Lying
LYING Little children keep no secrets – but that changes overtime. At some point children realize that parents are not all knowing. It becomes possible to influence what their parents know about their actions and thoughts. They learn that information is power and concealing information makes them feel powerful. Lying and truth telling have powerful consequences and the drive to gain control of those consequences by hiding truth is something that manifests itself early in life. Early psychologists took the position that children did not have the intellectual capacity to lie (eg. Jean Piaget). New evidence suggests that even young children sometimes do lie. Motivations for lying: a) to avoid punishment b) to keep a “game” going c) to keep a promise (eg. this will be our secret) d) to gain something personally e) to avoid being embarrassed f) to build themselves up Children will lie about events when they have sufficient reason to gain something by lying. Often parents have a difficult time accepting this fact. “My child would not lie to me. I know him. I would know if she lied to me.” We want so much to extend the days of childhood innocence for as long as possible, until all proof to the contrary has been established. At first children may be clumsy about using this newfound ability to pretend and misrepresent themselves, however these early attempts set the stage for a long process of learning to differentiate truth from fiction, the motivation to tell the truth and the savvy to know all the social conventions about when not telling the truth is acceptable (white lies). Children lie – but in adolescence the stakes increase dramatically !