Caught in a Lie

Realizing your child is lying can feel really frustrating and possibly a bit alarming.

What if lying isn't bad behavior? In this episode, we explore lying through a developmental lens and look at what it can tell us about your child's growing brain, emotions, and need for safety and connection.

Learn why children lie, what they're often trying to protect, and how responding with curiosity instead of punishment can help build honesty and trust over time.

Being able to lie requires a certain level of language and cognitive skills, which typically develop between two to three years of age.

How and why children lie changes as they get older.

So why do children lie? To avoid getting into trouble, a form of protection.

To avoid making you their parent angry, a fear response.

To gain something for themselves, egocentric.

to help protect someone else's feelings.

Pro-social lying.

For example, telling you they like your new haircut when they really don't.

Some of the lies our children tell are easier to detect than others.

That might be because we can tell by their facial expression that they're not telling the truth.

And the younger our child is, the easier it is to detect the lies.

So let's have a look at toddlers and younger children and why they might lie.

At this age, up to the age of sort of about, you know, four or five, they usually lie to avoid getting into trouble and the lies might be simple and obvious.

For example, I didn't eat the biscuit while their hands are covered in chocolate or I I've brushed my teeth.

Our primary school age children are developing more social awareness.

So lying can be not just to protect themselves, but to protect their self-esteem, to protect others to fit in.

So saying they like a movie everyone else is talking about when they haven't even seen that movie.

Older children or adolescents lie for the same reasons as younger children, but they also have a need to protect their privacy and explore their growing autonomy.

Another way the line can show up is when our children tell imaginary stories where they recount events and their recollection is maybe completely different from what you saw in that moment.

Sometimes this might be as a protective mechanism.

It's also for children really empowering to be able, when they work out, that they can tell a story that is not the truth, but they can use their language and their thinking skills to create these imaginary stories.

Sometimes they might actually wish the story was true.