Causes And Consequences Of Children's Lies

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Come on, we'll catch him!

- Let's!

- And everything will end!

- It won't end …

("The Hound of the Baskervilles")

Avatar vs math

“Be sure to do your math lessons, Bart,” Mom warns before leaving for work, “and then you can go to the movies.

The next session of the three-dimensional "Avatar" begins in fifteen minutes. Bart slips his feet into his unlaced sneakers and heads for the doors. On the run he answers his mother's phone call, when asked about the lessons he confidently answers "I did it!" and already lifts his leg over the threshold, as a disturbing thought slows him down. Math notebook! After all, it contains the tasks that need to be solved. If mom, when she comes home, flips through the notebook, she will find an unpleasant void at the place of her homework. Bart, without taking off his shoes, runs to his room, takes a notebook out of his briefcase and hides it under the sofa cushion. Now that's good. The door slammed shut, and Bart is ready to meet the heroes of "Avatar". Sneakers lace up in the elevator.

In the evening, Bart's dad lies down with a newspaper on the same sofa. A corner of paper peeking out from under the pillow catches his attention. What is it, son, dad asks as he pulls a fifth grade math notebook out of the couch. And, this is, here, Bart, who has returned from the cinema, turns away.

And if this was the first time Bart had lied about a lesson he had not done. Or at least the second …

Outraged dad, offended mom, sullenly sniffing son. Everyone's mood is spoiled, but for various reasons: Mom and Dad are saddened that Bart lied to them, and he himself is saddened that he was caught. Out of parental indignation over a mathematics notebook found at the wrong time, a normal child concludes: he hid the notebook badly, next time I will hide it better. If they didn’t find the notebook, I would go to the cinema, calmly put the notebook in my portfolio in the evening, and tomorrow, perhaps, the mathematician will not ask. And now dad is standing opposite, shaking his notebook and saying that lying is not good.

And why, in fact, is not good?

* * *

- If you lie, no one will ever trust you! - the dad answers.

The problem of further distrust is the most common argument against lying. But he is not very clear to Bart. First, for a child, “nobody” and “never” is a non-existent abstraction. There are specific parents for him at the moment. And he sincerely does not understand how these irritated parents are connected with someone else who does not care at all about the hidden notebook. And secondly, the term “trust” is also abstract and incomprehensible. Parents usually explain it to their child using the example of a discovered lie - why the topic of trust again turns into a question whether the notebook is noticeable from under the sofa. Bart does not understand what it means to "trust", he is still too young. But he knows what “to believe” is. To believe is to ask your son on the phone "have you done your homework?" and be satisfied with the answer "yes" without verification. But this is what happens if you hide a math notebook well enough …

- The worst thing is not even that you did not do your homework, but that you lied! You upset me very much! - Mom is worried.

Emotions of parents are another common argument in talking about lies. Mom is shocked, dad is unpleasant, it killed grandmother altogether (apparently, grandmother never lied in her entire long life). At the same time, the great-uncle, who does not know about any notebook, does not even care whether it was in the briefcase or under the sofa. We are trying to explain to the child: no need to lie, you will get caught, and everyone will feel bad. The child hears only the second part: if you get caught, it will be bad. Don't get caught and it won't be bad.

Trying in this way to wean the child from lying, we actually explain to him that lies must be more sophisticated, and the traces must be covered more carefully. If you find a way to make the notebook invisible, if the class teacher does not call your parents, if the cinema is far from home and no one meets you there during school hours, there will be no problem. Generally.

Adults know that lying is a rather burdensome thing. You have to remember what you lied to and to whom, keep different versions in your head, get out, deny … It's more dear to yourself, it's easier to tell the truth. But in order to understand this, you need to assess the pros and cons of non-lying on your own skin and gradually deduce the optimal pattern of behavior for yourself. This usually happens (if at all) by the age of twenty-five. And children don't know how to make predictions. Hiding the notebook under the bed, they just really hope that the notebook will never be found. Children are generally optimistic.

