Should you trust your child?

“When I was 11, I got into Artek. There were people around who knew nothing about me, and I could tell anything about myself. Not that I then lied about everything — no, but I exaggerated something. I made my dad from a captain to a colonel, called two rooms in a hostel a three-room apartment … I came up with all the new details and could not stop.

Andrei is now 47 years old, but he remembers this story as if everything happened yesterday. “I embellished the life of my family, and this helped me (albeit for a while) to stop being ashamed of her, to feel more confident.”

It seems that lies have their own purpose: often they meet the psychological needs of the child. By interpreting the world, children learn to understand its patterns and nuances. By changing reality, they unconsciously protect themselves from conflicts and disturbing situations, experience them more easily, become calmer and happier.

real illusions

Child psychologists and psychotherapists are unanimous that the inventions of young children cannot be called lies. “One can talk about lies only when the child is able to distinguish between reality and his fantasies,” explains Anatoly Severny, a child psychotherapist and psychiatrist. “And this ability is formed by about six or seven years, by the age when the areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for understanding the boundaries between the imaginary and reality mature.”

Child psychoanalyst Natalya Bogdanova clarifies: “For the first time, children feel the difference between their fantasies and reality at the age of three to six years — at the time when their “Super-I” begins to form. The child learns to look at himself from the outside, compare his actions with the actions of other people, feel shame and guilt and analyze their causes. In psychoanalysis, «Super-I» is one of the three components of the personality structure along with «I» and «It». «Super-I» performs the role of our internal censor and is «responsible» for moral consciousness (conscience), self-observation and the formation of ideals.

In the meantime, the child lives in the world of play and fiction, the laws of reality do not yet have power over him. 5-year-old Seryozha is sure that he lives on a magical island with Peter Pan, Batman and Spider-Man, and 4-year-old Anyuta loves to prove to the whole family, climbing on the table: “I’m the biggest! I’m not standing on the table, I’m standing on my feet!» And they do not lie, they really believe and they experience what they have dreamed of «in truth.»

Desire to please

But now the child is getting older: he is already aware of how much his words do not correspond to reality. Does this mean that he will stop telling lies? Quite the opposite. The conscious distortion of reality allows many children to retain what is most important to them — the love of their parents or other significant elders. Children often lie in order to comply with our desires.

“Or rather, what (in their opinion) adults expect from them,” says Natalia Bogdanova. “And this is connected with the child’s need to please, to be good.” That is why 12-year-old Kirill, despite the obvious smell, unconditionally denies that he smokes, and 10-year-old Kolya forges his parent’s signature in the diary and then, in tears, explains to his mother that he was afraid that she would not carry out her threat to send him to a boarding school, if grades don’t improve.

Another reason for children’s lies is the desire to avoid punishment. “If a child sees that we are annoyed and tensely waiting for an answer, if he feels that we are angry, he perceives our anger as an attempt to put pressure on him, and he has a natural desire to lie,” explains the American psychologist, the author of the most famous world of books about the psychology of lies by Paul Ekman.

But often children are more frightened not by the real consequences of the act (they will scold, punish …), but by the defenseless feeling “I don’t know how to deal with this.” “After committing a misdemeanor, the child finds himself in an unusual situation,” explains Natalya Bogdanova, “he really wants to slip out of it, stop being in it. Children’s «It’s not me!» sounds rather not like an attempt to shield oneself, to avoid punishment, but like a desire to get out of a difficult situation, to avoid these painful feelings.

Children rarely lie for any one reason, usually a whole range of motives: the desire to avoid punishment, fear of humiliation, unwillingness to be an informer, protection of comrades. It happens to every child at least once to lie in order to free himself from anxiety and fear, and in this sense there is nothing more natural than a child’s lie.

But there are other situations in which parents need to be very attentive and sensitive. Sometimes an innocent children’s fantasy outgrows the boundaries allotted to it (including age ones). Entangled in fictions that he passes off as truth, the child becomes their prisoner, and it is difficult for him to cope with the situation without the help of adults.

Decipher the message that hides the lie

Many of us can recall from our own adolescence examples of serial epic lies that were shamefully exposed — if not ourselves, then surely one of our friends was such Khlestakov or Munchausen. A child thinks with fear what will happen when the construction he created collapses like a house of cards, and everyone finds out the truth: that dad is not a karate champion at all, that he does not have a villa in the Canary Islands … Why do they drag themselves into a story from which they cannot get out without loss?

“By lying, a child often tries to compensate for a certain family situation that makes him experience strong feelings,” says Anatoly Severny. “With his behavior, he is trying to control what is beyond his control,” agrees Natalya Bogdanova. “He creates an alternate reality that he can control.”

