How To Model Lying For Children

Lying gets even more complicated when we take into account how often we, as adults and parents, lie. As Dina Spiegel, a child psychologist in private practice in New York, notes, “We model lying all the time. We really do believe as adults that it’s okay to lie in certain situations. We go to someone’s house for dinner and say, ‘Thank you. That was delicious,’ even when it was terrible.” Telling these types of lies, though, is an opportunity to teach kids values. “Children are learning the nuances,” Spiegel explains. If your son or daughter sees you telling someone how much you enjoyed dinner and he or she knows that you didn’t, you should explain that it was said to protect someone’s feelings—and that it’s very different from lying about homework. Siwek agrees, “When you get caught in a lie by your child, you need to own up to it.”

To read the full story on what to do when your child lies, click here.