What to do about Lying

As adoptive parents it’s important for us to dig deeper and look at the lying behavior from a place of curiosity.   Our children have come from hard places and developed skills along the way that have helped them survive.  Many of our kids live in the here and now.   They are trying to stay safe.  Often time their imaginations can make “consequences” seem larger than life and they will do anything to avoid them. 

Shame is also a feeling that they try to avoid at all costs.  The discomfort that this brings when they admit they’ve done something wrong is almost unbearable. 

Here are a few tips that may help you parent with parenting situations that involve lying behaviors:

1.       Normalize the behavior.  Ask yourself when the last time you told a lie was and think about why you did it.

2.      Depersonalize the behavior. When you suspect your child is lying to you, try not to take it so personally and remember that this is a well-honed survival skill.

3.      Consider eliminating the word punishment or consequences from your family’s vocabulary.  Think of a consequence as “what happens next.”  This might mean that your child needs more adult supervision, less screen time etc.

4.      If you are pretty confident that your child has done something that needs to be addressed, don’t ask them directly “did you do this?”  Don’t address the behavior while they are in a dysregulated state.  When they are in a rational state of mind you can lay out the evidence that you have and explain what will happen next.  Do not engage in an argument with them.  Kids love the added adrenaline rush of an argument.

5.      Work on creating a home environment where your children know that it’s ok to make mistakes.  A place where they know they can talk about the things they do wrong and learn from them.  Ultimately, we are conveying to our children that it’s ok to tell the truth.  We want them to understand that they are loved unconditionally no matter what.

As we seek to gain a deeper understanding of the why behind our children's behaviors, we are ultimately strengthening the bond of connection.