Children never lie. Ha! If you're a parent, you know that's not true.
Have you wondered what to do when your child lies?
Years ago, Vicki when I was
doing child custody evaluations for the court and I got involved in forensic
evaluations of child sexual abuse cases and just some of the nasty stuff, right? I
remember hearing from a certain group that was promoting this idea. "Children
never lie." Okay, shut up. Yes, they do. And I'm sorry. I love kids.
Okay? They're amazing and awesome and wonderful and they lie through their
teeth. -If they're going... It's nature's way to avoid getting in trouble
and it comes out as lying. -And still kids do lie. And this came out
in the context of like in an abusive valuation. Some people would say, "Well,
kids are dying all the time." And other people would take the far polar opposite
of that "The children never lie. They would never lie about this kind of thing."
Well kids do lie. And I think one of the reasons that they did, just like you said.
It's to avoid getting into trouble. Adults do it, too. Okay? Where do you think
the kids learned it anyway? But I think there's some natural tendencies
toward that as well. So, let's acknowledge that it happens. The
fact that you found this video probably reflects that you're having some issues
with that. So, let's see what we can do about it. Should we look at them? -And
probably the first thing is when you hear or find out your child has lied, one
of the most important things is to stay calm.
-Yes. -That is so hard. -Thank you. You know what? If you don't, you actually reinforce the
lying behavior for a lot of goofy psychological reasons. It's really
important to remain calm. We want the child to learn something from this. And
we can do that best if we're not all freaking out as a parent. One of the
things that makes it really hard is like you were saying. When you find out
that this is an issue and when you discover the lie,
that's a time when your temperature goes up a little bit.
So, this works best in the context of creating a family culture and parenting
practices that are calm. You get to practice this so that when the heat is
on, you don't lose your cool. -Yeah. It's like making neural pathways that are
ready right to respond in a moment's notice. And so, we want to practice calm
face, calm voice, calm mind. -This also creates the expectation in the kids.
Because as you practice it and as you ain't implement this is part of your
family culture who you are as a family, they can start to anticipate that things
are going to be handled in this way. -Right. -Even if it's a sensitive thing like lying.
Vicki, we've got certain rules of parenting. -Right. -Remember what number one
was? -Take care of yourself. -It's got to be first. -That just... It feels so
counterintuitive sometimes. But it's absolutely crucial especially in a
situation like this. -This is how you're going to remain calm when you're taking
care of yourself. You're meeting your needs. You've got a little mantra on the
wall in our exercise room about how it's not my kids job to make me happy. It's my
job to make me happy. -Right. -Right? Did I get that right? -Something like that, yes.
-So, the importance of taking care of yourself becomes really paramount when
we're dealing with things like lying or other misbehavior so that you can show
up as the calm loving parent that you are. -Part of manipulating or creating a
culture in your family is one where you have times where you bring up these
types of situations. We call it a family home evening. But it's a safe place you
make where you can bring up topics that need to be discussed.. -You're not talking
about heat at the moment? -No. -You're talking about having a place and a time
where these things can be addressed. -And it actually really brings back to the
very first thing. When you first find out a child is lying, I think it's our
natural nature. It's our nature to just kind of go "This
is urgent!" And one of the most important things to do as a parent is to be able
to peace out when it's urgent and when it's important. And these types of
situations a lot of the times, you have only just found out about the lie. -Right.
-Maybe it's been going on for a while. We don't know. But it's probably not as
urgent as it is important. And so, if you have kind of a family time, a counsel
time, whatever you want to call it that you discuss important issues, morale
issues, family vacations, etc. This is a good time to talk about the concept of
lying. -You can use that to relieve some of the pressure on the child too. When
children feel confronted, they naturally become defensive. So, I love this part of
the family culture where you can simply say, "Well! Tonight, kids, we're talking
about honesty." -Right. Now, that doesn't mean you're not going to deal with the
actual event with the child. -Right. -And we're getting to that. We're going to give you
some tips for that. -But I was just going to say I remember one of the first times
that I came into a real difficult situation. I remember calling you kind of
excusing myself calling you and saying, "I just found out so-and-so is lying and
stealing." And I knew I couldn't react for the moment. But I had to call you because
again, part of that taking care of yourself is also taking care of your
team. I needed to get you on board. -Right. -Kind of talk about it so that we could
respond rather than react. -We'll take a strategic appropriate response to this.
It's more important to do the right thing than to do the fast thing or the
urgent thing. And that's where the value of having this Family Council or family
evening that happens on a regular basis because that's when we can address it. I
think it's important to control the timing, the content and the emotion. -Yeah.
-When we address these things with our kids. And so, this helps us to control the
timing as we just... -And emotion because once you step back for a minute, you can
cool off. -Exactly. I think we're ready to get into some specific tips. And the
first one has to do with separating the consequences for the
lying from the consequences for the thing that they lied about. -Right. Because
usually they're lying to cover up getting in trouble for something they
did or did not do. -They're trying to avoid the consequences for the thing
that they're really going to get in trouble for. And I'm just saying if you
if you separate those out, they still get the consequence. And I've heard this
argument from kids before they're like, "If I tell you that then i'm going to get
the consequence." Well, if you lie about it, you're going to get double consequences.
