Why Children Lie and How to Prevent It
Interview with leading expert on the development of lying in children, Dr. Victoria Talwar
Source: Dimaberlinphotos/Canva
For today’s newsletter, I was fortunate enough to interview the leading authority on lying in children, Dr. Victoria Talwar. Dr. Talwar has written many books and peer-reviewed publications on lying, most recently a book titled The Truth About Lying: Teaching Honesty to Children at Every Age and Stage. You can listen to our conversation or read the transcript below:
Dr. Cara Goodwin: I'm really excited because today I am here with Dr. Victoria Talwar who specializes in a topic that I think is very important to all of us parents and that we all have a lot of questions about— lying in children. Dr. Talwar, would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your research.
Dr. Victoria Talwar: I am professor at McGill University. I'm also chair of the department of educational and counseling psychology at McGill and I have worked for over 20 years now in the area of children's social, emotional, and moral development. In particular, I've done a lot of research looking at how do we foster children's pro-social behavior and their honesty. My new book, The Truth about Lying, is a culmination of many years of working in this field and translating what we know and how we can foster children's honesty to parents.
Dr. Cara: My first question is when do you find that most children start lying? And how does lying tend to change as children get older and development happens?
Dr. Talwar: So for young children, it can start in the preschool years. You can sometimes see early lies maybe as early as 2.5 years. By 3 to 4, most children are telling an occasional fib. It can happen earlier. For instance, we found that for children with older siblings, they often learn to lie a little earlier, probably as a result of interacting with their siblings.
The good thing is that they're not really that good at it initially. So you often can kind of detect it. This is an example I have from my own experience where I walked in and my child had a cookie in his hand. The cookie jar was off limits in the household until after dinner but the child was just standing there with chocolate all all over his face and on his shirt. As I walked in and I said to him, “Did you eat a cookie?” and he said, “No.” So you can kind of often catch these children in these very rudimentary lies. They may deny something, but they can't really follow up. So young children will tell lies, but they're not particularly good at them. So they often are just these one-word statements, like “no” or some kind of a false denial, but when you ask them questions, they can't cover it up.
For instance, in our research studies, we have situations where children are told not to do something. So we're playing a game and there's all of these exciting toys that make noises. The children are told not to peek at the toys and they have to guess the toys based on the sounds they hear. We leave them in the room with one of these toys making a sound. A lot of children can't resist the temptation and they peek to see what it is. When we come back and we ask them “Did you peek?” the majority of children who are four years of age and older will actually lie and say, “No.” Then when you ask them, “What do you think it is?” the younger children often give it away. They’ll blurt out, “It's Mickey mouse.” When you ask them “If you didn’t peek, how do you know?” they can't think that far yet because they don't have the cognitive skills.
Sometimes by six or seven years, but definitely by eight or nine years of age, they are much better at covering their tracks. They'll either realize, “I can't know what this is because if I know it's because I peeked.” So they come up with this a plausible lie, such as, “It's Mickey mouse and I knew because I have a toy just like that.” Explanations like this require more advanced cognitive skills so that’s why as children get older, they get better at covering their tracks.
Dr. Cara: So it sounds like as a parent, you should actually be excited when your child gets better at lying. I'm kidding, but what you’re saying is that lying does show cognitive development [translation: cognitive development means a child’s ability to learn, think, and reason].
Dr. Victoria: It is actually a marker of cognitive development. So that is one thing for all parents to know, is that when you first see your child lying, you could be thinking, “Oh my child is lying to me.” But, the other thing you could think in the back of your head is, “Oh, he's matured cognitively.” Even that initial step of when they lie but they're not very good at, it is a marker of them starting to understand that they can create false belief in others. This is an important developmental milestone in the ability to understand that other people have beliefs, knowledge, and feelings that are different from yourself.
