Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Lying (4yo) liars who lie!

One of my nieces made up the most amazing stories.

My GF at the time actually believed them. For example, one of them was about how she and her brother were up in a tree and this deer walked by and they jumped down on it and tried to ride it. She was 7 at the time and it was cute. (That was the last straw for me for the GF, but that is another topic..)

But, at some point, it has to stop. And it did.

It becomes pathological when the deception leads to others or the liar acting on the information that is not true. Some kids get let down so much that they no longer perceive the value of truth and the trust it engenders versus the lie and the pain in enables.

If the child is raised in a trusting home and the parent calls the child out on the fibs and half-truths, then they will get the picture.

When I fostered kids, most of them sooner or later remarked, "I wish Mom (or Dad) did what they said they were going to do like Mr Austin." For the boys, this was enough to gain their trust and marked a turning point. Girls were different. They needed to discuss things, too. LOL.

I can recall making cogent judgements about people when I was four years old. I imagine kids do this unconsciously at an even earlier age.

Masterofnone, she will have to see the pain it causes.

A niece told some casual lies that led to her and a friend nearly getting killed by me in a farm accident. It would have been an accident, but still they would have died. She was 13 when it occurred and from then on she was so honest with me she rarely had anything to say around me.

I think if you can find a book about a lie leading to disaster that she can empathize with, that might be a point of discussion.

I do think some people have more of an ability to be creative, and imagine more that others. It seems that children naturally have the ability to have such flexibility with imagination, the truly creative ones, even moreso.

My littlest D and other very creative people I know are very sensitive. It's hard to figure out how to teach them to make the call between creating stories for entertainment and mixing fact with fiction in a way that may be taken as purposeful deception.

I tried reasoning with small one when she was about 5, I didn't focus too much on it before then. DD8 always listened to reason, not the case with DD, now 6.

It finally got to the point that we really did need her to have some negative consequences at home before she started to hurt her credibility with other people.

I took the hard line and started "busting" her whenever I could catch her. It's hard to figure out, but I did notice she had the slightest little twinkle in her eye when she thought she had someone going.

It didn't stop the behavior right away, but I was persistent and never let one get buy if I noticed.

I think she finally figured out that telling stories for fun just to see if she could get away with it was not a good thing when I busted her telling a story about a new friend.

We were sitting outside with some of her other friends, she made sure she had everyone's attention and then announced: "Did you guys know that Amy's dad is in jail?" Of course all the five year olds were all, oohh and ahhh and oh no! I basically called her out and told her she was never allowed to play with her new friend of have her over or go to her house.
You should have seen her face!!!
She didn't expect that and she was shocked, "why?" she said:

And I just told her that she isn't allowed to play with kids whose daddys are in jail.

She looked at me in shock and awe and noticed that I had a little twinkle in my eye.

I'm pretty sure that's when she made the connection.

I have no data, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if we younger/youngest are generally more devious than the older ones. When the older one is bigger, more articulate, and more identified with the adults, sometimes you just have to be creative in order to get what you need .

Can I use that on a portfolio for GS9 to apply to DYS? :LOL:

Hang in there Kriston! If you don't see a marked improvement by 10, then seek professional help. In other words, it's a common behavior and requires corrective action by the parent. But *sometimes* that's not enough, that's when I'd see professional help. My thoughts are that most undesireable childhood behaviors are outgrown/corrected by 12, then it becomes willful choices. But I wouldn't wait until 12 to call in help.

Just be careful he doesn't feel labeled as the 'bad kid' for lying and older brother is the 'good kid' because he doesn't lie. He should feel guilt, because he is guilty. Awww, I think you get it, and you're doing fine.

I just had a talk with DH *AND* DS7 about that very issue, actually. I want there to be room for two good kids in the family!

And we have the same problem about believing the older one and distrusting the younger one's version, MoN. It's hard to avoid that power thing when one actually (and practically religiously!) tells the truth, and the other doesn't.

Frankly, I figure some of that winds up being a natural consequence of telling lies, but it doesn't lead to the kind of relationship with DS4 that I would like to have (let alone between DS7 and DS4!). But I think it's fair to say, "Tell me the truth instead of lying to me, and I'll believe you, oh 'Boy Who Cried Wolf!'" I don't know what else to do there...

Kriston - i have no good advice, but I wish you luck! Reading through this post, I was thinking that DS4 doesn't really lie very much, but he did have his moments. He's not a good liar, so we called him out on it and he would fess up.

In one area - preschool - DS4 has always made up stories about what he did and he will not tell us what he really did. Since these stories were obviously intended to be funny, I didn't consider this lying really, but maybe he's a liar by omission! (We only learn what's going on in preschool from newsletters and other kids and things in the backpack.)

I do remember being an excellent liar as a little kid. When my big brother and I were up to no good, only he would end up get the blame and the punishment because I was so very good at lying. I was very naughty and could get the tears flowing... Very effective! I grew up to be a person who cannot do anything even remotely dishonest.

That's comforting to some degrees.

DS3 is such a good liar that I am afraid he would have us fooled before long. The fact that he denies what he did doesn�t concern me as much as the things he made up to cover the lie.

For instance, yesterday, I let him use the iPhone to Facetime his uncle while I was taking a shower. Once I got out the shower, DS was playing a game on the phone. I asked him what happened, and he told me his uncle�s phone was out of battery and broke. I could tell from his body language that he was lying, and he later admitted to me that he ended the call himself to play games.

He is also very good at blaming others for what he did. Should I be concerned? Or is it just a developmental phase?

I'm not sure how the common version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" goes, but in the version I told, the boy gets eaten.

We have mountain lions 'round these parts, so I always replaced the wolves. And the little boy is replaced by a girl when telling the story to our daughter.

When our daughter was old enough to read on her own, she figured out the ruse... and then accused me of lying to her about the story.

Oh my. Tangled webs, you know.