Perhaps considering a fantastic sentence from Dr. Seuss that says “Are adults just obsolete children?”It’s easier to understand why a child is lying. Empathy for the little ones is a powerful weapon, because in the end, adults are also a little lying, right?
All parents like to know why their children lie. Sometimes it can be as simple as trying to think like them. Are our children aware of the seriousness of lying? Do you know how to differentiate the type of lies they tell? We will try to answer those questions.
- No.
- A child who lies is no less affectionate.
- In fact.
- According to McGill University psychologist Victoria Talwar in Canada.
- They don’t even consider lying black or white.
- For them to tell a truth or a lie depends on the consequences of the message.
- That is.
- The harm it will do to them.
According to Talwar’s study, depending on the punishment or harm inflicted on the child if he or she tells the truth or lies, he will choose one or the other answer, they do not do it on purpose, they only avoid a refusal. Situation.
However, when the father is lying to the child, the harm is much greater, in this sense, our children are considered betrayed.
The funny thing about the study, which was conducted with 100 children from 6 to 12 years old and their parents, is that parents often explain to young people that lying is wrong, however, as educators, they also lie, even if it is pious. Act to make your child’s life easier, but it’s an attitude that baffles the little ones, especially when they’re smaller.
In Talwar’s experiment, several videos were shown to children with situations in which someone was injured. Sometimes it is because a person has lied and an innocent person has been punished; in others, because in telling the truth, the culprit who received the punishment.
After watching the video, the children responded to what they thought of the different characters’ performance, the researcher’s intention was to know the moral judgment that the children were getting from the situations they had seen and analyze each child’s stages of development about it. .
The answers were very varied and gave rise to different interpretations, although there is no specific age to distinguish between truth and lie, nuances have been observed at the level of this variable:
When a child lies, especially according to his age, he should not be seen as a betrayal or an act worthy of indignation. According to Alicia Banderas, author of the book “Little Tyrants”, they do so mainly to avoid punishment. . Other reasons may be: the shame of having done something wrong or enjoying an activity that they like but know is forbidden or restricted at that time.
On the other hand, research tells us that children with more advanced cognitive development already start lying at two years old, otherwise it is normal to start doing it from the age of 3 or 4 and they do it the same. The way they dive into the rest of the earth is unknown to them. This form is nothing more than experimentation, trial and error, lying and verifying the magnitude of the drama’s consequences.
In addition, on certain occasions and at a certain age, the lie may be due to the desire to waste, or even to the mere protection of the privacy of the child or even to pure desire.
That’s why we have to be careful as parents when lying to little ones, if they discover the lie they probably feel betrayed, besides if we make lying a habit, especially if we use it to manipulate children with promises. that then we will break, the day will come when our word will have no value to them.
Therefore, we are left with the conclusion of the Talwar study: parents and educators need to talk more to children and explain the differences between lies and truths. As always, dialogue is the best solution.