So I often explain it to parents that children begin to understand that it’s like everybody has a thought bubble and they understand that we can't see into other people's thought bubbles. What they're thinking or knowing, or feeling —that's hidden to us. So just because we know a fact doesn't mean, another person knows a fact. Children don't understand that at a young age and they only start to develop this ability, which is called “theory of mind” in the preschool years. Once they start understanding that other people have beliefs and knowledge that are different from their own, they're able to develop perspective-taking, which is a really important ability that we need our children to be able to do. Theory of mind is important for them to understand social interactions and to have positive social interactions, to develop empathy, and to develop these perspective-taking skills. So this is a really important development and a really important building block in their social interactions and their social adjustment. However, it also gives you the ability to start understanding that you can manipulate other people's beliefs and instill a false belief in others. And so this is where parents can come in and socialize children. We can teach children to be honest and that lying is not okay. When you first see your child is lying, it is a sign of some positive development in them, but now you have to engage with them and teach them that, however, lying is not something that we do.
Dr. Cara: I think a lot of us parents remember the first time our child lies to us and it's kind of shocking. So let's say you're a parent and you have just caught your child in a lie for the first time. How do you react? Do you label it as a lie? Do you give any sort of consequences?
Dr. Victoria: I think most parents have gone through this. I give loads of examples in the book of different types of lies and how to react and how you might deal with those lies. But one example I give is catching the child, drawing on the wall, for instance. When you catch them, the first thing you have to do is calm yourself. You don't want to be reactive, which is really, really hard. I remember I caught my son drawing on the wall and I actually had to give myself a timeout. We had just painted the wall. So I actually just took the crayon and walked out of the room for a few seconds to calm myself down because I was just in such a state.
Then the second thing is to deal with the underlying motivation. Why did the child lie to you? And what did they do that they were lying about? If you only deal with the lies, then you may also miss the reason behind what they are doing. So, in the crayon situation, they may be afraid that you’re going to be upset with them. So that's their fear. So rather than completely confirming their fears, if you deal with them in a calm manner, they realize, “Oh the sky didn't fall on me here because I did something bad.” But at the same time, you don't want them to do that again. So you say, “You have to tell me the truth about this” and then you talk about the rule, “There is no drawing on the wall.” You can remove the crayon from them and you may decide that that's enough for this first transgression. You have to decide in the moment what degree of discipline you need to give based on what is reasonable for the transgression committed.
You might also get them to help repair. For example, they may have to help clean the wall and clean off the crayon. Depending on the age of the child, you might not get much cleaning happening, but an older child might be really vigorously cleaning. The idea is just that they go through the motions of something. The key is just the reparation there.
It really depends on what the actual lie is about and the motivation behind it. If you only ever deal with the lie, you may not be dealing with other unwanted behavior. So for instance, in the case of a child who steals a toy and then lies about it. You may be really upset about the lie but you also want to deal with the fact that child has stolen something. So you have to look at what the lie is, but also what is it about? And sometimes you have to deal with that as well. You have to make sure that you are looking at the behavior and the wider perspective of what that lie is about and why it happened. Sometimes the lie is just told to you out of fear of your reaction and understanding that they may be fearing your reaction, it can help you to calm down and deal with them calmly. That often helps them to understand that are not going to confirm their worst fears that you're going to just hit the roof on them.
Dr. Cara: So young children often tell harmless white lies that may even just be exaggerating a story. Should you as a parent just let these lies slide or should you address them, in hopes that it would prevent more harmful lying?
Dr. Victoria: So for very young children, they still have blurred lines between fantasy and reality. So, it’s not uncommon for a small child to come back from daycare and tell you something like, “Today we went to the zoo and I saw kangaroo.” These are often sort of their fantasy stories and they're not really lying in the sense that they're not trying to intentionally give you a false story. They're just part of their fantasy worlds. These distinctions are not as clear for them in the preschool years. So understanding that is important so you don’t have to react negatively to these stories. They're often doing something very typical and age-appropriate. If you’re concerned that they are over-doing it, you can always say, “Well you remember that was just your pretend play and you didn't actually go to the zoo today.”