And let's admit it already. Who of us never - now, when we are already big - does not lie to our parents? Neither what the doctor said, nor how the boss behaved, nor the reason for his own tear-stained eyes? Some people really do it. The rest every day decide again what part of their life to open to their parents and how best to do it.

But this is a completely different matter, they will tell me. Communication with elderly parents is a completely separate sport, and there is no one who does not …

Yes it's true. There is no one who would never lie to them. But not only for the "middle-aged" ones, but for their parents in general. Here the specificity of family relations plays a role, which leads to childish lies. In fact, you can lie to your parents. Mainly because it is very difficult for them not to lie.

Mom vs truth

Bart's mom had a falling out with her husband last week. But to the question of his own mother: "How are you, dear?" answered without hesitation: "It's okay, mommy." Because they made up with her husband in a day, and my mother would look anxiously in both of them for another week.

Bart himself kept his family in the dark for half a year as to how things really were with his knowledge of English and mathematics. Mom would start to worry, worry, reproach her son for ruining her mood, it would become noisy and bad at home - who cares? Bart will still catch up by the end of the quarter (he is sincerely sure that he will!), And until then life will be much calmer.

When a person has enough troubles even without a mother, telling her about them means increasing hers by exactly the measure of her anxiety. After all, mother's complaints about our problems are not only her excitement, but also pressure on us. With the fact that mom is so worried, you need to do something: persuade, relax, report on business, keep in your head "mom is worried!" to a conversation about the weather, rather than to console my mother about her family life. We ourselves are already worried enough, we simply do not have the resources for additional worries.

But when everything is good, you can tell your mother too. Maximum, she will worry, the child will calm down. But only if he has the strength to do so.

Consequently - a label for mothers - the child does not lie, as long as everything is in basic order with him. And begins to lie when his own internal system goes awry.

“But I don’t want,” the deceived mother says, “for the system to go awry! That is why I demand the truth, in order to help the child at the moment when something will not work out for him! . In theory, it is. But in practice, by our stress about the child's problems, in his perception, we only worsen the situation. The main problem is not the hidden math notebook, but the mother's stress arising from this.

Anyone from time to time feels unhappy, often does not know what to do with it, is outraged by someone's injustice and, in general, is not always as happy with life as his parents would like. There is enough tension around.

The job of the house is to reduce, not increase, existing stress. When this does not happen, the child begins to lie.

If we want to understand how our reaction to bad news will be a relief for the child, and not an unnecessary burden, it makes sense to "turn" the situation. How would we like our own mother to behave? Not thirty years ago, but yesterday, when we assured her with a cheerful smile that we had no problems? What behavior would allow us to tell her everything, everything, everything? Calm, support, irony and confidence that everything will turn out well? Or, perhaps, consolation, sympathy and the ability to hug and regret in time? Business discussion, how we could be helped, "brainstorming"? Mentioning - just in time - about our last year's Legal Paper of the Year Award - at a time when we are not doing well at all?

Of course, when we grow up, it is not our parents who are responsible for our peace of mind, but we are responsible for theirs. We have to take on the construction of a dialogue, taking into account at the same time the parental need for information, our need for frankness and the amount of our own strength. But we are also responsible for the peace of mind of the child! And it is important that when talking about problems, the child's condition comes to the fore, and not the mother's horror about what this child has just told her. If mom's reaction to bad grades and other childhood troubles is more support than a burden, at least one reason for lying will disappear for the child.

Lying for a child is not a problem, but a solution to a problem. Not the most successful, of course, but never an end in itself. That is why, fighting with lies as such, we rarely achieve at least some result (except that children begin to hide notebooks more carefully). But trying to understand where the lie grows from and what leads to it, we at least find an additional point of contact with the child. And as a maximum, we use the trust and warmth that arises at this point and help the child deal with the complex of complications that led to the lie.

