Lying
Lying is the bane of my life at times. There seems to be worse phases of it and then it seems to get better - or perhaps I am not so wound up by it! The reasons for lying habitually are to do with the child's early past and the full understanding of the wrongness of lying or because the full grasp of reality and untruth is very hard for these children. The explanations I have found most helpful are:
- Control: if they feel they are controlling you it makes them feel safer, if the child can make you believe there was an alien landing who came and ate all the biscuits that is one up for them. They are in charge! Bad stuff will only happen on their terms. This is a survival strategy that may have literally kept them alive in the past. It is hard wired in.
- Past experience: deception is often very much part of these children’s lives. Hiding what was really going on at home from other people as well as living in an environment where honesty was not valued has impact. Abuse was explained as an ‘accident’ etc. There is also a sense of fulfillment of ‘compensating’ themselves for missing out on things in early life.
- Permanence: Holly van Gulden has revolutionised my understanding of this! She argues that these children don’t understand the permanence of objects, people and others. I have in my own mind extended this to events. In other words once something has happened, we know that it is history, and will remain the same. Our children don’t. It doesn’t matter if the truth would be simpler and easier for them - they automatically tell a whooper! They enjoy telling the story...
- Self worth and shame: in our house this is called the "killer shame" it is that powerful. It overwhelms the child and they cannot bear to think that they were in anyway responsible. They think you will hate them and hurt them if you know what they are ‘really’ like so cover it. The inner belief is that they are bad and not worth much and they act accordingly.
I don’t buy that children don’t know the truth and are just saying the way they see things I’m afraid. My daughter dissociates most of the time. This means she is very convincing that she is actually telling the truth when you know full well that she cannot be telling the truth at all. It can make you question red is in fact blue! But somewhere in there she does know what happened.
Things that help are:
- Pick your battles: don’t let any lie go without commenting that you know that it's a whopper but only pin them down over one that you really need to pick up on.
- Scripted approach: you are Miss Marple with the evidence to convict! Even with scant evidence to the contrary if your radar is spotting that this is likely to be untrue then say a scripted approach - "I believe in all honesty that you have X. Therefore you need to Z to put things right between us. If I find out later that I have made a mistake I will apologise and make things right between us."
- Trustworthy concept: mine are now 13 and 11 so I have started to intro the concept of ‘trustworthy’ status! Rather than just reacting to them, I am trying to teach them a new skill! The rewards of being trustworthy in society are great, but they can be great at home too. To do this we do trust games. I trust them to post a letter and I watch them the first time, then they go themselves. Over the course of a year we can now send them to the park and know they will be home by a set time. Don’t be afraid to go back a step if needed. Mine know that they need to show trustworthiness three times before going up a step. Role play scenarios can also help.
Some people find that letting the child unravel in the lie helps, so what colour were the aliens wearing, did you ring the TV company or were they already filming in the area etc. This doesn’t work here. They enjoy the story more and have a cross moment when you say that it is ridiculous!