On this week's 'Parenting' segment on the Moncrieff show, one listener asked what to do if your child won’t stop lying to you.

Joanna Fortune, a psychotherapist specialising in child and adult psychotherapy, offered some guidance.

  

Listener question

I have an eight-year-old son and I’ve noticed that he frequently lies to me.

He doesn’t just tell white lies, they’re whoppers, and I’m worried that this obsession with hiding the truth isn’t good for him.

He doesn’t veer from his story even when I question him, even when he knows that I know he is lying. I give out about it a lot to him but he still seems determined to do it.

I wouldn’t mind if it was about something small but it’s really becoming a habit and it’s gotten to the point where I don’t know whether or not he’s being truthful with me and I have to ask his siblings what happened.

I wondered what typically would spark this kind of behaviour? Is it a lack of self-confidence? And how do I encourage him to actually be honest?

Joanna Fortune’s advice

“It is not always a popular thing when I say but the truth of this lying business is that learning to tell a lie is as developmentally important as learning to tell the truth,” she said.

“It takes children until they are about nine or ten to truly refine that skill and he is slap bang in that age where can tell a pretty convincing lie.

“You know, there are times you might get caught out but you are so immersed, you are so bought into you are like, I’m in it now, I am just going see it out. Sometimes they will tell us lies that we end up going, is that the truth? Are they telling me a lie?

She said children start learning to lie at around three-years-old and develop it further up to age six. By the age of eight, she said most children can “run with a lie and they can stick with it”.

Little white lies

Joanna said the “nature and detail” of the lies the child is telling is important as there are times when telling a little white lie is no bad thing.

“Being able to tell the grandparent that I really do love that jumper you gave me thanks very much, even though it itches me and I don’t like to wear it,” she said.

“You learn by this age to be able to protect somebody else’s feelings by these lies and there can be a kindness and pro-social gain to that.”

Trust

If the lies are more serious however, it is time for a proper conversation about lies and truth.

“Talk about trust, you know, that it is really important that I can trust you because, if you keep telling me lies then I just don’t know if I can believe anything you say,” said Joanna.

“That means it is going to be hard for me to let you do the things you want or when you say you are going somewhere to believe you are really going there.

“You are basically highlighting that he is self-sabotaging himself. That this is actually about him and bringing it back.”

She said there is no need to talk about it in a preachy way, noting that the conversation is about helping him to understand why the truth is beneficial.

“They are ego-centric at this stage of development as well and they need to understand, how does it impact me?” she said.

“The classic cautionary tale to revisit is of course the boy who cried wolf. That is very effective at highlighting the risks and you can relate it back.

“You could also read that story together and say how would you feel if I lied to you? How would you feel if your teacher lied to you and what would you feel if I was telling lies to your other parent or telling lies to your sister?”

Problematic

When it comes to lies that are “loaded, really problematic and are causing difficulty,” you have to be very clear that lying is not acceptable.

“Make it clear that in your family the truth is what matters and lying won’t be tolerated so there will be consequences for telling lies,” she said.

She said it’s better to have this talk later on when both you and your child are calm.

“Make it very clear that you know he is lying and basically when he continues what he is doing is he is double lying so he is digging it deeper and the consequence will reflect that,” she said.

“You want to make it easier to tell the truth by not consequencing the truth. So, you consequence the lie but if they come to you and tell the truth, don’t go, OK but you are still grounded or you can’t do this or that.

“Because then they will think sure that would have happened whether I told you the lie or not so I should have just stuck with that.

“You want to really incentivise me practically to tell you the truth and praise the truth. Heap the praise on the truth.”

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