6 Ways To Know Your Child Is Lying

The behaviour of a child completely depends on how the parents bring up the kids. Lying is one of the basic things that your child will develop. Even if you have not done anything for it, they will learn to do it eventually from their friends or circumstances will make them do it.

Parents, especially mothers, need to keep an eye out to ensure that their child is not lying. If caught early, it will be easier to change this nasty behaviour that your child has developed.

6 Ways To Know Your Child Is Lying

Like in any other parenting matter, you will need a lot of patience. You will need to communicate well with your child to understand if your child is lying. This is never a onetime solution to this, and what works for other mothers might not work for you.

The situations and circumstances that your kid faces are different and so the solution to that is also different. You need to realise that and work accordingly.

Following are a few ways that can be used in spotting liars. A few behaviours and body language can help you understand if your child is lying.

Eye Contact
If your child is lying, he will avoid eye contact. This is during the initial stages when they start to lie, but as they grow older they will be able to overcome this and will learn to tell lies by looking straight at your face. You can avoid this by catching it at the initial stages and try to make them understand why it is wrong to lie and find the reason why they are lying.

Repetition and Face Touching

Spotting liars can be done by reading their body language. When they repeat the same thing so that they can cook up a lie, doubt them. Doing actions like scratching the face, touching the nose or head can also be signs that your child is lying.

Inconsistencies
When there are inconsistencies in their stories and when you feel they are repeating the same things over and over again, you can be sure that they are lying. It will indeed hurt you to accept the reality. But, you need to be strong and fight towards getting him over this habit.

Defensive Reactions
This is something you will notice when they are lying and when they know that you don’t seem to believe them. This is usually seen in teenagers, the age where they are rebellious and parents are always wrong. Love and care will always get them on our side and you can see a change in no time.

Unusual gestures and blinking
Sudden use of gestures that your child has never used before can be signs that he is lying to you. Body positions can also refer to this. When toddlers tell a lie, they either blink too much or have a naughty smile. With this, you can identify that they are lying.

Fidgeting and Rambling
These are other behaviours that you will notice in your child when they are lying. If they are fidgeting and squirming while telling a story, this means that they are telling a fib. Similarly, if your child doesn’t talk much, but does when he is telling a story, it means that he is telling a lie.

Story first published: Tuesday, August 19, 2014, 18:33 [IST]
Read more about: kids parenting tips