Why Children Lie and What You Can Do and Say

A practical roadmap to guide your response when your child lies. Understand the common developmental reasons for why children lie and what you can say in-the-moment to encourage your child to tell the truth and learn to be honest.

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Grown-ups often want an immediate solution when they discover their child has lied: “What do I say?” “How do I teach them a ‘lesson’?” “How do I stop the lying?” As desirable as it is for guidelines or a quick-fix, approaching your child’s lying should be multifaceted and will depend on the motivation of the lie, including the severity of the lie and the circumstances for the lie. It also consists of strategies for not only in-the-moment, but also preventative groundwork.

How is the kind of lying your child is doing serving them in various circumstances?

Consider Context in Your Response

There are many reasons for why children lie. Once you have a basic understanding for why, you can tailor your response appropriately. Use our practical roadmap to help guide your response.

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Reasons for Lying	What’s Going On	What You Could Do	What You Could Say
Experimenting	Most children will experiment with lying out of curiosity to test boundaries. As with other challenging behaviors, a child may be testing limits and gauging what they can get away with. Your child is likely trying to solve for, “I wonder what lying will get me?”	Focus on teaching your child preventative strategies to avoid lying in the first place: Center honesty as one of your Family Agreements; Proactively talk about lying and its implications (be direct and clear about repercussions).	Depends on the severity and circumstances of the lie. Sometimes, an open-ended response from you to show your child that you are actively listening to what they are saying and how they are saying it will guide them to tell you the truth, like: “Hmm – interesting.” “Tell me more.” “That’s curious.” “I wonder why that happened?”
Fantastical Lies / Tall Tales	Young children fantasize and tell embellished stories; this is developmentally typical and appropriate. If your child’s fantastical lies are a result of an active imagination, they will likely diminish over time.	Respond in a gentle way that helps your child distinguish between something that is true vs. something they wish is true. In doing so, you can help them begin to understand the difference between reality and fantasy. Depending on the context and your child’s developmental age, you can play along (allow the tall tale telling) or can gently point out that you know what your child is saying is not true (redirect to a more accurate recounting).	“You jumped over a building? Wow, I’ve never seen that before. Pause for a minute and think. Can you tell me what you actually did with your body?”
Boastful Lies	Sometimes a child boasts or brags to gain attention. Other times, it is a signal of deeper insecurities or low self-esteem. For example, a child struggling to read who boasts they can read a 500-page chapter book in a day is not attempting to deceive you, but more likely projecting an image that will improve their ideas about themselves as a reader.	Do not call your child out; it is likely they are already feeling inadequate and experiencing low self-esteem. Redirect your child to a more factual conversation. Focus on developing your child’s growth mindset and emphasize effort over outcome.	“I love hearing how much time you’re spending learning new words and practicing reading.”
Memory Lapse	Sometimes, a child lies because they truly have forgotten. (Children are concrete thinkers who live in the present and have a different concept of time from grown-ups.) This can be particularly true for a young child with attention or memory issues. For example, a young child who says they have brushed their teeth when they have not, may have legitimately forgotten that they did not brush their teeth. This is different from knowing they did not brush their teeth and intentionally choosing to say they did to deceive you.	Support your child’s memory, planning and executive functioning skills with visual prompts (e.g., checklists, visual routine schedule, etc.).	“I can see that your toothbrush is dry so it looks like you didn’t brush your teeth. Let’s put up a routine schedule on your bedroom door so that you can see all your ‘must-do’s’ when you get ready for bed.”
Avoiding consequences or accountability	Often, a child lies to avoid getting into trouble and to avoid doing things they do not want to do. Consider how your overall approach to discipline may impact your child’s tendency to lie. Research demonstrates that parents who use a more punitive approach to discipline tend to have children who lie more frequently to escape punishment.	Handle with logical or natural consequences (i.e., related to the behavior or root cause of the incident that instills a respect for the rules and teaches self-reflection and skill-building.) Removing privileges as a logical consequence of not being able to trust your child can be a helpful way to show that lying is not tolerated in your family values. As your child matures, you are giving them more responsibility and autonomy. Scaling back privileges that exemplify your trust and confidence in their capabilities and decision-making is appropriate.	“I saw that your bookmark for your school reading book is in the same place as it was yesterday. It doesn’t look like you practiced your 15 minutes of reading today. Tomorrow, I’d like you to read for 30 minutes to account for the session you missed today.” “You may no longer have screen time cartoons before dinner because you lied and played video games instead. You broke our trust. When I feel I can trust you again, you can earn back the responsibility of being on your own with screen time.”

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Consider Context in Your Response

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