You can talk to them and start very calmly and casually pointing out the distinctions between fantasy and reality and labeling, “That’s your imaginary play.” I don't think parents should overreact at those stories. If you have school-age children, telling these stories, then you might want to look further at why are they telling these imaginary tales. At this age, they should know the difference. Is it that they are trying to make people think more highly of them? Are they exaggerating because they want other people to think they're really neat? For instance, when I was at university, I ran into another student at that time who told these types of lies. She said there was a popular boy band that lived next door to her and that she had a helicopter pad on top of her house. In this case, the person was telling these lies because they were trying to weave a story that made them appear more interesting to people. You do want to deal with this kind of lie because it doesn’t help the child to develop positive relationships with other people.
Dr. Cara: So it sounds like the motivation for the lying is really important.
Dr. Victoria: Yes and understanding what's developmentally appropriate. Little children have imaginary play and pretend play and that's a really important part of their development. Imaginary play is so important for their cognitive development. We want to support them in this and you can get in on the fun. But if you’re really worried that they're not distinguishing fantasy versus reality, you can simply use labels (“This is our imaginary play,” “This was pretend play”). You can use these labels to help them to distinguish these if you are worried that they aren’t able to do so.
Dr. Cara: So should parents handle it differently if a child is caught in a lie versus they admit to the truth?
Dr. Victoria: Yes, absolutely. They should deal with that differently. So if a child admits the truth to you about something that they could have lied about and they might have wanted to lie about, you want to acknowledge that and give that a moment because that's important. We so often react to the lies and give discipline for the dishonesty. Yet, we often forget to do the opposite, which is give credit for the honesty. Yes, maybe they did something they're not allowed to do, and you might have to deal with that later.
So for example, imagine there’s a child who's playing with a ball in the house and they break a vase. Then later you come home, you find the broken pieces and you say, “What happened?” and they truthfully say, “I was playing with my ball and I broke the vase.” You want to first recognize that they were brave enough to tell you the truth. You also want to remind yourself that they felt like they could tell you the truth which is a good sign. So build upon that, because it’s an important part of having a good parent-child relationship. So if they feel like they can tell you the truth, you can say, “I'm really glad that you told me the truth about that.” Give it a moment and acknowledge it and label it so that they know that you do recognize when they tell the truth and that it is important to tell the truth.
Then later you may deal with the broken vase. You can say “You know, the rules about playing with the ball in the house and this is what's happened.” You point out the the consequences of them breaking the rules. Then you can ask them to repair. For example, you could say “I want you to clean up the pieces” or “Some of your pocket money will go to replacing this vase.” It's a calmly stated consequence that is related to the offense. It's not oversized.
So it’s really important to catch our children in moments of being honest and give credit for it and say, “I appreciate that. You were honest about that.”
Dr. Cara: What should parents do if they can't figure out if the child is lying or not? How do you address that situation?
Dr. Victoria: It's tricky. We can't always know whether they are being honest. We are not the best at detecting lies. So there may be lies that your child tells that will go undetected, just like there are lies that adults tell that go undetected. We tend to, unless we have some prior knowledge or suspicions, believe most people. If you don't know the truth, be careful not to get too paranoid. Depending upon what your previous communications are with them, you can give the child the benefit of the doubt most of the time. If you have no way of verifying, then now you have to be on alert for whatever that behavior is and what the motivations behind it might be. So maybe there are certain conditions or things that you now need to keep in your mind.
If however the child has routinely been lying to you about a certain behavior, then you may refer back to those conversations about it and say, “Because you've routinely been lying to me about this topic, I have no trust in what you say now. It's really important to be honest because, if you're not honest, then it's hard to trust what you say.” It depends of course, on what the prior context is. If it's the first time or the conditions are really not clear, then I would say at least give your child the benefit of the doubt, rather than believing that they're lying. You can use it as a wake up call to monitor the behavior but you don’t want to label them as a “liar.”
Dr. Cara: So it sounds like from this conversation a big takeaway is that lying is very developmentally normal for kids, but I think still for a lot of us parents, our goal is to raise honest adults who grow out of this phase and are not lying for the rest of their lives. So rather than only like reacting to lying in the moment, is there anything we can do proactively to raise children who value honesty?
