Why Does My Child Lie? (And How Can I Help?)

Honesty is such a beautiful trait to have, and it’s one of the most important values that I want to instill in my children. And yet we are at the age where my husband and I are beginning to deal with our kids lying. We want to encourage our kids to always tell the truth, and to always come to us with anything, but we also need to know how to deal with lying. Here is what we’ve come up with to answer the question: Why does my child lie? (And how can I help?)

First, let’s define lying. Lying is saying something which is not true, right? Right. But did you know that there are really more than one ways to lie?

For the sake of learning about young children and why they do what they do, let’s clarify: lying innocently and lying deliberately. (If you want to read about more specific ways that lies can be categorized, check out this article here.)

To me, lying innocently is what a young child does when they say what you want them to say. They’re not trying to get out of trouble, they’re trying to please you. (Or hell, maybe they don’t even understand what they’re saying and they’re just echoing like a little parrot.)

Lying deliberately is when you do have a conscious moment of saying “I know what the truth is but I’m choosing to not say that and say something else instead.” It may be to not get in trouble, it may be to not hurt someone’s feelings, or it may be for another reason.

In my opinion, lying innocently is not something that should be punished, or really even addressed. This kind of lying happens with really young children – usually less than three years old – when there’s a ton going on developmentally. They’re going through tantrums, nightmares and night terrors, and quite possibly the terrible twos. They’re not lying to avoid a consequence.

The focus of this article will be on the latter I described: lying deliberately. This is when your kid does know the truth, and they probably know what’ll happen if they did tell you the truth. So when they come to that mental fork in the road, they choose to lie instead.

How to Prevent the Lie

This is the easy part. What can we do to prevent (or minimize) lying in the first place? As it turns out, most of the suggestions are pretty straightforward.

Firstly, you should always tell the truth. For parents, that sometimes means going out of our comfort zone: admitting you don’t know the answer to something, confessing that you forgot something you’d said you’d do, or giving an answer you don’t want your kids to know. (Of course if a kid asks a difficult question, like about where babies come from or why they need active shooter drills in school, you can be honest without being detailed. Find out more about how to talk to your kids here.)

The most important thing you can do is to model for your children. Trust me, as a teacher: kids can tell when you’re bullshitting. And it’ll affect their trust and reliability in the future as they learn that.

Next, having discussions on the regular about telling the truth, the value of honesty, and how it affects other people, are all great ways to keep trust and honesty in the conversation. You can bring this up when your child tells you something about their day, or an interaction with another child, or even you relating a story of your own.

Let your child see “real life” instances of people lying (and what happens as a result), and people telling the truth (and what happens as a result). It’s ok to talk about how lying really can seem easier because of A B C, but always praise those who tell the truth.

Finally, work to establish a healthy, open relationship with your child so that they feel comfortable coming to you with anything. If you’re not really sure how to open up this kind of dialogue – we’re talking deep issues, not just “How was your day?” – check out the article I wrote about how to talk to your kids.

What to Do When Your Child Lies

This is the difficult part. You’ve caught your child in a lie. Now you have to handle it. For me, the terrifying part is “How do I teach my child that it is wrong to lie, but also make sure they know that I still love them even though I’m disappointed? And long term, how to I preserve that ‘open door’ relationship with them so that they continue to come to me with anything?”

Side note: being a parent is really freaking hard sometimes.

Here’s one option: How did you know the kid was lying? If you think they are (but you’re not sure) you can speak to them gently and try to give them another chance, reminding them that it’s always right to tell the truth. See if they come clean when you ask them to tell you again.

Assuming that doesn’t happen, and you know your child has lied, these are the things I talk to my kid about. (Of course, adjust these bullets to what works for you, and make the verbage age-appropriate for your child.)

• I know that you told a lie and I’m disappointed. It hurts my heart that you didn’t tell me the truth.
• Unfortunately, now you have a consequence for the choice that you made. And that natural consequence is that right now I do not trust you. (There also may be another consequence if our child wasn’t safe, etc.)
• When you lie, it hurts other people around you. It can be dangerous and it can hurt people’s feelings too.
• I know it can be a challenge, but we always tell the truth. It’s always the right thing to do, even if you know you will get in trouble or get a consequence.
• How would it make you feel if I lied to you?
• I love you and I always want you to be safe and happy. I know that you can do better, and I will love you no matter what. I am teaching you how to be a respectable, kind person in this world.
• We need to think about how to fix this as much as we can. You cannot take away the lie, but you can apologize and try to not lie anymore. And we need to look and see what else we need to do to make this right.

Lastly, I thought this article about a child lie at various ages was interesting – it breaks down what kind of lie you might get from your kid at different life stages.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I appreciate your support and would love for you to share this out or pin it! Let me know in the comments what you thought or how I can help! Us parents are all in this together.