Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Why Kids Lie and What to Do About It (a Listener Q&A)

Transcript

Why Kids Lie and What to Do About It (a Listener Q&A) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families podcast. Oh my goodness,
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Speaker 1: Kids and lying. It's one of those things that's for me,
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Speaker 1: at least, one of those hot button topics. I get
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Speaker 1: pretty frustrated when the kids lie to me, and sometimes
0:17
Speaker 1: I forget what it is to be a parenting expert.
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Speaker 1: I'm not going to lie because lying is bad, and
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Speaker 1: lying triggers me, and therefore it would be wrong of
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Speaker 1: me to lie. I don't know why I said I'm
0:25
Speaker 1: not going to lie. It just came out. Kylie. Just
0:27
Speaker 1: one of those things. I'm trying to do an intro
0:29
Speaker 1: and I'm tripping myself up already. So here's the situation.
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Speaker 1: You've got a five year old. She stands up at
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Speaker 1: show and Tell with an origami penguin. She tells the
0:36
Speaker 1: whole class that she made it herself, no instructions, no help,
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Speaker 1: but she didn't Dad folded most of the origami penguin,
0:45
Speaker 1: and then she garnishes the light with a fictional story
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Speaker 1: about her baby sister. Her mum wants to know, is
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Speaker 1: my daughter's storytelling a red flag because in twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: six there are red flags everywhere? Or is this something
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Speaker 1: that we can feel good about? Kids lying feeling good.
1:00
Speaker 1: The short answer, she isn't broken, she's marketing marketing. What well,
1:07
Speaker 1: I'll tell you more right after the break. Stay with us. Hello,
1:12
Speaker 1: this is the Happy Families Podcast Tricky Questions on Tuesdays.
1:15
Speaker 1: That's what we're doing today, The Happy Families Podcast Real
1:18
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1:20
Speaker 1: We are Justin and Kylie corson Paris of six Kids.
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm the author of eleven books, host of a TV
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1:56
Speaker 1: wants to know the answer to this question?
1:58
Speaker 2: Hi, doctor, Colson. It's constant storytelling, something I need to
2:01
Speaker 2: nip in the bud early if it's linked to other
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Speaker 2: more concerning factors. My five year old daughter's weekly show
2:07
Speaker 2: and tell sessions at daycare have become a stretch of
2:10
Speaker 2: the truth. To say the least, my husband and I
2:13
Speaker 2: often laugh about it. For example, today she showed an
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Speaker 2: origami penguin. I did most of it for her, using
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Speaker 2: some instructions, and her baby sister was asleep when we
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Speaker 2: did it. She told the class she made it herself
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Speaker 2: without anyone or anything, and the kids apparently laughed when
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Speaker 2: she told them her baby sister tried to make one too,
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Speaker 2: and it looked like just a piece of paper. So
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Speaker 2: her show and tell was a big fat lie. She
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Speaker 2: has anxiety around her new daycare because other kids have
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Speaker 2: long term, established friendships, and also because she feels left
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Speaker 2: behind in what they're learning when she only attends two
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Speaker 2: days a week. I assume the show and tell is
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Speaker 2: her way of connecting with her peers and showing them
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Speaker 2: she's not as behind in other skills outside class. So
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Speaker 2: do we just laugh about this and brye away? Thank you?
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Speaker 1: So the first thing that I want to say is hell,
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Speaker 1: awesome are our listeners and how great of their question is,
3:02
Speaker 1: how thoughtful, how well constructed are their questions. She's fine,
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Speaker 1: She's fine, it's a great question. Like, I'm so into it.
3:12
Speaker 1: All right, let's start with some data. I want to
3:14
Speaker 1: start with some data because this is my I love
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Speaker 1: this topic. There's a bunch of researches around the world
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Speaker 1: who have done studies on kids lying. They found that
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Speaker 1: around about thirty percent of two year olds lie, around
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Speaker 1: about fifty percent of three year olds lie. By the
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Speaker 1: age of four, about eighty percent of kids will lie
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Speaker 1: in experimental settings. So what I would actually suggest to
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Speaker 1: Melanie is your daughter is on schedule.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say, and I can promise
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Speaker 3: you that there would be more than her exaggerating and
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Speaker 3: elaborating the truth.
