Won't stop lying | Imamother

amother

Dodgerblue

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 3:22 pm

DD age 4.5. She has a very active imagination. She is also very much influenced by how others perceive her. She is generally a well behaved child, can follow rules nicely, helps out around the house, gets along with everyone. But she lies a lot - to get her way, to impress people, to seem good, because it's interesting. She lies to us, to other adults, to other kids. We are not harsh parents at all - we never yell, and punishments are natural consequences and a short 'talking to' - any punishments are usually quite mild. So I don't think it's because we are too hard on her or too strict.

Due to her imagination, she sometimes she makes up elaborate stories, or even just short things, that never happened but tells you that they did - I can't always tell whether they are true. And it's not because she doesn't know the difference, she clearly does. She also lies about minor infractions all the time, things I don't usually even get too upset about. I talk to her all the time about the importance of telling the truth, and we even have set aside times where she can tell me the truth about something where I promise not to be mad or punish her. She usually, though not always, tells the truth then. And yet the lying continues other times.

What else can I do to get through to her?

amother

Aqua

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 6:05 pm

This is completely developmentally normal, it has nothing to do with anything you're doing or not doing. Small kids lie, either because they can't tell the difference or because they think saying something makes it so. Obviously you want to encourage honesty and discourage dishonesty, but don't expect to "get through" for a few years.

keym

Sun, Jul 30 2017, 6:30 pm

Kids this age havw a hard time diffrenciating between what happened and what they wished happened. Help her.
So when she comes home from playgroup and says that in school they went to disneyworld, help clarify with her what really happened.
Her: we went to disneworld today.
You: you really wish you could go to disneyworld. That sounds so much fun. What would you do there?
Her: play with minnie.
You: but disneyworld is for a very special treat. But you have fun at school. What did you do?
Her: morah read a book with mickey.
You: thats fun.
You see most "lies" come from a starting truth and you need to help her learn this.