Barthes' original problem is most likely that he hates mathematics. Either it is difficult for him with her, or simply not interested. Barthes treats his problem philosophically: no mathematics - no problem. But on this philosophy, the harsh truth of life begins to be strung: teacher discontent, poor grades, parental reproaches and other fuss. At the moment when Bart, hugged by his mother, buries his nose in her shoulder and complains about his dislike for mathematics - he just can be helped. Think about some extracurricular circle where they show the beauty of mathematics, and not its boringness, deal with a specific section of the textbook (maybe he hates mathematics just because he doesn't understand?), In the end - just feel sorry for the person who is during the day I have to do boring and unpleasant business. Perhaps this problem does not have a concrete solution - well, Bart does not like mathematics, does not like and is not able to love. But my mother, in a moment of warmth and frankness, is ready to give him at least the feeling “they understand me and sympathize with me”.

Empathy does not mean solving the problem. With all her sympathy, the mother can hardly free her son from studying mathematics. But he can understand his misfortune and accept his right not to love mathematics - while continuing to insist that poor tortured Bart still do his homework. It is not the technical result that is important here, but the very fact of understanding. The feeling of “being understood” also relieves Bart of the need to lie.

And it is not necessary for a child who is not at ease with lessons to set a condition: "Do some work, and then go to the cinema." Such a condition is a trap, into which it is very difficult not to fall into ten years, and most importantly, it is completely incomprehensible why it is needed. You can go to the movies on a weekend with your parents. You can allow your child one time, in honor of going to the movies, not to do this unfortunate math. You can agree that cinema first, and then mathematics, no matter how unpleasant it is. You can even ban movies altogether. But you should not put your child in a situation with your own hands where lying seems to him the most convenient way out. The trust between parent and child is not built by passing tests, but by knowing which tests it makes sense to avoid.

White owl vs gray days

Leon always lies. For no particular reason, not out of fear of punishment, not out of a desire to get something, but just like that. He says that for a physical education lesson, a famous pilot came to their class and showed them models of airplanes - but no pilot actually came. He enthusiastically narrates at dinner how two familiar girls had a fight at recess, with fervor describes disheveled pigtails and instructed bruises - but no one fought at recess. He asks his parents to allow him to have a kitten, because his teacher's cat gave birth to kittens, and now they urgently need to be accommodated somewhere - but Leon's teacher has no animals at all, she is allergic to wool. Something happens to Leon all the time: trains collide before his eyes and fires break out, random passers-by confess their love to him, aliens ask him for money, and a live white owl lives in his room, accidentally flying through the window. You can't see the owl this minute, it flew off to hunt. But if you only knew how she clicks her beak when she sits on the desk!

The owl could be considered a simple fantasy, this is not a lie. But Leon in the same way, completely unreliable, describes almost everything that happens to him. Including grades, current events, school relationships, plans for the near future, food …

Parents at a loss: what's going on? Why does a seemingly healthy, normal home boy lie constantly and constantly?

We have already said that lying for a child is not a problem, but a solution. In part, the child thus builds his own, internal reality (often this is how creative people are formed). Perhaps aliens are really talking to him, and it should be treated with respect. But, in addition to the internal reality, Leon also has an external one, and he clearly does not like it. Otherwise, he would not have tried to change her with such persistence.

All children live part of their childhood in those worlds that can be called fictitious or parallel. Every child needs their own Wonderland, and every child has such a country. Few people at the age of eight do not settle a lion in a wardrobe. Fantasy, imagination and the ability to go beyond the usual framework have a huge irrevocable role in the development of a human being. But there is a difference between "getting out of the usual frames" and trying to completely escape from the world of your reality. It is this attempt, often annoying or alarmingly striking, that adults usually perceive as a lie.

