Cover something up so they don’t get into trouble and see how you’ll respond make a story more exciting experiment – for example, by pretending something that happened in a story was real to get attention or make themselves sound better to get something they want – for example, ‘Mum lets me have lollies before dinner’ avoid hurting someone’s feelings – this sort of child is caught lying is often called a ‘white lie’.
WHAT TO DO IF YOUR CHILD IS CAUGHT LYING
As a parent, it is very heartbreaking to know that your child is caught lying. As a parent, we think of all the goodness in the world in our kids and those are shattered the moment we know something is wrong. Being a parent myself I know, how expectations break us when they are not fulfilled. I know that there’s no crash course to become the best parent in the world as parenting is a continuous process. You grow as parents as your kids grow!
As normal human beings, if your child is caught lying, we all experiment with general or selective lies. It’s part and parcel of life that the majority of kids will experiment with lying once in their lifetime but dealing with it patiently is the only solution.
- The first step is to deep breathe and calm down to know that your child is lying. Asking for explanations or confronting them angrily is bound to give you zero results. The angrier you are, the more lies you will be getting because you are scaring the child to the fullest. Even if the child is feeling guilty, he is not going to tell you the truth. So threatening him means further lies.
- Don’t start interrogating the child directly. Behave normally with your child however tough it seems to be after knowing the truth, being a parent myself I know how tough nut it is to crack but parenting is a tough nut to crack, right? Choose a comfortable time, sit with them, talk to them generally at first, cook up an almost similar story, replace the characters, put some situations, tell them in a fun way and when the story ends, ask them what they learned from it. Is the ending right? What do they think is missing/ can be added/can be deleted/can be edited from the story? It is bound to stir their emotions and analyze their own behavior in comparison with the story’s character.
- Talk to them about the importance of honesty and tell them in short stories what can happen if they lie. Tell them liars are not trusted and loved. They are not treated as family and friends. People stay away from them, they are socially snubbed and looked down. Also, let them know the difference between occasional liars and compulsive liars.
- Have the least expectations from the child. He is not an extension of you, he’s an individual.
- Become a role model in front of them. Introspect yourself and ask if you are displaying the same behavior in front of them which they are imitating.
- I trust that you will be benefited from these tips. I once again promise to take you with me the roller coaster ride of parenting and let’s grow with each other.
