Reasons Your Child May Be Lying To You

It’s important to develop an open and honest relationship with your child. However, it can be hard to do when they’re not telling you the truth. If you think your child is lying to you, don’t assume that they are trying to hurt you. Instead, look at their behavior and potential reasons why they might be lying.

They are trying to avoid consequences

Your child may be lying to you because they want to avoid the consequences of their actions. Consequences can include:

• Being grounded
• Having something they care about being taken away
• An emotional of physical reaction from their parent that elicits fear
• A lecture
• To avoid hurting someone’s feelings
• To protect someone they care about

Furthermore, Your child may or may not have had self-control when doing the activity, but since they know they can’t go back in time, they are lying to avoid the consequences. If you feel that this is why they’re lying, change your approach. Don’t threaten them with a consequence as this will make them more likely to lie. Depending on the severity of the issue, you can try to assure them that they won’t suffer a consequence if they are just honest with you. This will make them more likely to open up to you as they are no longer afraid of potential consequences.

They are lying to themselves and you are collateral damage

Your child may be in denial and is lying to themselves. They can be having a hard time admitting what they did and can’t really believe it themselves. Thus, It can be too emotionally difficult to talk about the truth, so they lie to themselves and you, as a result. If somebody cannot accept their own truth, it is unlikely they will be honest about it to anybody else.

They are deeply attached to the activity and don’t want to stop 

A parent needs to look beneath the behavior and lying and try to understand why their child is so deeply attached to this activity. Look under the surface and investigate. Ask questions like  what do they get out of it and how does it make them feel? These may indicate fundamental needs that are missing. In these cases, parents need to consider alternative ways of helping their child get these needs met. However, parents should try to position themselves as a life coach guiding them along the way with support rather than as the enemy who is out to punish the child. 

We hope that by knowing some of the reasons kids lie, you’ll be able to identify how to better support your child. There are alternative ways to minimize your child’s lying when you just consider the reason WHY they are lying in the first place. If you want an open and honest relationship with your child, do not just resort to punishments and threats. If you want to learn more about effective parenting methods and understand why your child is acting the way they are acting, visit our webpage on parent coaching or alternatively our parenting course Raising Kids To Their Full Potential.