Read Time: 6 Min. 20 sec. Why kids lie is a natural part of child development as they learn to sort out facts from imagination. As they grow, some see lying as a way to get what they want, avoid punishment, and others as a way to survive. Learning how to deal positively and restoratively is our job as parents. As always, Choose Love and end lying.
Why Kids Lie and How to Stop It
Would you be surprised to find out there is a simple formula to end your battle with children lying?
Skeptical? Of course. You should be. On a personal note, I’m not fond of silver bullet, one size fits all, guaranteed to solve everyone’s problem solutions all the time. Yet, some things, like love, can work all the time, for everyone, anytime I trust with all my heart. The results of such are only sometimes predictable. Will they work? Yes, Will they get you what you want when you want it, the way you want it? Not likely.
Solutions Are Not Necessarily the Answer — Love is
I will show you the 10,000-foot view in this summary article which can get you started. For the full detailed story, get Bryan Post’s 23-page e_Book, Why Kids Lie and What You Can Do to Stop It Now! ($3.95). For now, you will begin to understand behaviors better and see results—some now and some over time. This will also require you to drill down to find the source of unwanted behaviors.
I have seen with my own eyes Bryan Post perform things with children with challenging behaviors that are astounding and certainly not expected by anyone. Love is not ordinary. But suppose you are willing to put your faith in love, compassion, and understanding. In that case, you will see atypical and, at times, extraordinary results.
We are going to walk through the foundational understanding of why kids lie. If we as parents and educators get really good with this approach to lying, we can apply it to other behaviors. Making this work with the least amount of interference, you should refrain from interrupting the process with attempts to teach or punish.
Remember, even with the formula, your past years of embedded patterns and conditioning will resurface to influence you to change or add to the equation.
Don’t Worry, Don’t Hurry
Ready? Let’s begin.
First, the basics of all Post Institute’s love-based family-centered parenting are. Simply put, there are only two primary emotions: Love and Fear. This means all other feelings are the display of one of the primary emotions in disguise. Underneath lying, there is first the experience of stress. Stress leads to fear. Lying is based on fear. The sooner you grasp this concept, the quicker you see your child’s behaviors transform.
In times of stress, our thinking becomes confused and distorted, and our short-term memory does not work effectively. Therefore, the child is no longer thinking clearly during a stressful situation. Trying to talk logic and reason at this point is rarely effective. Attempts to teach the child in moments of emotional stress will be effective because the child will not clearly process or remember what is being taught.
Calm the Stress, Diminish the Behavior
When your child lies (adults as well), remember to see a child caught in fear and choose to lie as the safest solution for self-preservation. If your children were not fearful (stressed), they would have been able to think through their problem and would not have chosen the same solution. This is a key not only for children but for us as well. No doubt, being faced with one of these situations would send any parent into a “fear-full” state, thus opening the door to “poor decisions” on our part. See the cycle here?
It is up to us as parents to be able to stop/step outside of the emotional turmoil so we can teach our children to do the same. What is the first tool you typically pull out of your parenting toolbox when your child lies? Anger? Authority? How about trying love. The key is not letting lying cause you to react but instead responding with a strategy to help your child without fearing further stress, retaliation, or punishment. In other words, what you are doing is problem-solving, which is different.
But suppose we use the key – understanding our child has acted out of fear rather than sheer defiance or poor character. In that case, parents can begin calming their own fears first and then their child’s fears. In reality, you are not angry at your child for lying. You may feel angry, act angry, yell, spit, and fuss, but really you are scared about your child’s lying. If you were thinking clearly, you would have learned your repeated reaction of yelling, giving a consequence, or getting angry was not working to end the problem behavior.
When your child lies to you, you may think it means they do not trust you, you are not safe, they are not safe, and you are not a good parent, or any number of other distorted thoughts. Remember, amid stress, you are not thinking clearly either, and neither is your short-term memory working effectively. Your short-term memory is ineffective when your child lies, and you get stressed about it. You must remember that handling the lie the same way as the last time did not change the behavior then and probably will not change it now.
Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes
So what is the answer? You must be willing to do something different. The answer lies in what you have been reading and will continue reading. Lying has its roots in fear. The lies will not stop until the fear subsides. Your ability to stay regulated and not give in to your own fear will keep the struggles and the battles at bay while you work through this with your child.