We - parents do not have one hundred percent control over how our child lives and what he feels. We do not even have complete control over how we ourselves behave with him. Everyone understands that for children's happiness it would be good to pay a lot of attention to the child, play educational games with him, go on hikes and listen to detailed impressions of the day every evening. But in real life, we often, like Uncle Fyodor's mother from the cartoon "Three from Prostokvashino", "barely have the strength to watch TV." By the way, Uncle Fyodor is an illustrative example in this case. The boy who was so dissatisfied with the existing life that he invented another, new from beginning to end: he made friends-animals forbidden in real life (the cat Matroskin and the dog Sharik), found housing (a free house in the village of Prostokvashino), organized a life (and milked a cow!), even invented an enemy, what a world without an enemy - his role in the world of Uncle Fedor is played by the harmful postman Pechkin. In his world, Uncle Fyodor is independent, on the one hand, and constantly in the spotlight, on the other. At home he was not allowed much, while the parents did not receive much attention either. In Prostokvashino, things are the other way around: the cat and the dog adore Uncle Fyodor and are constantly ready to communicate with him, pick up all his ideas and unconditionally recognize as their leader. Uncle Fyodor found in Prostokvashino exactly the world that he lacked at home.

This is the kind of world Leon is trying to find, inventing plots on the go and convincing everyone (and himself) that they are really happening. Indeed, in the process of persuasion, his gray world really changes before our eyes.

Behavior vs subconscious

It is quite useless to interfere with invisible spaces, we still do not orient ourselves in them. But we have a guide: a child. Which, first of all, it makes sense to just listen. Listen, not challenging his vision of the facts, but delving into how HE sees it.

The child fully understands that his plots and characters do not exist for the outside world. For him, they are quite real, but this is a different reality and he perfectly sees the difference. Therefore, the unexpected parental enthusiasm: "Well, of course, you have a white owl in your bedroom, I fed it myself" can both embarrass him and offend him. We don't believe in what we say. (If you believe and, moreover, see this white owl yourself, then you can skip this part about children's lies, you have no problems with multiple reality, and your child has with you). But it is pointless to dispute the existence of a white owl, because they did not come to us with it so that we would kill it. They came to us with her in order to share the joy of her existence. We cannot see an owl, but we can see joy. And to rejoice together with the child, honestly warning him that we ourselves do not see the magic owl, but we are terribly envious of those who have one.

This is what concerns the vector “the child wants to go there”. But there is also a vector “the child is bad here”. Here our influence, sadly enough, is as limited as it is there. Theoretically, when a child feels bad in the real world, it makes sense for him to substantially rebuild this world. In practice, if we could rebuild it, we would have done it before the white owl flew into the house. Therefore, we will not talk about reworking the world, it is better to see what makes sense to pay attention to in the world that is.

What can be lacking in a child who goes deeper and deeper into fantasy? It seems to me, most often - parental acceptance. Feelings that parents like and are interested in him, not on the condition of the lessons done, the dishes washed or the instructions followed, but on his own. We, as a rule, love our children, but we do not always like them. The more acutely the child feels that his parents would like him more if he were different (smarter, thinner, more mobile, more popular, more active, more serious), the more he is drawn to where he is ALREADY different. Someone invents magical worlds, and someone simply alters every fact of their childhood life. In any case, in this way the child tries to distance himself from who he really is. On our "reality". Indeed, in a world where your own parents do not like you, it is very difficult to live.

It would seem, what is the problem? Let him lose weight (pull up in mathematics, become more serious, vacuum every day) - and I will start treating him differently, the parent is sure. But this is an illusion. Behavior is an external factor that justifies an internal feeling, rather than determining it. We do not like the child simply because we are us, and he is he: a creature of a different, possibly unacceptable breed for us, in some way contrary to ours, and in some way similar to us to such an extent that it is difficult to bear.

In such a situation, the child will certainly (albeit unconsciously) behave in such a way as to continue to dislike the parents. Why? Because if he begins to behave perfectly, but still does not start to like him, there will be a dead end in which not a single child wants to fall.