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Speaker 1: In that five year old cohort. Yeah, totally. So this
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Speaker 1: is the critical thing. Lying actually requires neurological development. It's
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Speaker 1: a developmental process, and kids get better as they get
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Speaker 1: older because lying requires this thing called theory of mind. Sorry,
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Speaker 1: not all lying. Like, sometimes kids will look at you
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Speaker 1: when they're they're going to get in trouble and you say,
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Speaker 1: did you draw on the carpet with red paint and
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Speaker 1: they're standing here with the red paint in their hand,
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Speaker 1: and they were like, no, And that's just because they're
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Speaker 1: scared of being in trouble. But really good lying requires
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Speaker 1: this thing psychologists called theory of mind. Theory of mind
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Speaker 1: essentially is being able to understand what other people believe
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Speaker 1: in their minds in your own mind, even if you
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Speaker 1: believe something different. The idea is, with theory of mind,
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Speaker 1: you have the executive function to tell people to believe
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Speaker 1: something that you don't believe yourself, because by getting them
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Speaker 1: to believe it, you can basically give them a false
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Speaker 1: narrative that supports you in the thing that you're trying
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Speaker 1: to do. So what we're really talking about here is
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Speaker 1: cognitive horsepower. And I know that that's probably sounding like
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Speaker 1: I'm trying to put a really really shiny spin online,
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Speaker 1: but researchers literally use the ability to lie as a
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Speaker 1: marker of healthy development.
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Speaker 3: I can remember when I was a young girl, my
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Speaker 3: mom was learning a new skill in the kitchen and
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Speaker 3: she decided to make some jam. And I've never seen
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Speaker 3: it done before, but she put like a wax top
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Speaker 3: on top of the jam to preserve it so it
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Speaker 3: could sit in the cupboard for a longer period of time, okay.
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Speaker 3: And there was like all these jars on the bench
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Speaker 3: open with this waxy top, and it was just so
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Speaker 3: tempting to touch it, right, And I may have put
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Speaker 3: my finger in more than one.
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Speaker 1: Of course you did, because one's never enough.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I blamed my sister, and my mum believed
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Speaker 3: her because I would never do anything like that.
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Speaker 1: This explains so much. This explains so much. Before Eland
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Speaker 1: gets really righteous about the kids selling lies, I just
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Speaker 1: want to point out that adults research shows that House
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Speaker 1: said it. I mean, House is a fictional doctor to
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Speaker 1: mini series, but House was right.
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Speaker 3: Everybody lies.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some diary studies that find that adults lie
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Speaker 1: in roughly one in five social interactions. So what I
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Speaker 1: would say is that if you've got a five year
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Speaker 1: old or an eight year old or a fourteen year
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Speaker 1: old who's telling lies, they didn't invent spin. What they
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Speaker 1: did was they joined humanity. They've been watching what's going
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Speaker 1: on and they're like, yeah, I need to get in
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Speaker 1: as well. All right, so let's talk about solutions. Let's
6:29
Speaker 1: talk about what's really going on here. What I would
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Speaker 1: say is that this isn't necessarily a lying problem. Based
6:35
Speaker 1: on what you've said, Melanie, I think that this is
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Speaker 1: a relationship. Yeah, it's a relatedness, belonging, fitting in kind
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Speaker 1: of problem. Maybe also a competence problem. We always talk
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Speaker 1: about three basic psychological needs on this podcast. They need
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Speaker 1: to fit in, they need to feel competent, and they
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Speaker 1: need to have choice and autonomy. And I think it's
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Speaker 1: probably the first two. She's had a new daycare, she's
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Speaker 1: only there two days a week. There's a whole lot
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Speaker 1: of other friendships that are already established. She's trying to
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Speaker 1: show them that she is capable and that she deserves
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Speaker 1: to be friends with someone because look at the awesome
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Speaker 1: stuff that I can do. I can make an impressive
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Speaker 1: origami penguin. I feel like this is like her LinkedIn
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Speaker 1: profile right now. She's putting up there and saying, look
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Speaker 1: at me, you need to hire me and bring me
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Speaker 1: into your friendship group so that we can make our
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Speaker 1: friendship group even more awesome. My central thing here is
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Speaker 1: to probably not ask so much how do I stop this?
7:27
Speaker 1: I'm more inclined to say what does she need? What
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Speaker 1: does she need? And after the break, we're going to
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Speaker 1: talk about how we can support those basic psychological needs
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Speaker 1: and give her the things she needs to do. Stay wards,
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Speaker 1: We're back with the Happy Families podcast, Kids and lying
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Speaker 1: Melanie's question, do we just laugh and ride the wave?
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Speaker 3: Kylie Well and your answer at the beginning, you acknowledge
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Speaker 3: that this was about marketing? Are you? Are you suggesting
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Speaker 3: that Melanie's daughter is marketing herself. She's trying to create
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Speaker 3: a positive spin about who she is in an effort
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Speaker 3: to recruit friends completely.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to put myself in it here. I remember
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Speaker 1: when I was at Central Coast Grammar School, probably in
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Speaker 1: about grade nine, and there was this nationwide concert around
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Speaker 1: the country. There were concerts in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
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Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was called now, but there
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Speaker 1: was this really like there were all of these It
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Speaker 1: was being simulcast on TV. And while the acts were
8:33
Speaker 1: on in one city, that was being telecast while acts
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Speaker 1: in other cities were getting ready. And so each artist
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Speaker 1: they were all Australian. It was Kate Sabrano and Paul
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Speaker 1: Kelly and John Farnaman whoever else was there the hooda
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Speaker 1: gurus and I was watching it because I was just
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Speaker 1: such a music junkie when I was a kid, when
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Speaker 1: I showed up at school the following Monday, and everybody
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Speaker 1: asked about whether they'd been people have been watching the concert.