-Right. -So, we're going to separate it and be clear about the separation. So, you
could say, "Look, I know you you lied about this because you were hoping that you
could avoid the consequence for this thing. You're still going to get the
consequence for the thing." Because that's important. Now, had you come to me and
been honest about it, you would still get the consequence for
that thing. They need to understand every choice has a consequence.
-Including the lying. -Yes. And so that becomes another issue now. And because
you lied about it, you have this consequence which is separate from the
consequence for the thing they lied about. I'm just saying separate them.
I'm not even saying what the consequences should be. We've got some
other videos about how to pick appropriate consequences. But separate
them. That's the important element here. -That comment leads perfectly into our
next section and that is that we don't want to encourage them to continue lying
to get out of trouble. So, if you know something has happened, if you know
they've lied, go ahead and just state it. -Disclose it. -Disclose. Yeah. Don't just
kind of see if you can catch them in a second lie about what having lied. You
know? Say, "I am aware that you did XYZ and that you liked me about it." -I think it's
okay to preface that with, "Look, here's what I know.
Here's what I already know." So that you're not in a position where you
have to continue to keep up the lie. -Right. -"I already know that you didn't
come straight home after school. I already know where you went. Now, we're
going to have a conversation about that." Okay. So, you're disclosing what you
already know. -And that just doesn't set them up. Sometimes we set our
is up to continue lying. -Along these lines... -Not intentionally but we do it. -This
is a trigger for a lot of people. Stay away from the why questions. -"Why did you
do that? Why did you lie about that? Why? Why? Why?" Really? Like you will be
satisfied. Like your child will say, "Well, I did it because of this and that." And
you're like, "Oh, okay. Well I'm good with that."
No. You're not asking why. You're confronting them. You're upset about
their behavior. Let's just ditch the why thing . Just say, "I know that you told
me you did this when I know this happened." -Right. And you don't want to put
your child in a position where they have to tell additional lies or they have to
defend the one that they already told. So, let's just ditch the why question.
Disclose what you already know. Let's start with that. And then we can have a
much more honest conversation about it. One of the most powerful things that is
in our toolbox for parenting is an understanding of moral development. And
this helps us to understand why kids do what they do and their stage of moral...
-And how we can react or interact or them. -Exactly. So, if you're not already
familiar with that, we've got a video here on the channel called Teaching
Children Responsibility. And if you cue that up and watch it next, you'll see
what we're talking about. Also in the Parenting Power-Up, we get into some
detail about that. You can connect to that at parentingpowerup.com and
we'll give you all the coaching that you need to come up to speed with that. What
that does for you as a parent is it put you in a position where you know how to
respond. Children are going to lie for different reasons. And based on those
reasons or their level of moral maturity, you're going to come in as a parent with
consequences that are appropriate for it. We're not going to save our kids from
their consequences but we want to make sure that the consequences are
appropriate for their level of thinking. That's why that's so important. And part
of that moral development is helping them understand the relationship between
doing hard things or easy things and the in the now, versus the later.
And I think sometimes as we explain to our child, "Look, I realized it would have
been really hard to have owned up to this." -Oh, yeah. -It was easier to tell the
lie. And then go ahead and talk to them about the consequences of
each different thing and show them that it's kind of just a life lesson that if
you learn how to do the hard thing, it's going to make the future choices a
little easier. If you do the easy thing right now,
your future choices get harder and harder to keep on tracking. We talked
about this with the consequences because if you separate the consequences for the
lying and for the thing that they're lying about, they would have had this
consequence either way for the misbehavior or the thing that they are
trying to cover up. They get to have this consequence now because they lied about
it. So, if you do the easy thing in lie, you get 2 consequences. If you do the
hard thing and fess up to it, you get a little easier leniency on the
consequence. -Or even the easy might be that you know it's easier to trust the
child. I mean, I've had a situation where kids do something...
Particular child did some things. But he was always really quick to
confess. And I knew when he would tell me something later, I trusted him that he
was telling me the truth. -Right. -And the whole part of it. -Not easy to confess.
-No. -So, you do the hard thing and you've created niche in your life for yourself.
-Yeah. We just get an opportunity to teach them the moral principle along with
dealing with the line. -This is a real-world thing. Check out your own
experience and see if this is true. That you've learned (haven't you?) as a parent
that if you're willing to do the hard thing, you can create a little easier
life for yourself. If you default to the easy thing, it's going to get a little
harder. We're teaching our kids these principles because that, even though
that's hard to do teaching our kids principles,
it creates an easier life as we move forward because now they're governed by
principles and moral reasoning as opposed to having us try to structure
everything for them tell them what to do not to do. We've got another video
specific to this topic called "How To Get Kids To Stop Lying" You might want to
watch that one next. Or go to the Positive Parenting Playlist. We've got a
lot of resources for you available also at the website DrPaulJenkins.com.
Come join our community of conscious caring parents like you.