Recently we've been having a lot of problems with DD lying to us. She is 3.5 yo and what I've read online this appears to be a somewhat age appropriate thing but we are at our wits end with how to respond. So far it isn't anything major just lots of things like: on Sunday, her Sunday School teacher told me DD had problems in class keeping her hands to herself and not putting crayons up her nose; however when I asked if she did those things she said no. Help
-
@purrpletulips: we've started seeing this (at 3.5 as well!). I institute an immediate time-out as soon as I find out about the lying, and after it's over I make him say "No lying, even if it means I'll get into trouble". I try and make him understand that he'll get into trouble no matter what, but if he lies he'll get into even more trouble. If he tells the truth, I will at least say thank you for telling the truth.
-
We definitely started seeing this around 3.5 with Charlie. He knows he's not supposed to do it, but he still does it. (Yesterday it was over brushing his teeth even after I asked him if he was lying and if daddy would confirm his story. He even went on to say that lying was wrong while he was doing it!)
I need to research this some more!
-
My understanding is that at 3.5 kids are going through a development phase where they have difficulty understanding between fantasy and reality. So when they are lying they actually believe that is truth. It can be really frustrating, though, lol.
The first thing we do is take away opportunities for DD to lie. So, in the example you gave, I would tell her (not ask her), "Your teacher said you had some difficulty keeping your hands to yourself and following directions. If you can't listen and follow instructions, you can't go to nursery and you have to sit in the adult church." The other thing we do is refer to her lies as "stories." So if she lies about hitting her brother or doing something she's not supposed to do we say, "That's an interesting story. However, hitting/drawing on the walls/pouring water on the carpet is not acceptable behavior. You need to appolgize and/or help clean up your mess." I guess our approach is that she will eventually grow out of it and until then, we don't want to energize her behavior.
-
Whenever I catch DS lying (usually to get out of trouble), he gets a punishment for doing the thing he lied about and one for lying. He learns then that he might as well fess up and just have one punishment. Usually the thing he lies about isn't even so bad, either, so if he had been truthful, he probably wouldn't have gotten much punishment at all.
He doesn't lie very often, though...I can only remember one incident in the past year. We really enforce telling the truth in our house.
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
4 comments