How to stop a child from lying?
We'll get into that today.
Why do kids lie?
Let's start there.
There's always a reason.
Lying is a strategy.
Strategy for what?
Think about it.
There's a lot of reasons why kids might lie.
I almost said why you might lie.
Yeah, that's true too, right?
That might help us to empathize with our kids a little bit.
What are the strategies for?
To get our of something, to avoid something, maybe those are the same thing.
To get some kind of a reward, to gain some kind of attention and lying works, unfortunately
and that's why kids do it.
So it's not an adaptive strategy but it is an effective strategy oftentimes.
Now understanding that, there are times when we can take away the pay off for the lying.
We can't always do that and usually, let's say that our kid is lying to get out of trouble
for something that they did, they lie about what they did or didn't do and that gets them
out of trouble in the short term but it causes more trouble in the long term.
Now we might be able to use that to our advantages at some point.
We'll start with an acknowledgement of lying is a strategy to accomplish something.
Can we connect with that strategy?
I've got a few tips that I think might be helpful as we deal with this lying issue.
Before I do that, what's your job as a parent?
To love them no matter what and even if.
Your job is not to make sure that they don't lie, it's not to stop the lying.
Can we do that?
Well hopefully and I'll share those tips with you but remember that your job is to love
them no matter what and even if.
Wait, so even if they keep lying?
Yes, maybe especially if they keep lying.
You get clear about that part of your job and the rest of it will be much more useful.
Okay, I know I pound that into the ground sometimes but that is so important for parents
to remember.
So let's go to a few tips.
Number one, stay calm.
Stay calm because you're upsetness is probably going to make it worse and a lot of times
we are tempted to get really upset when our kids are lying about something.
Stay calm.
I love the way Nicholeen Peck said this, calm face, calm voice, calm body.
Alright?
We can talk about anything if we maintain a calm face, calm voice and calm body.
So take that to heart and find ways to take care of yourself emotionally because if you're
getting tipped over by this thing, you probably need to pause, breathe in and out a little
bit and incidentally, it's better to breathe in and then take about twice as long to breathe
out.
Slow down the exhale, it's actually a brain hack, it will help you to calm your system
a little bit.
So remain calm, that's tip number one.
Now from that calm phase, tips number two is going to be a little easier to apply.
Here's my tip number two, don't ask why.
Don't ask why.
Think about it.
Sometimes when your kid lies you tend to say, "Well, why did you lie about that?"
"Why did you?
Why?"
Alright, honestly,are you really curious?
Do you really want to know why?
Now what we talked about earlier, that's a strategy and see if you can get to the reason
that they're doing this in the first place.
That's not what you're doing right now.
Why did you do that?
Why did you say that?
Why did you lie?
Is not a question.
Think about it, it's a statement disguised as a question.
It's really an accusation disguised as a question.
Do you see what I'm talking about?
Why did you do that?
Exclamation point.
It's not even a question.
Turn it back into a question if you're going to use "Why did you do that?"
But then it doesn't even make sense because you don't care.
What you're really saying is, I don't like that you just did that, I don't agree with
you're lying is a strategy.
That's what you're really saying.
I'd say get away from the why question altogether because it's not giving you answers that are
going to satisfy you and it's not really a question to start with, it puts people at
odds with each other so we're not going to do that.
I much prefer instead of the why question, that you simply identify what just happened
and then you make some kind of a statement that assert your position about it.
For example, you might say "You know, David, you just told me that you finished your homework
but I know that your homework is not finished yet."
Okay, do you see how direct that is?
Or "You know, Suzzie, you told me that you came straight home from school.
I don't fully believe that."
Okay, and you don't even have to say why if you've got good reasons to know that she has
lied to you about that or something like, "You know what you just shared with me doesn't
quite fit for me."
Alright.
So I'm not saying why, we're simply identifying the issue and doing it in a clear matter of
fact sort of a way so that we can establish our position.
Now if you're following tip number one, which is to stay calm, this will then put you in
position to have an additional conversation with your child.
Now little disclaimer here, it's not going to work if they or you are fired up and you're
in your fight or flight response.
One way to look at this is don't respond until the adrenaline is gone, alright.
Calm voice, calm face, calm body.
When we're both in that position, we can have this conversation.
Make sure you're calm.
If your child is not calm yet, then you can wait on this tip.
If they're pretty calm as well and they might be upset because they just got caught in a
lie but now we want to from our calm loving place as a parent, we want to stir them into,
okay, I think I see why you would feel that a lie would be a good idea.
Okay, so you're connecting with them from an emphatic place and then let's see if we
can get the reasons.
So you're thinking maybe that if you lie about your homework that you won't get in trouble
or you wouldn't have to skip your soccer practice to get it done.
Is that kind of what you're thinking?
And check it out with them because they'll say "No, that's not.." or they might say "Yeah,
I kind of was thinking that."
Well, this gives you a chance to connect with your child with the reasons because the next
you want to do is move on to model appropriate strategies for handling those things and I
like to use a drawing out method because I don't want to be in a position where I'm trying
to get my child advice, usually it's unwanted, right?
If you're trying to give advice so draw it out.
Well, Jimmy, what do you think you could do next time that might work out better for you?
Even if it's hard.
See, acknowledge the hard part.
It's going to be hard for him to tell the truth if he's afraid it'll get him in trouble.
Well, I guess I can come to you or just admit that I didn't do my homework.
Yeah, I like that idea buddy.
Are you afraid that that might not go well with me though?
Maybe I'll get too upset?
See, you're going to broach that for him so he doesn't have to bring it up and then he'll
even endorse it or deny it but either way, you can open up that conversation.
I think it's huge to open up those lines of communication and make sure that you've got
that dialogue going on.
As we wrap up this episode, I'm recalling a song, Jenning Brady, is a song writer and
she owns a company here locally that makes music for children and I remember when I was
a kid, listening to some of Jenning's music, she's just been producing for years.
One of them was about lying and the lyrics were something like this, "when you tell one
lie, it leads to another so you tell two lies to cover each other and then you tell three
lies and then, oh, brother, you're in trouble up to your years."
And it's a children's song, the lyrics were catchy enough that I remember those lines
all these year and it's really true because lying puts us in a position now that we have
to remember the lie and we may have to tell another one to cover that one and then it
just grows into this web of lies so quickly.
Well, your kids will understand that and they'll see that.
Do you think maybe you can have a conversation with them about that?
Maybe even go look up Jenning's music, it's bright music in Salt Lake City and the song
about lying.
There's other resources too but teaching our kids two principles behind why we're doing
this, I think it's probably a powerful way that we can influence them and maybe we'll
even stop the lying too.
I hope you found that helpful.
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