The lying behavior of children

“There are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics” – Benjamin Disraeli

There is truth to Benjamin Disraeli’s famous quote. In fact, everyone lies. According to researchers, the average American lies 1-3 times a day. However, most of these lies are what we call prosocial lies. Prosocial lies are lies we tell to be nice. For example, if someone is a terrible cook, we might tell them their food was good to be nice. It should come as no surprise that kids lie too.

In fact, it is a part of normal cognitive development to learn how to lie.

No matter how wellyou parent, your children will learn how to lie, and they might even become great liars. The key is not to panic and to reinforce honest behavior.

Lying is developed along with the development of Theory of Mind.

Theory of Mind is the ability to infer the unobservable mental states of another and use the states to predict the behaviors of others as well as their own.

Think back to the last time you interacted with a toddler. When they talked about something, they likely talked about the thing as if you knew exactly what they were thinking. This is because toddlers have not yet developed a theory of mind. Instead, they have egocentric thinking, meaning they believe their thoughts are the same as the thoughts of others. It is not until age six that children develop a sophisticated adult-like theory of mind.

Why is theory of mind important?

A person must develop a theory of mind to lie because theory of mind is necessary for first-order and second-order false beliefs. First-order false belief is the ability to create a false belief in another person. For example, a child who has mastered first-order false beliefs understands that their parent can believe something that is not true.

Second-order false belief is the realization that it is possible to hold a false belief about someone else’s beliefs. This means a child understands that others can tell them a lie and they might believe it. Additionally, it means that the child understands they might not know what someone else knows. For example, a child might believe that you do not know they are failing math. Thus, when they try to lie about failing math, you already know the truth.

How does this impact your child’s development and learning to lie?

According to a theory proposed by Walczyk and colleagues (2014), the act of lying is comprised of four components: activation, decision, construction, and action. Essentially, they state that children learn to deceive through developing their theory of mind and through the reinforcement or punishment of deceptive and honest behaviors.

At a very young age, children learn that certain behaviors are rewarded and others are punished. For example, as early as age two, a child knows that taking a cookie might lead to their parent yelling at them. Although they do not have a sophisticated theory of mind yet, they learn they can deny the behavior to avoid punishment. If they deny a behavior and it is not punished, they develop an expected value of deception, meaning that the value of lying is greater than the value of telling the truth.

As children grow, their theory of mind becomes more sophisticated. Once the child develops first-order and second-order false beliefs, they learn they can convince another person to believe something that is untrue. As a result, they learn to withhold truthful information as they age and are less likely to rat themselves out (because they develop inhibition).

As parents, when we find out our child lied, we might yell or punish them. If we can catch the lie in the moment, the punishment for lying might increase the value of honesty. However, how we react determines if the value of honesty increases or if the value of deception increases.

So what can you do?

First, behaviorism research shows that punishments are not very effective at decreasing a behavior. Instead, it is best to use reinforcements (see Taking control of your parenting). Reinforcements increase a behavior, so you will want to reinforce honest behaviors such as telling the truth. Every time your kiddo tells the truth be sure to let them know how much you appreciate that they felt safe enough to tell you the truth. For example, imagine that your kid broke something. After breaking it, they come and tell you that it broke. As mad as you might be, yelling at them for breaking the item will only decrease the value of honesty, and the next time they break something they might lie to you about it. Instead, let them know you are proud of them for telling the truth and talk to them about the best way to fix the broken item. Make telling the truth a safe place.

Second, do not set them up for failure. If you know your kiddo did something they weren’t supposed to do, don’t give them the opportunity to lie to you. Just communicate with them. Let them know you know what happened, and talk to them. Set boundaries and consequences.