Dr. Victoria: There's a lot of things we can do. In fact, this is where parents play a huge role, the most important role, in teaching children to be honest and raising individuals that become honest, friends, husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters. Parents are the first educators of their children and they play a big role in their children's lives. This is something I always say to parents —we often think about how we need to teach our children their ABCs and we need to teach them to count and to add and subtract and multiply, but we also can teach them how to behave in the world to be prosocial, kind, good people. And that includes being honest. So if that's important to you, you can actually proactively teach them to be honest.
That means not just waiting until they lie and then reacting to it, but actually having conversations about why honesty is important and giving examples of honesty, noticing when people are honest. Look for examples and stories around you. For example, “Oh look, that man was honest. He noticed he had been given too much change back from the store clerk and he gave it back.” Just noticing it in your lives and labeling it and reflecting on it shows that it's important and valued. Having conversations about honesty as part of “family time.” Stories are a great way to do it. You can also work on labelling a truth or a lie. Ask them, “Is what he said a truth or a lie?” and help them to label and start to understand what is the truth and what is a lie.
As they get older, you can ask them questions that are more like, “Why do you think that person said that?” or “How do you think that person felt when they were told the truth or told a lie?” So you can get them to reflect upon it. You can give examples. I go into this in a lot more depth in the book. It's important that you “walk the walk.” So if you're telling them honesty is important and then you're turning around and they're observing you tell little lies. For example, you go to the movies and you lie about your child's age to get them in for cheaper. They're observing that. What that's communicating is that honesty is important on face value, but we can all get away with a little few lies here and there. That’s communicating to them and that's also modeling lying to them. So you need to think about what is important to you and then teach them it and also reflect it in your own behavior.
Dr. Cara: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like no more white lies to our kids.
Dr. Victoria: Yes, there's research looking at parental lying and it actually can affect the relationship between parent and child as they get older. In fact, it has been found that when parents frequently tell lies to children, it is linked to lower levels of well-being in the adult children.
Dr. Cara: That makes a lot of sense. This has been so incredibly interesting. I feel like I've learned so much and I've got some takeaways for how to work on honesty with my own kids. To end, could you just tell us about your book and where parents can find it if they are interested?
Dr. Victoria: The book is called The Truth about Lying: Teaching Honesty to Children at Every Age and Stage. It is published by the American Psychological Association as part of their LifeTools Series. So you can order directly from them or you can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a host of other distributors.
Dr. Cara: Amazing. One final question, where can people find you if they want to know more about your research?
Dr. Victoria: I have website that is all about our different research and it's talwarresearch.com. They can also look at our Instagram account or Facebook page to learn more about research.
Overall Translation
Most children learn how to lie around 3 to 4 years. It is a normal developmental phase and a milestone in cognitive and social-emotional development. When you catch your child in a lie, stay calm and give a natural or logical consequence (such as asking them to help clean up a mess they made or get an ice pack for their sibling). For young children, you may want to help them to understand the difference between a lie and the truth. Try to figure out the motivation for their lying so that you can address the lying itself. If your child admits to the truth, make sure that you acknowledge that and praise them for honesty. If you are not sure if your child is being honest or not, try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Parents should talk to their children regularly about the importance of honesty and help them to understand the consequences of lying, as well as model honesty.
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Welcome to the Parenting Translator newsletter! I am Dr. Cara Goodwin, a licensed psychologist with a PhD in child psychology and mother to three children (currently an almost-2-year-old, 4-year-old, and 6-year-old). I specialize in taking all of the research that is out there related to parenting and child development and turning it into information that is accurate, relevant, and useful for parents! I recently turned these efforts into a non-profit organization since I believe that all parents deserve access to unbiased and free information. This means that I am only here to help YOU as a parent so please send along any feedback, topic suggestions, or questions that you have! You can also find me on Instagram @parentingtranslator, on TikTok @parentingtranslator, and my website (www.parentingtranslator.com).
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