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Speaker 1: There were a bunch of kids from my school who
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Speaker 1: had gone to Sydney to watch the concert, and I
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Speaker 1: was so jealous. But for some reason, I felt like
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Speaker 1: Adelaide had the best concert based on what I'd seen
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Speaker 1: on the TV. And so I just told everybody that
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Speaker 1: I went to Adelaide, that I'd flown to Adelaide for
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Speaker 1: the weekend to watch the concert, because that was my
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Speaker 1: way of saying, look at me, I'm important. I do
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Speaker 1: cool stuff. This was a marketing exercise. It was a
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Speaker 1: big fat, hairy lie, but it was essentially me saying,
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Speaker 1: notice me, think I'm valuable, think I'm important. So if
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Speaker 1: I go back to Melanie's question, do we just laugh
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Speaker 1: and ride the wave? I would actually say, for the
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Speaker 1: most part, yeah, don't take it too seriously, don't get
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Speaker 1: really hot under the collar about this. But I would
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Speaker 1: say that there are two amendments, two adjustments, two tweaks
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Speaker 1: that I would make to the statement. The first is,
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Speaker 1: don't laugh at her. We don't want her to feel
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Speaker 1: like we're laughing at her because a child who discovers
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Speaker 1: that her stories are the family's entertainment, like the family's
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Speaker 1: comedy content comes from me. That she's valuable because of
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Speaker 1: her performances and because of her lies. And I don't
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Speaker 1: think that's helpful. I think the second thing to highlight
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Speaker 1: is you want to ride this wave, but try not
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Speaker 1: to steer it too strongly. Otherwise force creates a resistance.
10:13
Speaker 1: We talk about that on the pod all the time.
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Speaker 1: There's some really interesting research. I've always been fascinated by
10:19
Speaker 1: this data on parental guidance. A couple of years ago,
10:22
Speaker 1: I highlighted that parents who forced their kids to apologize
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Speaker 1: are teaching their kids to lie. I want to say
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Speaker 1: something kind of provocative. Forcing children to apologize is teaching
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Speaker 1: children to lie. Parents often think they need to be
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Speaker 1: coach and cheerleader and umpire, But parents who encourage their
10:46
Speaker 1: kids to figure it out for themselves, those kids are
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Speaker 1: going to have more resilience, more confidence, and more life
10:51
Speaker 1: skills than if their parents are the ones that are
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Speaker 1: doing it all. And that did not go down well
10:55
Speaker 1: with the audience, Like people were really upset that I said,
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Speaker 1: and I stamp by it. It's absolutely true. But basically
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Speaker 1: the research in this area finds that kids in punitive
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Speaker 1: environments don't lie less, they lie more, and they actually
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Speaker 1: get better at lying as well. Why because when you're
11:14
Speaker 1: cracking down on the kids for their dishonesty, they're not
11:17
Speaker 1: going to become more honest, they're just going to become
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Speaker 1: more skillful at lying.
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Speaker 3: Well. The chances are that you're going to get in
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Speaker 3: trouble for telling the truth because you've done the wrong thing,
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Speaker 3: and you're going to get in trouble if you lie
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Speaker 3: because you've lied, like it feels like a lose lose situation.
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Speaker 1: What you've just said is this honesty becomes costly. Yes,
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Speaker 1: if you're going to get in trouble for telling the truth,
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Speaker 1: and so you're just going to lie. You might get
11:39
Speaker 1: in trouble for lying, but you're going to get in
11:40
Speaker 1: trouble for doing the wrong thing and telling the truth
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Speaker 1: about it anyway, So you might as well lie and
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Speaker 1: take your chances because maybe you might even get away
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Speaker 1: with it. Kids tell the truth when it's safe to
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Speaker 1: tell the truth. They don't tell the truth when lying
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Speaker 1: is dangerous, because if telling the truth is dangerous, then
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Speaker 1: they'll take the odds of the lie. And there's one
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Speaker 1: other thing that I'd highlight now that I think about it,
12:00
Speaker 1: and that is I don't think it's helpful to fact
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Speaker 1: check your kids in real time, like when they're telling
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Speaker 1: the lie. That's not the time to jump in and
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Speaker 1: fact check them. If you do that. First of all,
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Speaker 1: it's just a bad look. But it's just a it
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Speaker 1: just doesn't work strategically. What I'd much rather hear you say,
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Speaker 1: if your child's saying I folded the Origami penguin, I'd
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Speaker 1: much rather hear you say you folded that. Which parts
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Speaker 1: did you fold? Show me which parts you folded, and
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Speaker 1: so that way they can sort of do a little
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Speaker 1: bit of unfolding that it's like they've got an off
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Speaker 1: ramp from the lie. So they can just say, oh,
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Speaker 1: I did this bit in this bit, and to me,
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Speaker 1: that's that's more helpful. So let's go back to the
12:39
Speaker 1: basic psychological needs. This little five year old wants to
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Speaker 1: feel like she has friends, So we've got to work
12:45
Speaker 1: on the friendship issue. We've done a million podcasts about
12:48
Speaker 1: how we can help kids have friends, and we want
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Speaker 1: to help them to feel competent. So what I would do.
