How can I stop my child from lying?
Many of my patients ask me for advice on stopping their children from lying. I quickly modified their request to “help them lie less.”
It is supposed to be very simple.
First: Tell them stop lying.
If that doesn’t work:
punish them by withdrawing privileges, such as time on video games. Etc.
If that doesn’t work:
Increase the severity of the punishment: withhold the video game from them for a longer period of time.
If that still doesn’t work:
Suppose, they through a tantrums, or pouching all day long. You don’t want to suffer their tantrums, nor take the risk of escalating the problems. Then go to the opposite direction. Ignore, minimize, and redirect.
How to ignore, minimize, and redirect when your children lie to you.
Lying comes in many shapes and forms. I believe all lyings are not good. But not all types of lying are equally bad. Some lying is worse off than the other. As parents, we don’t want to drive our children to the worst kind of lying. So, my strategy is to differentiate different kinds of lying, and respond differently to different kind of lying. I encourage the parents recognize their children make small improvement in lying, even they still lie. That is: make use of the principle of behavioral modification. The principle is reinforcing small incremental improvements toward the goal. ( don’t lie).
For example:
The parent asked the children: who took the money from the jar?
There are different kinds of lying, and I list them by the order of sophistication.
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- I didn’t take the money from the jar. I saw John took one five dollars bill and two ten dollars bills from the jar.
The above example involves fabrication.
The other lies look like these:
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- I did not do that.
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- I don’t remember doing that.
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- I might have done that, but I don’t remember for sure.
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- I did it that because ……( a lie) an excuse.
Of the five scenarios, the first one is the worst one. I will not give a general advice here.
For the second scenarios, the parents could gently open the door for him, find excuses for him such as poor memory, out of sudden impulse etc., give children an excuse to admit that or invite them to move down to a level of uncertainty. For example, it may be me, but I don’t remember. I might take the money out of the jar, without paying much attention to it etc. the strategy is to floundering forgiveness in front of the children and invite them to admit their mistake. After their admission, praise them for the courage to admit the mistake and forgive them for making the mistakes as you have promised them earlier. There are two components of an event in children’s admission. 1. The act of admission and 2. The mistake they made, or (the crime they committed) my advice is praising them for the courage of admitting and pardon them for the mistake they made.
Children who tend to lie more are those who are afraid of the consequence of admitting making mistake: punishment.
If you find your children lying too much, examine your house’s rule of lying.
- Are they being punished too severely?
- the chance of being discovered is very low. (no monitoring system, no fact check).
Then, you create a condition whereas lying is better than telling the truth.
A severe punishment for being caught lying could become traumatic for that child. Due to shame and humiliation, the child might spend his lifetime trying to undo the humiliation by perfecting their lying skills. On the one hand and the other hand, that adult (child) will find satisfaction in lying because it is a rebellion and revenge for the severe punishment he cannot forget.
If you have a special hatred for lying, and don’t want your child grow up as a liar. Then don’t be proud of catching them lying. Don’t set traps for them to fall into. Don’t set up a video camera to prove that they lied. Don’t shame them, humiliate them, or embarrass them. If they lie to you, let them off the hook easier. So that the child won’t be afraid to change the story and start telling the truth in the middle of lying. If the child is very much afraid of the punishment of admitting telling the lie, then, he might stick to his lie. That is what we want to avoid. Lying is bad, but always keep in mind that there are behaviors that are worse than lying. For example: if the father catches his son lying, show him the video, so that he has no way to deny. He is cornered. Now, he only has three choices. One is admitted; that is the one we wish. But there are two other alternatives which are detrimental. One other alternative is disappearance, running away, or ending his life. And the third is: remove his guilt conscious: “so what, I lie, punish me all you want”. This is not the routes I recommend. So don’t corner your children. I recommend giving him the message, through body language and verbal communication to communicate your good will: I rather you admit that you have done a wrong deed, than you told me you did not do it, but you actually have done it.
If you have a special hatred for lying, you probably will disagree with me or have difficulty following my advice. If you see your spouse has those problems, encourage him/her to seek psychotherapy. Why? Strong emotions, whether you love it or hate it, are very contagious. Children would catch it like catching the flu from you. If you hate liars, you increase your child’s chance of becoming a liar. So, deal with your hatred for lying; it will benefit your children.