For a parent, the honest realization “I don’t like my child” also looks like a dead end and seems fundamentally unacceptable. But, oddly enough, such an awareness can help the parent more than trying to remake the child. Moreover, become the beginning of acceptance. First, it will allow less pressure on the child. If the done mathematics does not change anything globally (besides, no one does it anyway, press - don't press), you can scandal less often about the fact that it is lying under the sofa again. Secondly, we will relieve the child of responsibility for what is happening between us. While everyone believes that the matter is in mathematics, the child is responsible for the conflict: if he does the mathematics, the conflict will be exhausted. If we understand that we will not start to like the child, no matter what he does, he will cease to be guilty of it - and we ourselves, which is no less important, will cease to consider him to be guilty.

And thirdly, the admission “I don’t like my child” will help me start to respect him. He lives in a difficult situation and copes well with it. Every day he deals with parental rejection, while somehow surviving, and even inventing his own worlds, reshaping reality, inventing solutions. He is constantly in the process of working: on the world and on his place in it. At the same time, he is persistent, talented and alone in this work of his.

Understanding “I don’t like my child” also gives us the opportunity to understand and accept his lies. The child wants to change reality. Deep down, we agree that there is a lot to change in his reality. We may have different ideas about how this can be done, but we, and he, recognize that our life together is far from ideal. The child will not stop lying and inventing, as soon as we understand this. But maybe tolerance will appear in the relationship (and over time - and gentleness), which will give us the opportunity to live a little easier next to each other.

Science Museum vs adolescence

Lisa is fifteen years old. After informing her parents that she left with the class on an excursion to the science museum, Lisa calls her friend and goes to him. There they do things that their parents are usually not told about, after which Lisa returns home, overwhelmed with impressions of the museum. Only bad luck - at school they confused something with the announcements, and instead of a science museum, the class ended up on an excursion to the nuclear power plant, where Liza's mother works. Who gladly gave her daughter's class a tour of her work department, but was unpleasantly puzzled by the absence of this very daughter among other children. Even more unpleasantly she was puzzled by Liza, who excitedly talked about the Science Museum in the evening. In the end, the girl admitted that she had not been to any museum because she hated museums, and during the excursion she just walked the streets alone. Mom is left with the feeling that something is wrong here, but she cannot get to the bottom of the truth. Therefore, he focuses on the question: "Why did you lie to me?"

Why why. Who would have thought that the excursion program would be changed! If not for this, Lizin's visit to her friend would have passed quietly and without disturbances. "But why didn't you tell the truth?" - and how do you say it? "Mom, I want to take a walk so that my friend and I can finally sleep peacefully"? There are parents who can easily swallow this information. But there are not many of them.

More recently, Liza would never have skipped the museum, she didn’t have any business that was so important that it was worth the possible complications. Up to a certain point, the child's world consists entirely of what the parents offer him. If this world causes his disagreement, the child begins to protest: not to do homework, lie, fight with classmates, etc. But all these actions mean one thing: the little person is uncomfortable in the world that we have built for him. If we find the cause of the discomfort, we will be able to alleviate it or support the child in his interaction with difficulties, and problems will decrease.

But a teenager protests against the life we have built simply because this life was invented by us. Eleven-year-old Lisa may ask permission for an extraordinary trip to visit a friend, but at fifteen she will not ask about anything. She will do as she sees fit, and will be sincerely proud if she succeeds. It is important for Lisa to act in her own way, without asking her parents and at the same time showing them that she will figure it out perfectly without them. She needs independence and power over her own life. The expected protests “you can't do that” and “you don’t understand anything” do not convince Liza, but, on the contrary, reinforce the idea that it is better not to ask parents about anything. All the same, their answers will not satisfy her.