Children like to tell other people about their fantasies: classmates, neighbors, relatives. Listening, they become, as it were, involved in their stories. And when fiction exists not only in your head, but also in the minds of other people, it seems to you true.

Serious or repeated lies do not appear out of nowhere, and therefore adults should try to understand why the child resorts to them. In fact, behind it, as a rule, lies an unconscious attempt to attract attention, a request for love and support. “Adults, meanwhile, often reduce communication to the issue of following the rules and obedience,” says Natalya Bogdanova. “Instead of first of all hearing what the child really wants to express, they invariably scold him and punish him.”

The child is reprimanded for something that has little to do with the real meaning of his act. There is an amazing confusion between adults and children, which the Hungarian psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi called «a confusion of languages.» If we don’t understand the meaning of the child’s behavior, we don’t talk about it with him (“I know that you lied because you wanted to please me, didn’t want to upset me”), we don’t explain to him the reason for the punishment (if it follows), we risk walk past the suffering that hides behind his lies.

Truth in feelings

Often, adults themselves provoke a child to lie. Children need our support and cooperation with us, it is important for them to feel protected, to know that they have a rear. Those who do not lie to their parents (or rarely do so) feel such a connection with adults. On the contrary, those who lie systematically often do so because the atmosphere in the family is built on distorted and even manipulative relationships, there is no atmosphere of trust in it.

Alexandra, 34, now a mother of two, recalls: “I lied because I was afraid of my mother’s reaction. She never understood me, and when she discovered my lie, she always punished me insultingly. One day I yelled at her: «It’s your fault that I lied!» I still think that it was so.”

“Only from open and honest relationships based on sincerity and recognition of the child’s self-awareness, the concept of the difference between true and false is born,” says Natalya Bogdanova. “And it’s better that such interaction starts from early childhood.” Only when parents (both with words and gestures, facial expressions) confirm to the child: “Yes, you are you, you feel what you feel,” he gains confidence in what he feels, and later in that he does.

It is very important not to confuse his feelings with your own. Not to demand, for example, that he put on a sweater just because we parents are cold … It is on this basis — on the basis of the accuracy of sensory perception and trust in his feelings — that the child learns to recognize, speak and receive the truth in return.

How to react to it

Faced with big or small childhood lies, parents find themselves in confusion: ignore, punish or smile at his words? Here are some expert tips.

1. Trust. Trust is the foundation on which relationships are built. “Remember the presumption of innocence,” says Anatoly Severny. “The child has the right to respect, and a priori it is impossible to question his words.” Listen to him — do not immediately express your skepticism.

2. Laugh together. “Insignificant lies can be answered with humor,” advises Natalia Bogdanova. “This primarily concerns young children who make their first attempts to deceive and are just beginning to realize the boundaries of reality and fiction.” Staying within the framework of the game, we seem to say to the child: «You know that I know.» Our humor enables the child to respond with the same cheerfulness.

For example, when 5-year-old Yura claims that he washed himself, and his father sees that there is not a drop of moisture on him, the replica “Of course, you washed yourself — only with dry water!” makes the boy laugh. Dad sends him to wash with «wet water», and the problem is solved.

When a child tells a lie for the first time, it is necessary to explain to him the consequences of this act. Do it in private — adult intervention should not be associated with humiliation.

“An explanation is necessary,” says Natalya Bogdanova, “it will allow the child to understand that he is not alone in the world, that a different reaction, positive or negative, is possible for every action. Such an explanation will help him learn to think about the future.”

3. Punish big lies. When answering the question “What happens if you tell a lie?”, children of five to nine years old most often talk about punishment. At this age, it is a deterrent. For children, the consequences of their lies (loss of trust of adults or friends, problems at school) are not as obvious as for parents.

“In case of serious deceit, punishment is necessary,” explains Anatoly Severny. “Our suggestions, not supported by a sanction, are tantamount to an unrestrained word.” We say that the action will have consequences, but nothing happens, and the children have a question: “Why not do it again?”

In order not to violate causal relationships, it is worth punishing immediately and always in accordance with the scale of the lie. Deprivation of pleasures and entertainments will be effective, but not what is important for the development or health of the child.

4. Do not dramatize. What happened is not the end of the world: after all, each of us at least once in our lives told a lie. It is also important to know that the so-called pathological lie, which requires the immediate intervention of adults, is always accompanied by additional signs.

“Such a child lies often,” explains Natalya Bogdanova, “he is excited, his deception is practically not connected with obtaining benefits or trying to avoid punishment. In addition, he often runs away from home, provokes conflicts at school.

5. Be consistent. “If, demanding truthfulness, parents contradict each other, if deception is a natural way of communicating in a family, the child will reproduce this model of relationships,” warns Natalya Bogdanova. “He won’t have the experience of building relationships based on honesty and trust.” And of course, never lie yourself, so as not to provoke children’s lies.