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Children and Lying:

Many children, at some point or another, reach a lying phase. They discover the power of lies and they use them to the best of their ability. Some kids lie simply to avoid getting caught for wrongdoing, some lie in the form of stories (telling people they did things that they didn't do), and some will do both. How you handle a particular type of lie will vary, though. Below are a few tricks for dealing with little storytellers and fibbers:

• Children who lie to stay out of trouble—this is the most common form of lying that children tend to use. Nobody wants to get in trouble, and once your child discovers that if you don't know about it, they can't get in trouble for it, they very well may start lying. It goes something like this:

"Johnny, was it you that took the crackers in your room and crumbled them up all over the floor."
"No, Mom, I didn't do that."
"Well, who did?"
"Hmm, maybe Dad did it."

You look at your child who you have been good to all this time, and cannot believe they are actually lying right to your face. Take heart, though, because kids this age just don't realize that lying is a bad thing. They simply don't want to get in trouble.

The best way to battle this type of lying is done in three steps—

• Teach your child that lying is wrong. If they don't know that lying to you is a bad thing, you can't expect them to not do it. You also have to lead by example. If your child overhears you lying to someone, it will be extremely hard to convince them not to do it. Kids want to be like their parents, and they will follow what you do a whole lot quicker than they will follow what you say.

• Once you have taught your child that lying is wrong, and that it will not be tolerated, you will have to remind them. When you ask them if they did something, or ask them what they were doing, before they have a chance to answer you, remind them that they have to tell the truth. Tell them that they will get in less trouble if they tell the truth than if they don't.

• When you have taught your child that lying won't be tolerated, and you have reminded them that the punishment will be worse if they lie, stick to it. If they lie (and you know for a fact that they are lying), you will have to make the punishment harsher than it would have been if they had admitted what they had done. You have to let them know that this happened by telling them what their punishment would have been if they had told the truth. If they do tell the truth, you should tell them they did a good job using honesty, and when you give them the punishment, you should inform them what it would have been if they had fibbed about it. This will help your child see that they really are gaining something by telling the truth.

These steps are not guaranteed to work on every child, and you may have to do these things repetitively for what may seem like a million times. It is important to remember that most children do lie at some point or another. Some kids do it more often than others, and some do it longer than others. By showing your child that it is beneficial to them to just go ahead and tell the truth and accept their punishment for their wrongdoing, you can hopefully make it occur less often.

• Kids who tell stories—this type of lying is also a very common one among children. After all, kids have very powerful imaginations, and they have been hearing stories and watching cartoons all their lives. This is the type of lying that is usually harmless, except that you don't want your child to grow up to be a person that no one ever listens to because you can't believe a word they say. To avoid this, and to get your child to stop with the storytelling, you can do three things:

• The first thing you will want to do is to teach your child to stop telling untrue stories. This is a very important step in getting your child to quit, because they can't know it's wrong if you don't tell them. Then you should let your child know that you will tell everyone that their story isn't true when they start telling one.

• The next step is to follow through with this threat. If your child tells another fake story and claims it to be true (and they probably will), you can let this one and possibly another one or two slide. But, while you aren't telling everyone the truth, you will want to point out to your child that they need to stop because you aren't giving them many chances. After a couple of times of your child forgetting (or ignoring your threat, whichever the case may be) you will want to do as you promised. When she is in the middle of telling you the story about how she and her friend went to outer space and met her long-lost alien sister, you will want to call her on it in front of her listeners. You don't want to be mean about it, or criticize her in front of people, but you will want to tell her that she shouldn't be making up stories that aren't true. If your child knows that every time she lies to people they will find out the truth, she is less likely to do it as often.

• The last, and possibly the most important, step is to not shut your child down completely. It is good that your child is this creative, but you need to harness that creativity and use it for good instead of evil. Explain to your child that it is great to make up stories, and it is great to share those stories, but that it isn't good to pass them off as the truth. Instead, if your child can write, have her write stories down as a book. If she is making up these stories before she can read or write, you should have her tell you the story and write it for her. Then you can have her draw pictures to illustrate it. Staple all the pages together and let her show off her masterpiece to anyone willing to read it. Once your child realizes that she can get just as much attention by telling people a story without claiming it as truth, she will most likely stop lying so much.

This, of course, will not work with all children, and some kids will simply stop the storytelling in front of their parents. It is a harmless type of lying, so if your child doesn't stop, it's not that horrible. Just keep in mind that this is usually something that children grow out of, especially as they get older and friends in school stop listening to their stories.

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