Firstly, did you ever take some time to ponder as to why your child lies? Well, there is a myriad of reasons, which might push your child towards lying. Some common reasons why they lie include:

  • Just to check how you’ll respond to their lies
  • To cover up something, which might land them in trouble
  • To make the story more intriguing
  • To experiment, for instance, they’ll pretend something, which happened in the story to be real
  • To get your attention
  • To get their way with you
  • To not hurt your feelings

When does a child start lying?

Usually, a child will start lying at a very early age, mostly when he turns three. It is so because, by that time, your child understands that you are not a mind reader. So, he uses this as an opportunity to lie with you. A child would start lying more between the age of 4 to 6 years.

At this age, the child tends to get better at lying as now he can match his tone of words with his expressions. Raina, a mother of two, and an online educator offering assignment help services say that when her daughter was 5, she started telling small lies to get away with things, but Raina always asked her questions, and that made her daughter own up to things.   

When the child grows, they get better at lying and do this even without getting caught. Unfortunately, now the lies get complicated as they have more words and now they know ways to not get caught. By the time a child reaches adolescence, they tell you white lies to ensure that they do not hurt you or other people.   

What should you do?

After an age, your child understands the difference between a lie and a truth. In this time, you need to encourage them to always speak the truth. Sonya, an online expert, who you can reach for do my homework services, says that she once narrated her lie to her daughter and how it got her into trouble to emphasise the importance of always speaking the truth. The child needs to understand why it is important to always speak the truth. 

Here are a few tips that could help. 

  • Have a conversation with them about lying and the importance of honesty – For instance, you can ask them how dad would feel if mum lied to him? 
  • Help him avoid situations where he possibly feels an urge to lie – For instance, If you ask your child directly whether he spilt the milk, he would say an outright No. However, if you say something like, I see the milk is spilt, let’s clean up together. 
  • Diana, an executive, says that she always made it a point to appreciate her daughter every time she owned up to her mistake, instead of getting angry over the mistake. Yes, it is important to ensure that your child does not make mistakes, but what’s worse than that is them making mistakes and lying about it. So, always encourage them to speak the truth. 
  • Be a role model to them – For instance, you can say something like I made a mistake at work today, but I informed my boss, and we sought it out together.
  • When you know that they are lying to you, use a joke to encourage them to speak the truth. For instance, if they say teddy broke it, ask them, how did the teddy break it? Keep asking questions for them to finally give you the truth.  

Tall tales – How to deal with them?

Imagining things and pretending them to be true is an important feature of a child’s overall development. It is okay to encourage this behaviour amongst children. These aren’t counted as lies. So, if your child makes up a story, play along, and tell them it is a brilliant story and should make it to their storybook. It encourages the imagination of the child and still prevents them from lying.  

Deliberate lies

When your child says a deliberate lie, instantly tell them it is not ok to lie. Further, you need to explain why it is not ok. Follow it up with consequences that might occur because of lying. Moreover, when you use consequences, try to keep a distinction between the behaviour and the lying. 

Hannah, a mom of three kids, says that when her daughter, Donna was 5, she drew on the wall, and then lied to her about it. So, she first told her that she knew that Donna was lying and then got her to paint the walls with her, and it was mid-cleaning that Donna told her the truth. You can try this trick, too, anytime your child lies about breaking something, spilling the milk, etc.