Reasons Why Does Your Child Lie And Ideas To Handle Them and Help Them

When children tend to cook up stories to hide what things could likely get them scolding from their parents, we do have a smile at that cuteness and creativity, but the bottom line remains that the child has uttered a lie.

There is no child who is perfect, not to do what he is not asked to do, nor is there any child who doesn’t lie about it.

It is just that, parents need to be able to find if their child is lying or not, which would help them to help the child leaving this bad habit at an early age.

Why Do Children Lie?

While telling lies starts with a cheeky smile or a funny face or a laughable silence on being questioned about a broken toy or hitting a younger sibling, the intensity of telling a lie and being serious about it, starts as a bad habit in doing homework usually.

A child with low confidence spins grand tales in an attempt to make an impression in front of others. He tries to kill his low self-esteem with his own stories so that he gets people’s attention and admiration. Such children normally tell events which would not have happened at all or exaggerate a simple happening vividly.

Behaviour of a Child Which Tells You That He is Lying!

Now, let us look at some of the signs/behaviour that could tell us if the child is lying or not. A mother’s intuitions rarely go wrong, she can make an easy guess about her child when something is amiss.

Avoiding Eye Contact-

Children avoid eye contact when they start to tell lies. They wouldn’t be able to look into their mother’s eyes while talking. But this is only at the early stage of this poor habit, later they overcome their guilt and would more confidently tell lies as they talk other normal things. Hence, the parents, especially a mother would be able to notice this difference and it is important the child is advised against it at the earliest.

Defensive arguments and Contradictory Statements-

Children get into defensive mode arguments with the parents, mostly along with irrelevant details and/or contradictory statements. This happens when they lie and you have not bought their theory. Such behaviour happens mostly with the teen kids, who tend to imagine that they are too smart for the world, especially the parents.

Repeated Statements–

Children keep saying the same thing again and again, strongly reiterated a statement, you can easily guess that there is something fishy and it could easily be a lie. When the child starts to tell lies, he wouldn’t know to go about it when further questioned and is inclined to repeat the same statement again and again. Catch hold of him and help him overcome this cheap habit.

Unusual Gestures–

Touching or wiping the face, like that of wiping action, rolling the eyes, fishy laughter or a stupid smile while talking is a give away that they are lying about something.

Body Language–

Tensed or perplexed or confused expression and/or wiggly body language definitely reveals the child is up to something not so right.

Read on How to Make your Kid Smart

How to Help A Child Overcome Telling Lies?

A simple, straight answer is “A Happy Home”.

Anything and Everything of a child starts from his home. The quality of living at home imbibes the quality of character in the child.

Never let your child feel alone or ashamed.
Treat him with respect. Build an environment where he can share things with ease.
When you feel he is lying and reiterating the same, do not threaten or pester beyond a point. Wait till he could be caught red-handed, explain him that he was only committing a bigger mistake by lying than the mistake he wanted to hide.
A lie is never rewarded with goodness. And when the consequence of lying has landed him in a bigger loss, he himself will realize how bad it is to tell lies. Be a support then than being a rebuke.
Never force too many things on the child, especially, if most of them are not of his liking. A Child will be left with no option, but to retaliate with a lie for an escape.
Even as a baby or toddler, tell him or read him a lot of good moral stories, which can psychologically help your child build good character and good qualities.
The child might have developed an interest in something, which he is convinced that you would object to it, when asked openly. So, he starts to maintain it as a secret and starts telling lies around it. Try to find what it is, encourage him if it is good and explain him why he shouldn’t he do that. In this age of technology, they are exposed unwanted content, web series, books online, so it is important to keep an eye the children’s activities and behaviour always.