The angry parent is not an effective teacher. I know this seems obvious to some, yet we continue to parent out of anger. When you become angry with your child, you get in the way of the lesson inherent in the problem. This allows your child to blame you for the problem rather than take responsibility for themselves. Rather than discipline, which means to teach, we punish, which only creates more stress and frustration directed outward or sometimes even inward, which can be worse. Don’t focus on lying. Focus on the process that leads up to the lying and what happens afterward.
Fear+Fear = More Fear
Remember, Fear + Fear = more Fear. The loving parent may also be a scared parent, but rather than blaming the child for the fear, the loving parent uses the fear as an opportunity to teach; thus allowing the lesson to be learned naturally without force, fear, shame, or blame. The process we work with does not try to force, control, or dictate the future. It is only focused on now, this moment. Following the process without obsessing over the outcome can work through the child in a far more educational way than our words or consequences could ever be.
There is a difference between being made to feel guilty and ashamed and being allowed to feel guilty or ashamed. The first only breeds more fear, which typically turns into defensiveness and anger. When you make a child feel guilty or embarrassed by becoming angry and acting aggressively or manipulatively, they may turn the feelings back on to you. Making a child feel guilty or ashamed, rather than internally processing the experience, they externalize it and make you the perpetrator.
No Guilt, No Blame, No Shame
A love-based consequence is imposed when the adult takes responsibility for the action. The child is allowed to feel the emotional impact on the adult. When you take responsibility for your own feelings rather than blaming or threatening your child, you set up the mechanisms for self-reflection and internal growth in the child.
We often talk about parents taking responsibility for their children’s misbehavior. Some parents think this means the child’s negative behaviors are the parent’s fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Being responsible for your child’s behaviors means it is our job to help them learn to self-regulate. When we miss the signals of our child reaching their regulatory window of tolerance, and the child messes up, punishing the child becomes a misdirected attempt to teach.
A fear-based consequence is punitive and blaming. It is one of the most common parenting mistakes. A fear-based consequence stems from parental fear about the behavior and a prediction that something
terrible will happen if the behavior does not change.
Pat O’Brien’s Adopted Teenager’s Prayer summarizes an approach for all children, large and small, biological, adopted, or foster, makes no difference. “May you love me the most when I deserve it the least, because that is when I need it the most.” (Pat O’Brien is the founder of YouGottaBelieve, the most successful older teen adoption program)
This information is a “Cliff Notes” version of Bryan Post’s 23-page e_Book, Why Kids Lie and What You Can Do to Stop It Now! ($3.95). If you begin practicing the ideas presented here, you will see results in your child’s behavior and yours. But, as the secret to being a good golfer is to keep your eye on the ball, the road to being a great golfer is filled with practice, mistakes, extraordinary moments, and more practice and mistakes. The same is true of parenting. How long might it take? How long is a string?
Choose Love – Bryan Post & David Durovy
Purchase How To End Lying Now! e-Book
Miss the recent posts? Here you go:
Visit The Post Institute’s YouTube Channel for many helpful videos here.
Previous Articles:
- Why Kids Lie and What You Can Do to Stop It — Part 1 January 5, 2023
- Learning How To Learn Pt. 2 Conclusion November 9, 2022
- Learning How to Learn Pt. 1 October 27, 2022
- Love is Letting Go of Fear October 12, 2022
- IEP (Individualized Education Programs) and Your Parenting Rights for Helping Your Child Succeed in School— FREE Resources September 22, 2022
- Co-Regulate for Successful Parenting with Oxytocin September 7, 2022
- Parents, Learn to Chill! Help Is Here — Mindful Anxiety August 10, 2022
- Becoming An Adolescent/Teen Whisperer Part 3 of 3 July 25, 2022
- Becoming An Adolescent/Teen Whisperer Part 2 of 3 July 13, 2022
- Parenting Teens: Becoming an Adolescent/Teen Whisperer Pt. 1 of 3 Parts June 29, 2022
- How Not to Parent and the Lessons I learned May 23, 2022
- Are You Being Too Conciliatory with Your Children? Too Soft? Too Hard? May 11, 2022
- How to REALLY Change Children’s Behaviors April 27, 2022
- Why Can’t My Kid Control His Anger?!?! April 13th, 2022
- Be The Calm In Your Child’s Life March 30, 2022
- The Science of Kindness: Serotonin, Endorphins, and Oxytocin Oh My! March 19, 2022
-
Just Stop It: The Best 5-Minute Therapy Session Ever! February 3, 2022
Want to Learn 6 Powerful Never Before Revealed Secrets of Love-Based Parenting? Visit Here.