Lying a teenager is an attempt to set new boundaries for his life with his parents. Sneak out of the house, pull out the mossy pillars of the family fence from the ground and move them a few steps in order to thrust them into the ground again: at random, crookedly, obliquely, but most importantly - with your own hands. If we want the entire fence to stand, the only thing that remains for us is to go and help the child rearrange these posts. No need to crookedly and askew, not secretly, not alone. Let's revise our borders together and decide together what part of the traditionally common land now belongs to you alone.

There are things that we are under no circumstances ready to allow a growing up child. These things will remain our territory and we will tirelessly fight to respect its borders. It makes sense to give everything else under the control of the teenager himself - including what we are not happy with, what we would never have done ourselves, and even what our mother did not allow us. This land is no longer ours. We can put a double lock on the gate and conduct an electric current over the fence - and we will invariably find the lock broken, the current disconnected, and the fugitive not in a science museum. And we can open the gates with our own hands to what will happen in any case - but not against our will, but because the child and I decided so together.

By agreeing to reckon with his needs, we relieve the child of the need to lie. Having received the keys, he will stop climbing the fence. Of course, the problems will not end there, but the teenager will have more confidence in his own home, and as a result, we will have more information about what is really happening to him.

I'll make a reservation. Some level of teenage lies are almost inevitable. A certain part of skipping lessons, secret kisses and other personal life will in any case remain hidden from our eyes (and it's good that this way, otherwise the parents of teenagers would not sleep a single night, and they do not sleep well anyway). But if the child more or less observes what we have agreed with him, and at the same time sees that the rest of his independence is recognized by his parents and is not disputed, that he really decides a lot on his own, and in what he cannot decide yet, he always ready to help - he feels both understood and protected. This means that we can be a bit calmer for him.

* * *

Lying for a child is a tool with which he is trying to change something. It is not always easy to guess what exactly. But it is important to know: children's lies always have reasons, and they should be of interest to us. What's stopping him? Where does it hurt, what presses, what presses? What does not suit us in our common life? It is possible and even desirable to ask the child himself about this. It is very good if he can answer, but there is a chance that he cannot, children often do not know how to formulate such things. Therefore, it is worth taking a closer look at how he lives and thinking - perhaps with him - how this life could be improved. Without connection with lies, just by itself. Many childhood difficulties become very noticeable if you purposefully start looking for them.

We can eliminate or significantly mitigate some of these difficulties, and then the situation will improve as a whole. Sadly, we cannot solve any problems, but we can make the child feel that his experiences are logical and justified, that we understand the child and sympathize with him, although we cannot help. Strictly speaking, any childhood experiences are logical and justified, and if we cannot help, it is better to sympathize than to ignore or scold. Understanding the problem does not always lead to its solution, but it is guaranteed to reduce the tension around it.

Lying as a result of our efforts may or may not stop. Strange as it may seem, this is not the point. It is important that in the process of gazing at our child, in the desire to pay attention to habitually invisible details, while talking with him, thinking about the situation and trying to improve it, we go beyond the usual, put energy into relationships and by this alone are already improving life - to him and to myself.

* * *

And yet, what's wrong with children's lies as such? We talked about what it serves and what it signals. But there must be something bad in himself! It is no coincidence that it upsets parents and educators so much, it is no coincidence that any of us, whoever you ask, will answer without hesitation: it is better when the child does not lie. Given that lying always points to an underlying problem, this is actually better. But intuitively we all feel that lying is also problematic in and of itself. And logically adult arguments are exhausted either by abstract ideology, or by the fact that the secret always becomes apparent. And I decided to ask the children.

Their answers to the question "do you think lying is bad, good or not?" mostly repeated adult arguments against untruth (while the majority of my respondents lie easily, that is, arguments are separate, and life is separate, as often happens). But one nine-year-old boy gave an interesting answer:

- When I lie, we discuss with my dad and mom what was not. They give advice that will not help me, because in reality everything is not so in my life, and they think about me thoughts that do not come out about me, because my parents do not know anything about me. So we're just wasting our time. Better not to lose it.

Here, perhaps. When we are time, we are simply wasting time. Better not to lose it.