Why do kids lie and how to stop children from telling lies? This is a very common question that we encounter in our pediatric clinic.
Watching our newborn or infant slowly grow up, is a very happy and satisfying feeling but some of their habits sometimes hurt us, and we feel bad. One of these habits is the child’s lying tendency. We start blaming ourselves for these and having doubts about our parenting style as we are not like this, why our kids have these bad habits.
Today I will tell you why children lie, how it starts, and how it grows, apart from this I will tell you efficient tips to stop your kids from telling lies.
Why do Kids/children lie?
The reason for lying in kids is divided into two groups, the first group consists of children between three to five years old and the second group consists of children above 5 years.
A. The reason for lying in 3-5-year-old babies:
This group of children never lies with any bad intentions. The reason behind their lying is
I. Play with words:
They are learning to speak new words and sentences, want to play with the language and manipulate words and facts to experiment with it.
II. Describing Their Imaginations
Example: Your baby may tell you that his teddy was telling him that “he is hungry”. This is their imagination. They can say that I was flying, tooth fairy came to me. All these are their imaginations, If they tell you that it has happened, they also feel it is reality.
These children are very imaginative, they imagine scenes and stories. Whatever they imagine in their mind, they are not able to distinguish between imagination and reality, they are not able to know how much differentiate.
III. To get your attention
Some of these toddler want to get your attention. They use to tell lies to make you laugh and to get your attention. They enjoy it and gradually it becomes their habit.
IV. Learning While Observing Elders:
Toddlers at this age observe their parents closely. If you lie to the child in day-to-day life eg, “Go to sleep otherwise the witch will come”. “Go to sleep otherwise, the ghost will come”, and “Do not go out a big lion is there”, the kids will learn these things and think that lies are told like this, and it becomes a normal thing for him and he will also start telling lies to say like, “ Mama, don’t go there, there will be a lion there”.
You do not have to do these things so that the child does not get affected and does not adopt these things.
B. Reasons for lying in more than 5 years old kids:
Followings are the main reason for lying habit in kids above 5 years of age
I. Fear of Being Scolded:
The most common reason in kids above 5 years of age for telling lies is the fear of being scolded. Children lie because of the fear of punishment. They feel they will be punished if they say they have broken something or have not done homework. In this way, gradually it becomes their habit.
II. To Avoid Refusal:
The other reason to tell a lie is to avoid your refusal, which means that if the child tells you that he has not done his homework, you will not let him go out to play, then the child will tell you a lie that he has done with homework.
III. Learning From Parents:
Children also get motivated and learn while observing you.
If you are sitting in the car with your kid, and on a phone call you are saying to the boss, “Okay, I have just entered the office” or you are sitting at home, and you say on call “I am standing at interception near road no 2”, children are watching all these and they are learning to tell a lie.
The child starts understanding that all these things are normal, this is how things are said and manipulated, and becomes a habit as he grows.
IV. To Get Attention:
The next reason is to get attention.
The child will come to you and say that he got a ‘star’ in school today, he got ‘good’ today, whereas this does not happen and he knows that if he speaks like this, you will encourage him, you will praise him and he gets your attention.
This is more common in children where a younger baby has come and you are giving more attention to the younger ones.
The child does many such activities so that he can take your attention
V. Psychological Disorders:
Other serious reasons for lying in kids are psychological disorders like Autism, ADHD and Anxiety Disorder.
In these disorders, children speak before thinking. Generally, these children tend to say ‘YES’ in most of the questions before thinking about what is fact or whether they have done it or not, that is why these children also lie more.
This lying habit is also unintentional. This is due to their psychological problems like ADHD(Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), or Anxiety disorder.
How to Stop Children From Telling Lies?
Now let us discuss how we can get rid of this habit of telling lies of our children.
A. How to deal with a lying kid 2-5 years
I. Lie due to playing or manipulating words:
As I told you earlier, the lying habit at this age is unintentional. It is not bad, rather it is
because of playing with words or manipulating language. So let them play and do experiment with their vocabulary.
II. Lie due to describing their imaginations
Kids’ lying habit is because they do not differentiate between their imagination and reality. Here, the child tells a lie while describing his imagination. Whatever he is imagining is telling to you.
Suppose he is saying “My TEDDY told me that he is hungry”, so you should encourage his imagination further by adding sentences like “ Okay, then what did you
feed him and after that, did he feel full?”.
In this way, you can develop the imaginative power of the child.