There are many helpful articles for parenting challenging adopted, foster, or diagnosed children here.
Note: This article was written for parents and professionals with challenging adopted, foster, and diagnosed children in their care. It is also applicable as a parenting model for all parents. It was first published in The Post Institute Post Parenting Toolbox Series.
To learn more about Bryan Post and The Post Institute’s Love Based Family-Centered approach to parenting challenging adopted, foster and diagnosed children, visit The Post Institute. Bryan’s books From Fear to Love and The Great Behavior Breakdown have become classics for understanding and parenting foster, adopted, and diagnosed children with trauma histories.
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Bryan Post’s Classic Parenting Books for Adoptive/Foster Parents and Professionals
From Fear to Love: Parenting Difficult Adopted, Foster and Diagnosed Children by Bryan Post $14.00
Bryan Post speaks to parents about the challenges they face when dealing with behaviors that are often present in adopted children. He helps parents understand the impact of early life trauma and the impact of interruptions in the attachment process. Bryan’s straightforward, clear-cut approach has created peace and healing for hundreds of families; families who once operated in fear are now experiencing love.
“A Parenting Must-Have for Adopted, Foster or Biological Children. Honestly, it’s the best parenting handbook I’ve seen for someone with a child that has difficult behaviors… Even if you aren’t into reading, this book is a must have. If you are thinking of adopting a child, please read this book. If you have adopted a child, please read this book. If you yourself have been adopted, please read this book. If you’re a parent and have nothing to do with adoption in any manner, please read this book.” – Book Review By Literary Litter
“This should be standard equipment that comes with every adopted child! Post has successfully translated neuroscience into language that anyone can understand and apply to the very challenging tasks of parenting an adopted child.” – Aletha McArthur, OCT, Founder of New Growth Family Centre, Ontario, Canada
The Great Behavior Breakdown by Bryan Post $19.95
Start understanding the causes and steps necessary to help end, once and for all, some of the most difficult behaviors your child exhibits today.
Presented here are 27 of the most serious, problematic, and challenging behaviors that parents face and step-by-step guidance from one of America’s foremost child behavior experts on how to deal with them.
Addresses: Lying, Stealing, Self-Mutilation, Aggression, Defiance, Chores, Mealtimes, Hoarding/Gorging, Bedtime, Bath time, Brushing Teeth, Public Humiliation of Parents, Chattering, Clinging, Whining, No Eye Contact, No Touching, Too Much Touching, Poor Social Skills, No Conscience, Learning Difficulties and Sexualized Behaviors including Masturbation, Perpetration, and Pet Perversion.
“This book takes the foundation of attachment theory and brings it alive in the face of the most challenging behaviors that parents may face when parenting children with early attachment disruption histories. Rather than focusing on behaviors, Post goes into the very root of the cause and gives parents simple and concise guidance on how to respond in a manner that will help re-establish secure attachment where it may once have been lost.” – Sir Richard Bowlby, a respected and distinguished lecturer. He is the son of Dr. John Bowlby, the eminent psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, who pioneered research on the impact of early attachment relationships between parents and their young children.
“This book will teach you about your own stress reactions, and how you can respond more effectively to your children from your own inner strength with compassionate understanding rather than reacting out of your fear.” –Myla Kabat-Zinn, co-author of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Bryan Post’s best-selling classic is now available in Spanish as a PDF download for your Hispanic families and friends: Del Miedo al Amor – haya electrónica ($6.96)
From Fear to Love: Your Essential Guide to Parenting Difficult Adopted, Foster, and Diagnosed Children
Bryan Post speaks to parents about challenges they face when dealing with behaviors often present for adopted, foster, and diagnosed children. He helps parents understand the impact of early life trauma and the impact of interruptions in the attachment process. Bryan’s straightforward, clear-cut approach has created peace and healing for hundreds of families; families who once operated in fear are now experiencing love.
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