t be angry as long as he tells the truth, only to then lash out when he tells the truth. This is the most common mistake parents make. Doing so is tantamount to telling their children: be strict if they confess and be lenient if they resist. But if you know in advance that you will definitely get angry, for example, if your child makes a very, very serious mistake, then it is best not to make such a promise in advance. He has lied, what to do? First of all, lying often happens together with making mistakes, so you must learn to deal with the two separately. If your child breaks the TV and then admits her mistake, praise her honesty even if you want to beat her up about the TV. \”You could say something like, \’I\’m glad you told me the truth, but I\’m still angry about breaking the TV,\’\” suggests Victoria Talwar, a developmental psychologist at McGill University. Simply put, the best way to deal with lying to your child is to stay calm and use the opportunity to teach your child the importance of honesty. \”Point out his mistakes, tell him you want him to tell the truth, and tell him why it\’s important to tell the truth,\” Professor Li Kang said. Try to explain the importance of trust. Don\’t punish children for lying, especially preschoolers, as they may not fully understand the meaning of honesty. Punishing a child can backfire because it only makes the child feel that they were punished because they were caught lying, so they will be more careful the next time they lie. Conversely, appreciating children when they are honest and emphasizing the virtue of honesty will reduce children\’s lying. Professor Li Kang and his colleagues found in their research that the story of \”Washington and the Cherry Tree\” was far more effective than the story of \”The Boy Who Cried Wolf\”: the former was praised for telling the truth, while the latter suffered disaster for lying. At the same time, research has found that children who grow up in authoritarian families where punishment is the main form of discipline are more likely to lie than children who grow up in families where punishment is less severe. Alternatively, you can let things unfold naturally and let your children realize the consequences of lying. Tell your child that if he continues to lie, you may not always believe him in the future. If your child is like my son, he lies about needing to pee to delay bedtime.If there is no time, then tell him that he can only use the urinal once before going to bed, and he can choose when to use it. If he still wants to do it again when he hasn\’t peed, let him feel the discomfort or the feeling of soiling himself. Slowly, he naturally learned his lesson. Some additional tips: What should you do if you think your child’s lying may reflect a deeper problem? Excessive lying, especially in older children, may be a symptom of behavioral disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. So if you have such worries, you may wish to consult a doctor or child psychologist. Generally speaking, children with behavioral disorders not only lie frequently, but their lies are usually the kind that are easily exposed. Younger children are generally less good at telling lies, especially if you continue to press them. But by the age of seven or eight, their lying skills will be greatly improved. When your child becomes more sensible, you will have to discuss more complex issues about honesty with him, because our society respects honesty and also cares about politeness, and the two are sometimes contradictory. \”Why wouldn\’t you be able to blurt out at someone\’s house, \’This is the most disgusting pie I\’ve ever had!\’ How can you be honest without being rude, disrespectful, and ungrateful?\” Crossman explained. Teach your child the importance of honesty, but also guide him not to say mean things.\” Finally, and probably most importantly: don\’t expect your child to be honest if you aren\’t honest yourself. \”If you tell your child how important it is to be honest, but he sees you lying to avoid responsibility, he\’s going to think that lying is a strategy,\” says Talwar. Adults often lie to others – to children, friends, parents, telemarketers… and we may not even notice that we are lying. But children will pay attention and happily imitate. So next time you catch your child lying, ask him if he learned it from you, and then consider letting him go. After all, always being honest is an impossible thing in itself.