(Don't) Tell me sweet little lies

I always believe kids do things for a reason. Maybe it's the reaction he gets from you when he lies, maybe it's a power struggle. Who knows? But if those things are taken away the fun will be gone & he'll stop.

With that said, this is what I'd do. I'm sure you've already lectured him about his lying. Remind him that you love him very much but are concerned about his not telling the truth. Then explain to him that every time he tells you something untrue he will be going to the timeout chair for 5 minutes. When he is caught in a lie calmly talk to him ("I'm sorry you don't understand that lying is unacceptable") and send him to the timeout chair.

Be consistent with this. Everything I've learned about child rearing says that consistency is the key. When he realizes his power struggle, or the rise he gets from you (or whatever makes 5 year-old boys so exasperating - and I know this too - I have two of them!) is gone and replaced with 5 less minutes of fun, I bet he'll stop.

Lattemom is the mother of three energetic kids ages 6, 8 & 11 and a discussion leader for arizonamoms.com.

Oh my gosh, my 5 year old daughter has been going through this very same thing -wonder if it's the age. She too lies about things that are really insignificant, but still they are lies. However, she'll say she was just "tricking". She took a bottle of clear nail polish I had sitting on the sink in the bathroom and poured it into the toilet. I knew when I went into the bathroom something happened with the nail polish, I could smell it. She swore up and down she didn't touch it. Finally after much inspection I figured it out by the plastic film like cover it made over the top of the water in the toilet. Around easter she had spilled some juice into her easter basket and it got some of the grass in it sticky so I threw that part of the grass away, there was still some grass left in the basket. She took the grass out of the trash and put it in her basket, but swore she didn't do it. It's little things too that she doesn't think are a big deal. I've tried explaining to her the difference between tricking and actually lying, which I think she gets but I don't know why she continues with the lying. It seems to go in waves, sometimes it seems like it's a few times a week and then nothing for a week and then it starts again.

I saw a fascinating documentary about the cognitive, developmental stages of children. Thank goodness, your son is right on track! Really. At this age, children's development of Theory Of Mind, jumps dramatically (Google this phrase for more explaination). Your son is experimenting with his newly aquired understanding that he can know things that other people may not know. Of course, this takes a lot of experimentation because he doesn't yet understand about body language and will undoubtedly get caught every time.

In an experiment, researchers had 3 and 4 yr olds, dump the coins out of a piggy bank and instead fill it with screws. Then, the children were asked what their mother, who had been in the other room, would think was in the piggy bank. Without fail, these younger kids answered, "money". But, when the same experiment was repeated with 5 and 6 yr olds, those kids understood that since mom didn't see them replace the coins with screws, then mom would guess that coins were still in the piggy bank. They've repeated it with birthday candles inside of crayon boxes, etc.

This skill is a monumental leap forward cognitively, and ALL healthy children will go through a lying phase, regardless of how "good" the family and/or parenting is and the examples set for the children. Parents need to relax and realize this. Even after a child "gets" the distinction between truth and lies, there's still much more learning about theory of mind to be done. During the school years, children learn to understand that people’s actions do not always reflect their true inner feelings, and that people can have a variety of feelings at one time, some of which conflict. School-aged children begin to understand irony, sarcasm, ”white lies”, the distinction between literal and non-literal speech, and metaphors indicating more advanced ability to understand the beliefs of others. A deficit in this area, is typical of kids on the autism spectrum.

But, of course, we need to teach children that lying can be hurtful/painful to others and can hurt them if others don't believe them. The Boy Who Cired Wolf, is a great story to read at this age. Veggie Tales has a wonderful video about a "Fib" that takes over a town.

The important thing to understand is that you can teach that lying is wrong, without being punitive. In fact, this "experimenting" is so compelling that children who are punished for lying, often learn how to become better liars. If you light heartedly, approach each instance with "is that true or is that a fib?" and calmly offer why it sounds untrue to you (i.e. "really, because I thought that I'd already put away the cookies. Maybe a space alien broke in and moved them!? But, I don't see any marks on the lawn from the spaceship...humm, maybe the goldfish leaped from the tank and nudged the cookies this way so that they other fish could each have a bite?! But, I don't see any water drops on the counter...etc.). Presenting your child with the evidence that his tale is untrue, helps him understand HOW other people think and deduce, which is the reason for his experiment to begin with! (even though, he's not that aware of why he's doing it).

My 5 yr old is doing the ssame thing. Most of the itme, when I present evidence to the contray, but insist that I still believe him, he breaks down and "confesses". It's really quite adorable! I find that the sillier my guesses are, the better. My son winds up giggling and confessing, because he feels no threat of punishment. Then, when he's confessed, we talk about why it's wrong to lie and why it's right to tell the truth. I even make up silly scenerios about what I might have done if I continued to believe the fib.

Understand why he's suddenly lying and teach him, don't punish.

The only way to cure lying is to make the liar lonely. The long and short of it is that whatever a child gets out of telling a lie goes away when no one is listening. Only then does the child realize what might happen if s/he were telling the truth, and no one believed him/her.

It takes a team effort, but, when he tells a lie, everyone has to literally turn their backs and ignore him. Don't let him answer the telephone or the doorbell. Don't let him play with others unless he's being directly supervised. Stay calm, and just say that "we don't lie in our family", and "until you learn to tell the truth, we can't trust you, so you're going to be treated like a 2 year-old who doesn't know the difference between telling the truth and making things up."

There's also the bomb: they don't let liars into kindergarten.

I'll bet you that, within two weeks, he'll be ready to cross his heart and hope to die to convince you that he's not lying. Even better, he'll have this nagging sense that, if he lies to you about where he was after the Homecoming game, you'll know it.

I agree with Optimist. My kids are younger, but I have read that it is a developmental stage. Pretty interesting, huh? Hang in there, it will get better. Of course, I would still give some consequences so he learns it's not acceptable behavior. Good luck! :)

Hobbymommy, 38, is a discussion leader from Mesa. She is a happy stay-at-home mommy to a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son.

It doesn't always work, but I still stick by it and enforce it at home. You do something and fess up . . . you get one consequence (maybe just a "don't do it again") . . . you lie and I find out you lied, you get TWO consequences--and the consequence for lying is always worse than the one for just doing whatever you did.

Like I said, it still is hit and miss, but sometimes it does work!

As for outright lying about other stuff, my daughter (10) still has problems lying at school because she is trying to keep up with everyone as far as having a dad, having fancy toys, etc. I've explained to her that real friends will like you regardless of what you have or dont', so hopefully, this will wear off with time.

When my son was 5 and in pre-k, his teacher pulled me aside one day and asked me if we could speak privately for a moment......and then she asked me if we had another child who passed away......because evidently my son had told some of the other children's parents that he had a baby brother who died in an accident! We have had no toher children, so this was a complete fabrication on his part.
I was flabbergasted............becuase my son was so well behaved, so honest, and such a sweet, level headed kid ...I was not expecting that....I could not for the life of me understand why he would say this. I didn't want to come down on him about it, but as we drove home that day i asked him if he had said this, intitally he denied it but then admitted he had said it because he was envious of the other children who had younger siblings............so he made one up. We had a long talk and I explained to him why it was wrong to lie to people, etc..............and there have been no such incidents since then.
Talk about a huge guilt trip, though...............I already felt bad about him being an only child, and then that.....!