Top tips on dealing with children lying

Top tips on what you can do about children lying

When dealing with children lying it is important to understand that this is part of their development, but to also remember that it shouldn’t go undealt with. How nursery and parents decide to deal with this should be consistent between both.

Here are a few top tips to help adults respond to children’s lying;

• Reward children. Using positive reinforcement can help, when children make a mistake but have told the truth, talk to them and tell that that’s it’s ok to make a mistake but the important this is that they told the truth. Children will begin to appreciate the positive responses and will begin to respond to them, telling fewer lies.
• Help children to understand between fantasy and reality. This can be hard for children to understand as they are very much focussed on fantasy. Adults need to help children distinguish the difference, talking to children as they are playing is a great opportunity to introduce them to some reality concepts.
• Talk to children instead of punishment. Young children don’t’ understand punishment, therefore, why punish them? Talking to children is more effective and this gives the adult the opportunity to explain more about the affects lying can cause.
• Be a role model. If children are aware that you are lying this shows them that it is ok. There may be occasions where you think it’s ok to tell a few white lies when in fact this isn’t being an effective role model to children.
• Be consistent. Children will eventually stop lying as they move on to exploring other avenues and lying becomes forgotten. If you notice that children lie repetitively be consistent in your approach, reward the honest behaviour and hopefully, they will be respond to this.

By following our few top tips, this will help you when dealing with children lying. Remember that children aren’t doing this intentionally there may be other reasons why they are doing it.