Here’s why your child keeps lying and what to do about it

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We’ve all had that moment as parents when we’ve caught our child telling the most painfully obvious lies. The bottom line is that all children lie, and that a child can start lying as young as three years old – although more typically this behaviour tends to start at four. In fact, if your child keeps lying then fret not –  a study by the University of Waterloo found that 96 percent of young children lie at some point with four-year-olds lying on average every two hours, and six-year-olds lying on average every hour.

Of course, nobody wants a child who is obviously lying left right and centre, but how do we address their lying in a constructive way? Here, our resident parenting expert Louise Hoffman-Brooks of Parenting Success shares some of the reasons your child keeps lying and how to respond productively.

Why do children start lying?

At around the age of four children begin to master the art of influencing other people’s minds as they come to understand that they can influence how other’s think or feel- by what they say or fail to say.

To the young child this feels like a superpower that it is normal for young children to want to exercise.  

Reasons children lie

There might be different reasons why your 4-year-old lies and why your 9-year-old does.  But commonly children also lie for the same reasons that we can feel tempted to lie; when we fear that telling the truth is going to upset the other person. Or as a way of avoiding uncomfortable feelings of shame, fear or guilt.

Children around the ages of 5-7 also engage in story-telling, which sees them embellishing the truth or letting their fantasy create different outcomes that might make the story more incredible and satisfying.

Reality, as we understand, is not quite as fixed for a child as it is for us. Through a vivid imagination, they can seek answers to many of their longings – and often, in their lies we find seeds of what is important to and going on for our child.

The child who always shares how he came first or was the strongest despite the reality being different, is communicating through this lie/fantasy what is hard to accept; that we can’t always be good at things and that other’s sometimes beat us.

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What should parents do about lying?

As parents, we must take great care not to see young children’s lying as a moral issue. When we do, we easily lose sight of the fact that lying is tempting, and that we lie too.

We classify lies as white lies and grave lies and see lying as a spectrum. And each of us have a relationship with lying that is largely influenced by how our own parents responded to lying as children and moral issues in general.

Besides the thrill of being able to tell fibs and getting a reaction, children often lie for adaptive reasons; to protect themselves or gain our adoration– not to HURT us. Therefore, it is a good idea to depersonalise lying -and reminding yourself that it isn’t an insult to you. Instead if your child keeps lying this is your cue to…

Get curious – rather than furious

WHAT might be going on for my child?
WHY might they feel the need to lie?
WHY am I so triggered?


If your child stealing a cookie gets you riled and makes you want to impose consequences – you might want to look at your own experiences growing up. What was your experience of giving into temptations? Were you scolded for it?

Our early experiences of the tension between having natural feelings like; temptation and desire on the one hand, and being able to stop ourselves from acting on these, powerfully inform how we respond to our child in similar situations.

Perhaps our child mirrors behaviours that WE engage in and don’t own up to. And we displace our feelings and shame about this – and take it out on our children.


When we get curious – we tend to see things more clearly, and can better empathise with the struggle our child is having in this moment;

Feeling tempted – and knowing the rules

This level of impulse control is very hard for children, because their executive functioning skills are immature and the ‘break’ isn’t fully developed yet.

When they get it wrong – which they will, you can help yourself to stay grounded and cool-headed by:

  • Taking a deep breath (this always leads to a less automatic response)
  • Reminding yourself that your child is still learning
  • That your job is to help your child make sense of the tension, temptation or fear – not penalise it.
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What can we do to help children to avoid lying to us in the first place?

If telling the truth is important to you – it is key that we make sure it always pays off to tell the truth. Studies have found, that children most commonly lie to avert negative feelings and outcomes. With underdeveloped impulse control and a brain that is wired for pleasure and exploration children frequently get into situations that require boundary setting and guidance on our part.

If these involve ‘being told off’, getting into trouble and losing privileges, a child naturally hesitates to tell the truth. To make telling the truth and coming clean less difficult, we do well to look at how we usually respond to unwanted behaviours. The truth is, children learn all of the time. And we can motivate them towards pro-social behaviour and helping them make good choices in two ways; through fear – or through guidance.

The more you can help your child to see their intention behind the lie, and can help enable them to make better decisions the more likely your child will come to you for support and guidance when they have done something they shouldn’t and feel like they’re in trouble.

What should parents not do when they catch their children lying?

Because we have immense power to influence our child’s self-concept and understanding of themselves, it is important that we are mindful about the words we use to describe and define them.


“Stop lying”
“Don’t be a liar”


These statements often project agendas that are far less malicious on to our child. A lie that was prompted by fear of coming clean due to the fear of our reaction, can quickly be misconstrued as faulty character trait.

If our child lies a lot and we have found that they are telling things to friends and adults that simply is not true, it is time to get curious;

  • How is my child doing emotionally?
  • How is my child’s self-esteem?
  • Does my child feel seen or worthy? With certain people? Or in the home?


Tempting as it is to come down hard on such behaviours by adding our own anger and judgement, it is rarely fruitful in terms of getting to the heart of the issue. Being exposed in a lie is humiliating and shameful for adults and children alike, and therefore we need to go gentle.

While it is important to call out the behaviour, if we wish to truly understand the drivers of the lying, we often need to listen more than we feel like doing.

“I wonder if…”
“Do you know why ….”

These are good sentence starters.

Remember, children never behave better by being made to feel worse.

If you had to give a pep talk to parents currently feeling exasperated by their children’s lying it would be?

First, ground yourself. Take a deep breath and remember that it is common for children to lie. Just like it is common for adults to lie to an extent.

If your pre-schooler is going off on a tangent whilst recounting the day’s events and each sentence is more fantastical than the other, – listen, smile and go “wow – that sounds incredible. Imagine if that happened”. Go with it for a while – and rather than calling your child a liar – let them fantasise. This is a phase for many young children and once we indulge their imagination they come to self-correct and admit that ‘actually this isn’t how it really happened’.

Refrain from calling these lies.

If your 7-year-old child (and older) lies frequently, get curious rather than furious;

Have I created an environment that encourages truth telling and why does my child feel the need to lie?

The more we are willing to look in, take inventory and trust the fact that a person’s moral compass is one that develops over the course of a life time, the more likely we are to raise children who will grow up to feel safe to own up to their mistakes and be accountable for their actions.

Woman photo created by karlyukav, People photo created by rawpixel.com

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