When should lying concern you?
WHILE you may feel betrayed when you catch your child in a lie, clinical psychologist Dr Pearnel Bell says that lying is very much a part of the developmental stage.
“In trying to understand lying, one must first understand the development stage of the child. Children, usually between the ages of three and five, engage in fantasy play. This is a normal development stage where children make believe, and it may come off as telling lies,” Dr Bell explained.
She said during this phase it is important that parents don’t judge children or treat them harshly, because little fibs could become a permanent problem-solving avenue for children who feel they must protect themselves.
“Lying can be a learned behaviour where the child is made afraid to speak the truth because of fear of punishment. So from as early as parents realise their children will lie simply to get out of [certain] situations, they should start encouraging children to speak the truth by being open,” Dr Bell explained.
But what are some of the reasons children lie, and should parents take note of any particular type of lies?
“Children will create scenarios to impress their friends; for example, saying they went to Disneyland, or they have some new toy, just to be the envy of their group as well as to get attention. Others will tell lies because they want to empathise with someone or to earn a friend, and one of the most common reasons is to avoid trouble,” Dr Bell said. She added that children are fully aware when they do things that would cause someone to become angry, and naturally try to protect themselves against the backlash.
Additionally, Dr Bell said that children are exposed to a lot of fiction, and so most of their thinking is sometimes in line with not only the characters, but the storylines presented. This sometimes causes children to pass on their fantasies as reality.
On a completely different level, there are children whose tendency to lie becomes a matter of concern predominantly because of their nature and intention.
“Some children will tell lies to implicate other people and cause trouble for them. Unfortunately, sometimes parents and other adults can be blindsided in these lies because children are often seen as being innocent, therefore incapable of causing mischief,” Dr Bell warned.
She advised that parents should also be concerned about their children when they continuously try to blame others for lying, consistently lie, and build a big defence even when their arguments clearly have no basis in reality. It is also time to worry when the child shows no remorse when caught in a web of lies, when they portray other types of dishonest behaviour such as stealing and cheating, when they stretch the truth, and when lying seems like a reflex.
Dr Bell noted that when these habits are noticed in children above age eight to about 10, parents will need to work more closely with their children because these habits could become a part of their children’s personalities. In severe cases, however, she noted that some children will require professional intervention because this could be a trigger of existing medical conditions such as frontal lobe impairment disorder which affects mental functions such as motivation, planning, social behaviour and speech production; as well as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and developing into pathological liars.
In regular circumstances, however, Dr Bell said that raising children who value the truth and who practise being truthful largely depends on the interaction of parents as well as the child’s observation of them.
“The first step to achieving this is through teaching children the natural consequences of their actions. It is a process which requires patience and love. So parents want to tell their children the importance of telling the truth. Parents also need to know that you cannot ask your child to be open and truthful, and when they do you become hostile and unpleasant. This will cause them, from very early, to mistrust you, and parents must be the ultimate model of truth.”
