Handle The Lying Children
Ajit Kumar Singh
Passionate Educationist, Shaping Young Minds & Parents as Learning Catalyst for Young Generation
Hurt, offended, astonished, angry, distressed, annoyed…these are some feelings when you catch your child lying. These reactions are normal because you feel your trust on your child is broken. You start imagine his or her future as untrustworthy child which brings more pain. You start reacting rather overreacting to his/her fib. I call it overreacting because we don’t go through other aspects of this negative behavior of your child. We forget that when we overreact and scream over child’s lie, we also behave unreasonably which is being seriously monitored by our children. It gives them opportunity to not only escaping from their misdeed but also they learn that unreasonable behavior from ours by observation.
While handling such lying child, first of all we should make us calm and cool down and realizing the fact that this lying of your children extends an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. This lying behavior may bring self awareness and impact of his behavior on his parents, siblings, friends, teachers or anyone else. For all these parents should be well aware how to convert this challenge into opportunity.
Most of the time children are not aware of the impact of lying. They take this habit as their problem solving skill which is not shaped properly. It is the responsibility of parents to share and discuss all aspects of lying including its impact on family member, peer group or the child himself. To change this behavior, parents must set limits and consequences for lying like once he/she caught lying, will not be allowed to watch favorite cartoon film for next one week or so or he/she will not get their pocket money this month. The important is to monitor his lying behavior and stick to the consequences beyond any emotion. When child will feel that we won’t get his favorite stuffs and other consequences of lying, he will start refraining from that behavior. Withholding his favorite for a certain period of time creates a time of reflection during which the child feels that he is not getting his favorites because of lying. If he speaks truth, he will get all those favorites. So unknowingly the reactive behavior of the child started converting into reflective behavior.
This reflection period should use for healthy conversation by putting questions like what he was actually trying to get by lying or how this lying will help him to get things done or why should you have faith on him in future. Such question will improve his rational thinking skill and will help him out to get rid of lying. During conversation with lying child never ask the question “Why”. It will make the child defensive and will get his own reason for lying. As children learn by trial and error, if they get proper support and guide from their parents, they can learn from their mistakes easily. We should not take lying habit of the child as challenge only rather it can be converted into opportunity as well.
Author is an Educationist, Author, Motivational Speaker and Founder Director: KIDZ aura Playschool, a proposed chain of 5500 + Playschools. He can be reached at [email protected] and call +91 8932804640
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