12:53
Speaker 1: If I was Mum or Dad in this situation, is
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Speaker 1: I'd say, hey, let's do oragarmy again. Yeah, I was
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Speaker 1: about to say that, and I'm I'm not going to
13:00
Speaker 1: to test you. What I'm going to do instead is
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Speaker 1: I'm going to fold it, and you're going to fold
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Speaker 1: yours beside me, and now you can go to show
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Speaker 1: and tell and show them the one that you folded
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Speaker 1: all by yourself, and you can feel way better about
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Speaker 1: showing them that. And I don't know, I feel like
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Speaker 1: a wonky penguin. It Show and tell is going to
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Speaker 1: beat a perfect one that Mum made or that Dad
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Speaker 1: made every single time. I just feel like they're going
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Speaker 1: to show that penguin off with the puffed out chest
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Speaker 1: and feel so good about themselves.
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Speaker 3: So is there any point where we should actually start
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Speaker 3: to be concerned when it comes to lying.
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Speaker 1: If it's escalating, if it's going on and on and on,
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Speaker 1: and there's no willingness to work on this again at five?
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Speaker 1: I'm not too bothered. Yeah, I'm really not. It's just
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Speaker 1: about modeling the truth, asking them questions about the bit
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Speaker 1: that they did in the bit that they didn't do.
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Speaker 1: It's about those kinds of things.
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Speaker 3: Could you kind of like be lighthearted about it and say, oh,
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Speaker 3: I thought mummy helped you like we did together, didn't
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Speaker 3: we Would that be okay?
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Speaker 1: Or are you suggesting it would be fine? But I'm
14:00
Speaker 1: I'm inclined to just let it go. I don't think
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Speaker 1: that it's that big of a deal. Here's how I
14:05
Speaker 1: would wrap this up. Little kids tell lies because they
14:08
Speaker 1: want what every single human wants. They want connection, they
14:13
Speaker 1: want to feel important, they want to feel impressive, they
14:15
Speaker 1: want to look good, they want a little bit of status.
14:19
Speaker 1: So I don't think there's any value in beating up
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Speaker 1: on the storyteller here. What I think we need to
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Speaker 1: do instead is we need to go to the root
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Speaker 1: of it and say, where is the storytelling come from? Oh,
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Speaker 1: you want to feel important, you want to have friends,
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Speaker 1: you want to look good. So let's help it develop
14:35
Speaker 1: the competence so that she can hold up the ping
14:36
Speaker 1: when that she did herself. And let's have a bunch
14:39
Speaker 1: of people around her who are going to celebrate the
14:40
Speaker 1: fact that she did it because they're really her friends.
14:43
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I'm going to suggest. Five year
14:46
Speaker 1: olds aren't lying because they're bad, They're lying because they
14:50
Speaker 1: are smart and lonely, and they're probably a little bit
14:54
Speaker 1: light on life experience, and so they're trying to make
14:57
Speaker 1: it up. Like a fourteen year old who really thought
14:59
Speaker 1: that if you told everyone that he went to a
15:01
Speaker 1: concert in Adelaide, he'd look cooler than everyone who went
15:05
Speaker 1: to the one in Sydney. Incidentally, no one thought I
15:07
Speaker 1: was any cooler. I didn't make any more friends because
15:11
Speaker 1: of the lie. And maybe that's the big lesson for
15:13
Speaker 1: her to learn if anything, telling lies doesn't actually build
15:15
Speaker 1: better relationships and build better friendships, Melanie, We really hope
15:18
Speaker 1: that helps with your question. If you've got tricky questions,
15:21
Speaker 1: send them through to us via voice notes, email podcasts
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Speaker 1: family happier, you'll find it at happy families dot com
15:44
Speaker 1: dot Au and tomorrow on the pod, a very deep,
15:47
Speaker 1: very serious conversation about the scourge of pornography and how
15:50
Speaker 1: it's affecting not our boys, but our girls. Talk to
15:53
Speaker 1: you tomorrow.