Parenting: My 6-year-old keeps lying!

My six-year-old daughter often tells lies and I'm wondering whether I should be worried about this.

For example, the other day she had clearly helped herself to cake in the kitchen without permission.

However, when I challenged her, she kept saying it wasn't her.

She definitely ate the cake as she even had chocolate around her mouth.

Yet she continued to deny it and eventually burst into tears and ran off.

I obviously don't mind her taking the cake, that's understandable.

It's the fact she won't admit it and tells lies to my face which bothers me.

This is not the only time.

Sometimes she says she has done her homework and then when I check she hasn't done it at all.

When I ask her about it, instead of admitting it...

She becomes quite frustrated and gives out to me for not believing her.

I also know she took a cuddly toy from her little brother, which she also denied.

But I found it on her bed.

Will she grow out of her habit of lying or should I be worried?

It's not a habit, you know, just to kind of nip that.

And look, you've heard me say this before, Sean.

I think learning how to tell a lie is a developmental task, just as learning how to tell the truth is.

And there's all kinds of different lies.

You know, we are very generous to ourselves as grownups when we permit ourselves to tell a variety of lies.

And we say, well, that's a good lie.

That's a pro-social lie.

That's a white lie.

And that's it.

You know, so it is a part of life.

Young kids, particularly this age, have very big, rich, beautiful imaginations.