Experts suggest at least 96% of kids lie. This number seems low because we all lie to other people. We do this to be kind, save face, get sympathy, test trust, gain admiration, get out of awkward situations, save money, keep information for ourselves, out of empathy or self-preservation, avoid judgment, avoid disappointing people or ourselves, and countless other reasons. So why does it upset us so much when our kids lie to us? Maybe it feels like we have failed. Didn’t we teach them right from wrong? Shouldn’t we know everything about them so we can protect them from the world? When your child lies to you it can feel like they have violated the sacred and special parent/child trust and bond. However, it might not be that serious. Here are some of the ‘whys’ behind their lies.
Little Kids (ages 2-5)
Toddlers and preschoolers are still learning the ways of the world and cannot always distinguish between what is real and what is imaginary, which is part of why they lie. Young children live in a world with rich imaginations that push the boundaries between reality and their imagination.
I had three imaginary friends from age two to five. Just after turning four, I got what I had always wanted - an incoming sibling - and my imaginary friends slowly and quietly began to disappear from my world. The stories I invented about my friends were elaborate, clever, and filled with creativity. Donna was nice, kind, and well-behaved. She was a good influence and the sort of friend parents wished for their kids. Mickey was fun but mischievous, he had a twinkle in his eye and a great smile. If mistakes were made, Mickey did it (he made me eat dirt, he spilled the milk). But Jimmy, Jimmy was my bestie. We shared all kinds of secrets, told each other our hopes and dreams, and played together all the time. Where is the line between vivid imaginations and lies?
Marjorie Rhodes, associate professor of psychology at New York University, wrote an article for NPR, When Children Begin To Lie, There's Actually A Positive Takeaway, explaining that lying is an important step of cognitive development. “When children start to lie, it means they understand that other people have different beliefs than they do. It means that they understand that people's beliefs do not directly reflect reality, but vary based on experience.” This is known as “theory of mind” and helps kids develop the skill of perspective.
In fascinating studies by Talwar and Lee, Social and Cognitive Correlates of Childrens Lying Behavior and Emergence of Lying in Very Young Children, children aged two to eight are given an opportunity to ‘peek/cheat’ but are instructed not to. Researchers posed a follow-up question to see if kids would admit to peeking or lie about it. Approximately 80% of the kids peeked. “When asked whether they had peeked at the toy, most 2-year-old peekers were honest and confessed to their peeking, but with increased age, more peekers denied peeking and thus lied.”
The researchers report, “findings demonstrate that the majority of children between 3 and 8 years of age will lie to conceal their transgressions and their ability to maintain these lies increases with age.”
In an article for PBS, Why Do Kids Lie and What to Do About It, Eileen Kennedy-Moore cites a study from the University of Waterloo. The study observed children in their own homes and “found that 96 percent of young children lie at some point. Four-year-olds lie, on average, every two hours, and six-year-olds lie, on average, every hour.”
Big Kids (ages 5-11)
During the primary school years, kids lie to look cool, cover up a mistake, push boundaries, get attention, get something they want but think they won’t be allowed to have (often screen time or junk food), and avoid negative consequences. Lying may be learned as a prosocial behavior, for example saying one likes a gift they really don’t.
In addition to getting the desired sibling, when I turned four, we moved to the Chicago suburbs from Springfield, IL. I not only gained a baby brother but also a new best friend, my next-door neighbor, Beth Ann. She was a year older than me and had an older sister, so I think some of my struggles with the truth were influenced by the older kids, but I didn’t seem to have any problem going along with the lies. We would giggle with delight at our clever master plans. I would invite her over for dessert and then she would invite me over for dessert, our parents none the wiser as we delighted in two after-dinner treats. Not necessarily an overt lie, but a lie of omission.
This type of lie is typical for this age. Kids push boundaries to discover what they can get away with. Where is the line? Hey Dad, can I play on the iPad? Mom lets me play for an hour after school. To the babysitter, “Can I have candy? My parents let me have lots of candy.” Kids learn that the perception of permission from a “person in charge,” can go a long way toward their desired outcome.
