Hi everybody I am Barb Steinberg. I am a parent coach and a teen life coach for
girls and a speaker on parenting teen girls. I thought it would be important
for us to talk together about when our teenagers lie. If any of you have kids
out there you know that they lie. I mean if we're really being honest all human
beings lie at one point or another we are all deceptive sometimes. So why are
teenagers lying? Well, if you think about it it's actually for kind of a virtuous
reason for lack of a better term. They want freedom they want to do what they
want to do and we all do and they also don't want to disrupt or hurt or harm
the relationship that they have with you. So they want the connection with you the
alignment with you to be maintained so and they also want to do what they want
to do. So if I know that you don't want me to go to Maggie's house on Friday and
I really want to go to Maggie's house, I might lie to keep the peace and keep you
happy and us happy and then I can also do what I want to do and that is go to
Maggie's house. So the intention behind it, the goal, is actually a good one but
it's not really the way that they want we want them to go about maintaining a
connection with us or alignment with us. So I've had several parents recently
bring up examples of their kids lying to them. For example one mom talked about so
actually about two different parents talk about they're wanting their kids
to eat healthy and this one mom brought up the idea of her child
sneaking Snickers bars and I mean let's be honest, who doesn't love a Snickers
bar, God knows I was definitely sneaking sugar when I was a kid because we pretty
much had raisin bran or apples so boring, so this mom was like you know, I
don't want my kid, you know I don't want to find 10 Snickers bar wrappers in her
room. So, why is she doing that? Because she loves Snickers. They taste great and
she wants to enjoy them and she knows it'll just it'll upset her mom and
disappoint her mom that she's not eating as healthy as she would like. So she's
hiding that, she's lying about it. Or omission, is also, can be considered a lie.
So we want to talk about, we'll just use this example even though there are many
other types of lies, but one, we want to have a discussion around this. Rather
than us having an instant emotional reaction to it, where we're angry or
upset, we're disappointed. We want to have a discussion around it. So there, here are
a few things to talk about. One is the cost of lying. So there's a cost to the
child right, to be hiding a part of yourself from people who love you, from
feeling guilty about having lied to your parents and people you care about that
doesn't really feel good. Really they actually do feel guilt I promise. And
there's a cost to you the parent this is important to talk about with your child,
you know to talk about how it makes you feel when you lie to me and you hide
things from me it makes me feel like you don't trust me, it makes it hard for me
to trust you and I really want to trust you. It makes me feel scared and worried,
like what else could she be doing that I don't know about. It makes me feel angry.
It makes me feel disappointed. Disappointed that you're not able to
tell me the truth, disappointed that maybe I've done something wrong in my
parenting that you aren't telling me the truth. So there are a lot of feelings
that come up for us as parents and it's okay to share that with our teens. They
get it. It's important for them to know that their behavior impacts us as well
and we actually do have feelings. So that's important. And it's also important
I think to share the why behind the lying, you know sharing with them what we
talked about a minute ago and that is of course you want to do it you want to do
of course you want to eat Snickers bars and of course you want to hide it from
me because you don't want to deal with me being upset or disappointed or
putting limits on you so I totally get that and I did the same thing sometimes
as a kid too. So kind of normalizing that and I'll add to that you want to be
really careful in these conversation to not shame them, to not insult them,
because that will just create more lying. You know they're not gonna want to come
to you and tell the truth to you about something they're afraid that you'll be
disappointed about if there's going to be shame and insults involved. So if
you're feeling really emotional that's not the time for you to have a
discussion about the incident of lying. So make sure that you're in a good place
and your teen is in a good place and you can come with an open loving heart. You
know, despite feeling what you're feeling. So you want to talk about the why behind
the lying, right? So not only the why but also how can we, what can we do to create
a situation where you would feel more comfortable telling me that you want a
Snickers bar, you're going to eat a Snickers bar. How can we create a
household that it feels more, I don't know, more open so that you can tell me
what it is that you want. Like can we come up with a scenario where you can
eat Snickers bars sometimes and you don't have to hide it or lie about it? And what
would that look like? You know is that a Snickers bar a day? Is it a mini one? Is
it you know, a normal-sized one every three days? Like, what does that look like?
So kind of, you know, bringing them into the discussion so that they don't have
to hopefully lie next time. And so asking them the why behind it, which is an easy
one when it comes to Snickers bar, and also you know, if you could do it
differently, what do you wish that it was like so
that you could have told me the truth. So Snickers bar is kind of an innocuous
example. A real one, but not major. So if we, you know, fast-forward through some
teen years and now maybe you've got a teen that is dabbling and drinking
alcohol let's say. So obviously they want to keep that a secret and lie about that
because they know that you'll be upset about it, in some cases. They know that
it's against the law, they know that they could get minor in possession and there
are legal ramifications and they might know that there are health
ramifications depending how much they're drinking. So this would be a really good
conversation these steps that we're talking about, about you know, talking
about why teens lie, how it makes you feel, the cost of lying. Talking to them
about if we led that conversation with the alcohol with tell me a little bit
about what was going on in that scenario. You know, you were at a gathering, you
were at a party, you're at your best friend's house like tell me a little bit
about what was going on. Now notice I'm leading with curiosity. I'm not leading
with anger and disappointment which will definitely shut them down. So you've got
to be in the right frame of mind. So get some information. And so you might even
be asking like you know, where there, was everybody drinking, did you feel some
pressure to drink? I totally-- and then to really kind of meet them where they are,
and say I get it that you want to fit in. You want to be like everybody else. You
want to be seen as cool or hip or you know more grown-up or more experienced. I
get that. Everybody feels that way as a teenager and so if they can hear that
you see it for what it is and that you are understanding where they're coming
from, they're more likely to get to a point
where they are willing to tell you the truth and this might take a little
finessing because they might be denying, denying, denying, but when they feel understood,
they're probably more likely to be upfront about what's happened and then
you can talk about, a little bit about how your feelings about your worry or
your fear and where that comes from. And then you can talk about okay, if you find
yourself in this situation in the future would you want to make a different
decision? Hopefully the answer would be yes, and if they do, what could you do
differently to handle that scenario differently so that you aren't drinking
alcohol or you're drinking less alcohol or you're doing it in a safer way to
protect your health. So there there are lots of different pieces to talk about
there. And then you know, you've got, you get to decide as the parent you know, I'm
okay with this level of drinking or how or where it looks or who and so on or
I'm not okay with drinking alcohol when you're in high school or you're under
the age of 21 whatever your values are, and then you have to talk about what are
the consequences to this so there might be a consequence for lying, there might be
a consequence for drinking in your family and then you can ask your teens
you know, if you were in my shoes what, what, how, would you handle this situation?
What would the consequences be? It's really interesting, usually they give
themselves a lot harsher consequences than we would, which is enjoyable and
interesting and then you might also you might feel like okay this doesn't
warrant a consequence but it warrants discussion, because I want my child to
learn from this "mistake" or this choice and I want them to learn from it to be
educated about it to make a difference to us next time. They may or may not but
what we're doing with the discussions with them, is we're teaching them, so that
hopefully there will be an opportunity in the future for them to hopefully not
lie but to come to you and tell you this is what I did or this is what happened
this is the choice I made or you might catch them and instead of lying they
might tell you the truth, you know. That would be ideal so that you guys can talk
about it and deal with it. So the goal I think, in the overarching goal and these
and this way of responding to lying is to be firm and to be kind. To maintain the
relationship. The parent-child relationship. Knowing that every human
lies and knowing that they're going to lie and knowing the reason why they do
lie is because they want to maintain that connection with you and that alignment,
so if you can come from that place hopefully you can maintain your solid
relationship through these discussions and through some of the consequences
that may come. So hopefully this is giving you some food for thought let me
know your thoughts below I'd love to hear them.
I'd love for you to like the video if you did or share it with friends do you
think it might be helpful for and I also have a an online workshop that's called
Talking With Your Teens, where there's much more of these tools and ways of
communicating with your teens so that you can maintain a really positive
relationship with them while they're growing older. So thank you for listening
and I hopefully I'll see you soon. Have a great day! Bye.