Lying to your children about small things is okay if it makes your life a “little bit easier”, a parenting consultant has argued. 

While many parents will insist that lying is a terrible thing to do, Kirsty Ketley believes that parenting is a tough job and if a lie makes your life easier, why not? 

“It's those little small things, isn't it?” she explained on Newstalk Breakfast. 

“Not the big things where you're not taking accountability for anything. 

“You know, ‘The ice cream van, the music playing because it's run out of ice cream’ - those little things like that. 

“‘The park's closed, so you can't go.’” 

Father with baby son on shoulders. Picture by: Connect Images / Alamy.

Now her children are older, Ms Ketley admits her children are a lot less gullible. 

Still, she looks back on their early childhood and recalls thinking that the occasional lie made her life just a “little bit easier”. 

“When I was eating my favourite chocolate, if I said there was an ingredient in it that they didn't like, they stopped asking to have a bite,” she said. 

“It's those things.”

Nor does she think they feel upset about her little lies when they were growing up. 

“I think as they get older, they understand,” she said. 

“They get it a little bit more; obviously, as they're older, I think they're very good at understanding when parents are trying to pull the wool over their eyes. 

“I've got a teenager now - there's no flies on that one.”

Main image: A child walking with his parents.