In an article from Psychological Science, Chopping the Cherry Tree: How Kids Learn Honesty, Wray Herbert shares a fascinating study which concludes kids are more likely to play fair and be honest after hearing stories about people being given credit for telling the truth. The researchers told kids one of four stories, then set them up to play a game where an opportunity to cheat was so easy it would be hard to turn down. Afterward, they were asked if they had cheated. The kids who heard the stories that involved lying and resulting consequences (“Pinocchio” or “The Boy Who Cried Wolf’) were not motivated to tell the truth about cheating, nor was the control group who heard a story that didn’t involve lying. The kids who were told a story about how George Washington was lavished with praise by his father for coming clean about the Cherry Tree were more likely to tell the truth about cheating. Positive reinforcement for truth-telling was more effective than learning the consequences of lying.
Tweens and Teens (ages 11-18)
As kids grow, they often become more sophisticated liars, to the point where it is hard to discern lies from the truth. Tweens may lie in an attempt to escape being caught making mistakes. It seems like tweens think lies will magically erase their mistakes. The missing assignment will poof disappear and be forgotten. If they hide their mess under the bed it might poof magically put itself away. Tweens do learn, through experience, that missing assignments compound and turn into C’, D’s, or F’s. They learn that their mess doesn’t put itself away with a twinkle of the nose. It can be frustrating to parents because tweens seem to be at an age where they should know better. Kids aged 10 or 11 developmentally begin their “brain under renovation” phase, where things get disorganized inside their brains, as though they are living in the middle of a house that is being drastically remodeled. This chaos often spills out into their real-world of executive functioning. They feel silly for forgetting things, and lying seems easier than owning up to the chaos they are experiencing yet don’t understand.
Adolescence is a time when kids are wired to begin to separate their personal identity from their family identity. For tweens and teens, this time period may feel thrilling and exciting at times, and deeply isolating and lonely at other times. Kids may reject things they loved in their youth as a way to establish boundaries between their youth and their new more independent phase. A new phase of withholding information from families often takes the place of a more “open book” phase of childhood to help kids feel separate and independent.
In their book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman share findings from researcher Nancy Darling, who thoroughly researched how much and why tweens and teens lie to their parents. Darling’s studies pinpointed the ages at which kids' urges for separation and independence felt the strongest, and the results were surprising. Kids craved autonomy and independence the most at ages 14 and 15. Darling found that the magnetic pull of separation and resistance to parental authority was even stronger at age 11 than at 18. Kids’ psychological wiring for autonomy often increases their instinct to lie.
Darling found that, on average, kids lied to their parents on 12 of 36 topics. The researchers expressed great surprise at why kids lied. Most commonly kids reported, “I’m trying to protect the relationship with my parents. I don’t want them to be disappointed in me.” Drinking, drug use, and their love lives were common topics of dishonesty.
Studies show teens feel it’s okay to lie about things they don’t consider “their parents' business.” An article from the Conversation, “Why do kids lie, and is it normal?,” shares a study, “The Right to Do Wrong: Lying to Parents Among Adolescents and Emerging Adults.” The study found that “82% of US teenagers reported lying to their parents about money, alcohol, drugs, friends, dating, parties, or sex in the past year. Teens were most likely to lie about their friends (67%) and alcohol/drug use (65%).” Teens tend to feel exceptionally clever when they get around directions or guidance by finding a loophole in the wording of the directions or guidance.
The Depeche Mode song Policy of Truth seemed to be on the radio at every waking moment of a month-long period when my teenage self kept the truth from my parents about a speeding ticket. I was Lady Macbeth, unable to escape the guilt of my sins. The nerve-wracking guilt, the weight of an elephant upon my soul, did not persuade me to come clean. Recalling my youth and imperfections helps me get through my kids' adolescence with more grace, understanding, and patience. See Whyfully’s “*TIPS* for Lying” for ideas that may foster greater honesty.
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche