when your kid tells a lie

While reporting a story on adult lying, I had the pleasure of talking with developmental psychologist Victoria Talwar of McGill University, who studies lying in children. I told her about an episode last week, in which I watched my older daughter swat my younger one. Instead of simply accepting reality and scolding her, my reaction was to question it further. “Did you just hit your sister?” After a pause, the guilty one offered a slightly confused “no.”

Lying, it turns out, is actually a sign of something good happening in the developing brain. Dishonesty requires some mental heavy lifting, like figuring out what another person knows and how to use that information to your advantage. Many kids start experimenting with stretching the truth between ages 3 and 4. “In a way, it’s almost like they’re exercising a new ability,” Talwar says. “ And part of that is, ‘Mommy doesn’t know what I just did.’”

Another strategy to minimize lies, as simple as it sounds, is to ask your kid to tell you the truth. Sweet little children, bless their hearts, just might comply, as a study from Talwar and colleagues suggests.

And remember, if you want your kid to value honesty, you should check yourself. One study found that children were more likely to lie after having been lied to. And lest you think you can skirt under their underdeveloped lie radars, consider a recent study. Children ages 6 to 11 were actually not terrible at detecting white lies. When watching a video of an adult or child saying that they thought a hunk of used, dingy soap was a good gift, or that a bad drawing of a person was actually good, children were about as good as adults in spotting fibs.

Full article from sciencenews
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