Reason Why Children Lie
Lying is something that people do in their daily lives, whether they choose to admit or not is their decision. It has become normal for children as well as adults to lie in their lives to avoid saying something they do not want to. Adults do it sometimes when they want to keep their children happy and avoid them from being sad if parents tell them the truth. Now children do lie quite more than adults for their own reasons. The real question is why do children lie? Children lie often because they think the truth hurts people’s feelings and they are afraid of telling the truth.
Parents teach their kids not to lie, but yet they allow their children to lie when it involves someone’s feelings. That is why children lie because sometimes they feel
it is best to not tell the truth because it may make the other person sad, angry, or cry. According to Peterson (1992), “Children are taught early not to hurt other’s feelings” (p. 1) basically stating that children are encouraged to lie when talking about someone else. Parents teach their children at their young ages to tell little white lies to protect other people’s feelings (Peterson, 1992). When children learn this it just confuses them leading them to more lying because they cannot tell the difference between white lies and bad lies. Children tend to take people’s feelings serious affecting them because then when people tell other lies they think they are same. Children are young and they cannot comprehend the difference between lying about someone’s feelings and just lying about something bad they have done, leading to think that lying about everything is acceptable. The second and the most important reason why children decide to lie is because they are afraid of the outcome of telling the truth. As said by Witchalls (2003), “Children usually lie to avoid getting into trouble. It’s a skill they try to develop at a very young age, some with more success than others” (p. 2). This quote said by Witchalls shows to prove how children commence to lie to avoid getting in trouble for something they had done, like for example when a boy breaks something and their mother asks if they did it. The boy will lie because if he is afraid that his mother would punish him for telling the truth about him breaking something. Children often decide to lie about what they did because of the punishment they think they will get if owning to what they did. Parents need to focus on what they did instead of the fact that they lied, focus on what she did (Peterson, 1992). It works like this if lying for them does not get them punished they come up with devise strategies to avoid that includes lying (Burrowes, 2013). Children lie because they are afraid and not only does punishment cause this fear but judgement coming from other people. Children do use other types of lies like defensive, imitative, revenge, and need attention lies that causes them to lie more and for the reason of receiving more attention or getting even with someone, but the most reasonable causes why children lie frequently is because they feel fear of telling the truth and they think truth hurts people’s feelings (Seidan, 1993). Children lies depend on how parents decide to handle and react to them, if parents choose to talk to their children about their lies and explain them how to separate good and bad lies they will know the rules of lying. Lying is up to parents to choose, if parents talk to their children about lying or decide to punish them for lying is what causes and will determine why children lie.
Parents teach their kids not to lie, but yet they allow their children to lie when it involves someone’s feelings. That is why children lie because sometimes they feel
it is best to not tell the truth because it may make the other person sad, angry, or cry. According to Peterson (1992), “Children are taught early not to hurt other’s feelings” (p. 1) basically stating that children are encouraged to lie when talking about someone else. Parents teach their children at their young ages to tell little white lies to protect other people’s feelings (Peterson, 1992). When children learn this it just confuses them leading them to more lying because they cannot tell the difference between white lies and bad lies. Children tend to take people’s feelings serious affecting them because then when people tell other lies they think they are same. Children are young and they cannot comprehend the difference between lying about someone’s feelings and just lying about something bad they have done, leading to think that lying about everything is acceptable. The second and the most important reason why children decide to lie is because they are afraid of the outcome of telling the truth. As said by Witchalls (2003), “Children usually lie to avoid getting into trouble. It’s a skill they try to develop at a very young age, some with more success than others” (p. 2). This quote said by Witchalls shows to prove how children commence to lie to avoid getting in trouble for something they had done, like for example when a boy breaks something and their mother asks if they did it. The boy will lie because if he is afraid that his mother would punish him for telling the truth about him breaking something. Children often decide to lie about what they did because of the punishment they think they will get if owning to what they did. Parents need to focus on what they did instead of the fact that they lied, focus on what she did (Peterson, 1992). It works like this if lying for them does not get them punished they come up with devise strategies to avoid that includes lying (Burrowes, 2013). Children lie because they are afraid and not only does punishment cause this fear but judgement coming from other people. Children do use other types of lies like defensive, imitative, revenge, and need attention lies that causes them to lie more and for the reason of receiving more attention or getting even with someone, but the most reasonable causes why children lie frequently is because they feel fear of telling the truth and they think truth hurts people’s feelings (Seidan, 1993). Children lies depend on how parents decide to handle and react to them, if parents choose to talk to their children about their lies and explain them how to separate good and bad lies they will know the rules of lying. Lying is up to parents to choose, if parents talk to their children about lying or decide to punish them for lying is what causes and will determine why children lie.