But if your child is lying with attention then the best way is to ignore the children, do not laugh, do not giggle, do not encourage the children more there. Do this, and the child will gradually change the habit.
III. Lie due to learning while Observing Elders
The third thing you have to do is never lie in front of the children,
We use to say sentences like “There is a witch outside don’t go”, and “There will be a lion there, go to sleep”.
Stop telling these things to the little one. You will benefit from this only in time but all these things prove very harmful to children in the future.
B. How to Stop Lying Habits in more than 5 years old kids
I. Lie To Get Attention:
If your child is above 5 years of age and is lying for your attention. If he says to you, “Today I got a ‘star’ in school”, “Today I got ‘very good’ in school”, you can check the notebook. If it is there, then you encourage it, if not, then you simply ignore it.
You don’t need to say “You are a liar”, or “Why you lied?”.
If you say these things it will program their mind and their subconscious mind accept that “I am a liar”, then they will tell lie only and will never tell the truth.
II.Lie To Avoid Scolding:
If your child is lying to avoid your scolding, suppose some item is broken. There are three of you in the house. You ask like a child, “Son, did you break this?” To avoid scolding, the child will say “No, I have not broken it”, so you do not have to tell him “How you did not break it and who else is in the house”.
You have to lovingly explain to the child, “I know that you have broken it, there are three of us in the house, I did not do it, nor did your father. You did not do it. Now who is left? We know you have done it. You were not like this before. You used to speak a lot of truth. Why are you lying? We will not scold you or punish you If you tell the truth, don’t speak lie. This is not our family tradition, nor the culture of any civilized person”.
In this way, your child will have confidence that he will not get any punishment whenever he tells you the truth. The child will not alter anything and will not tell you anything by manipulating or lying to you.
If someone commits a mistake, he is already very scared from within. Imagine yourself, The child gathers courage out of fear and if he tells you further that he made this mistake, then it is not an easy task to overcome that fear.
For a child who has a soft heart, it is very difficult for him to come and tell you, and after telling you, If you scold or punish or hit him, his confidence will be lost.
In the future the child will never tell you the truth, he will always try to escape by telling a lie, so always encourage your child, no matter how big a mistake he makes. If he has come on his own and told you the truth, then do not punish him at all at that time, do not scold or hit him at all, but motivate him.
III.Lie to Avoid Refusal:
The third thing you have to do is you do not always have to keep saying ‘NO’ to your children.
Kids enjoy silly and weird things and feel like it is too exciting for them. They also enjoy roaming around unnecessarily. For us, it is useless and meaningless but those things are important as per their intellectual ability.
Respect their emotions and their wishes. Say ‘NO’ only when they demand activities, items, or foods that are harmful to them. but whatever is causing no harm to the child as well as you you need not to say” NO” always.
If he is asking to go out or to play with his favorite toy and has completed his studies, let him do it. Saying ‘NO’ all the time creates frustration in the child he wants to escape from things, wants to get out of the situation, and wants to get that thing from there by lying.
IV. Lie Due to Learning From Elders:
The fourth thing to do is to set an example.
You can do this in two ways:
- As a parent, never lie in front of the child. Never let anyone do this in front of him. Do not do such kind of activity that he learns and thinks that telling a lie is NORMAL.
Example: If you are on the way with your kids, and someone asks your location, you must tell the exact place. If someone asks you where you are, do not say I am standing at the gate. Due to these repeated lies the child’s mind gets programmed that this is a normal thing.
The child learns by watching you, observing you, and following you, therefore, if you become truthful, your child will also become truthful.
- Motivate your kids by telling moral stories and true incidents. Tell the wolf-shaped story. There are many stories and some real stories too. Thus you can program them, you can motivate them, you can tell children in this way what are the disadvantages of lying and how bad it is.
V. Lie Due to Over Stricktness
Make the environment at home one of acceptance, it should be in such a way that if something has happened to your child in school, he can tell you without any fear. God forbid that he becomes a victim of sexual abuse or bullying, which is very important for you to know about.
If anything has happened that is unacceptable, if he got bad marks or if he is suffering from sexual diseases, he can come to you and tell you without fear. If some mistake has been made, even if the child earns marks, do not be afraid.
Discipline is different, and being overly strict is different. Also, do not be over strict, understand your children and be friendly with them as much as possible
VI. Lie Due to Psychological Disorder
The last point friends is that if the habit of lying has become too much and if the child is doing other anti-social activities along with lying or If your children have an anxiety disorder or ADHD. then you should immediately consult a child psychologist and pediatrician, to get proper treatment.
