March 19, 2024 • 38 mins
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Kid's lie. There are so many reasons kids lie and probably the most UNLIKELY one is the one most parent's believe.
Our latest episode peels back the layers of childhood dishonesty, offering a comforting guide for parents grappling with their three-year-old's first ventures into untruths. We kick off with a candid look at the developmental milestones of toddlers, revealing why expecting unwavering honesty from someone still mastering the art of language and emotion is a step too far. I share practical advice for addressing your child's fibs about everyday tasks like bathroom use or teeth brushing, striking a balance between teaching right from wrong and understanding their stage of growth.
Navigating the complex path towards raising honest kids, this episode underlines the vital role of autonomy. Discover how empowering your child's sense of agency through challenges like constructing intricate Lego masterpieces can actually steer them away from the need to lie. We dive into the nitty-gritty of fostering positive independence, celebrating our kids' triumphs, and knowing when to step back and let them revel in their own achievements. It's about nurturing their growth without inadvertently pushing them towards dishonesty in a quest to please us.
And for those with children in the imaginative whirlwind of five to seven years, rest assured, your little one's fairy-tale narratives are a healthy part of their development. We explore how their vibrant imaginations bolster critical thinking skills essential for both current problem-solving and future success. So, before you correct your little one's next adventurous story, tune in to understand why their creative fabrications might just be a stepping stone to brilliance.
Our journey doesn't end here, though; keep an ear out for our next episode, where we'll explore why older children may opt to weave a web of lies to sidestep consequences, completing our nuanced look at this integral part of growing up.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Three-year-olds do not possess the developmental
capacity, the prefrontal cortexdevelopment, in order to be able
to lie into this manipulativeway.
They don't.
They just don't have an abilityto think in those terms and
people will often hold childrento this super high standard of
(00:21):
honesty or any sort of behaviorright, any sort of emotional
regulation.
They'll hold children to toohigh of a standard because they
fundamentally misunderstand howthe developing brain works.
It's a brand new day.
Hey, wake up every morning andsay it's a brand new day.
Hello and welcome to the WholeParent Podcast.
(00:42):
We are doing something out ofbusiness today.
This is actually going to be anepisode about Hello and welcome
to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John.
I am at Whole Parent on all ofthe social medias TikTok, at
least while it's still around inthe United States Instagram,
facebook, youtube, all of theplaces but you have found me on
(01:04):
probably what is my currentfavorite platform, which is the
Whole Parent Podcast, where wego in depth on how to raise
resilient kids usingevidence-based approaches,
empathy, connection, maybe alittle woo-woo stuff, and all
with the effort and with theintention that you will parent
with more confidence, becauseparenting is tough.
(01:25):
And this episode, which isactually going to be split in
half.
We're going to do the secondpart of this episode because
I've already recorded theepisode.
I'm just doing the intro lateryou will get on Thursday, so
you'll get this one on Tuesdayand then two days later you got
to wait You'll get part two onThursday.
It's a little reminiscent ofthose American Idol you have to
(01:45):
wait and vote and whatever.
I guess maybe that's a badcomparison, but I grew up in the
mid-2000s, early the 90s, inthe mid-2000s.
So yeah, I remember that.
So yeah, if you want to hear therest of this episode, you'll
notice the way in which itsounds once we dive into the
topic today, which is lying.
We're talking about why kidslie.
We're hitting three differentages across the two episodes a
(02:06):
three-year-old, a six-year-oldand then on Thursday we're going
to hit the nine year old.
As you dive into this episodeand as you kind of consume and
let this information wash overyou, and hopefully, as it's
applicable and you can implementit in your life, I want you to
understand that if you aresitting here right now and going
, I don't know what to do whenmy kids lie.
That's what this is all about.
(02:27):
And so as we go through this asI give you the information that
I'm giving you.
Please understand.
None of us know what we're doingin parenting.
Sometimes it just feels sooverwhelming and I just really
hope that, listening to anepisode like this whether you
have a three-year-old, whetheryou have a six-year-old, whether
you have a nine-year-old,whether you have an 18-year-old,
and you're thinking back abouthow you did things and maybe
(02:47):
going maybe I didn't do thingsexactly right.
Or whether you're stillexpecting your first child or
not even expecting your firstchild, or you have a child
that's under the age of speechand so you haven't had any lying
yet because they haven't evenstarted talking yet.
Wherever you find yourself onthe parenting journey, I just
want you to leave feeling alittle bit better, a little bit
more confident, because a lot ofus feel like, man, I must be
(03:10):
doing something wrong if I don'tknow exactly what to do in
these scenarios and you're not.
It's totally acceptable andunderstandable to not have all
of the answers.
We all make mistakes.
It's just part of life and it'spart of growing.
And so your kid's going to makemistakes, and sometimes, when
they make mistakes, they'regoing to lie about those
mistakes.
Sometimes the mistake is justgoing to be a lie that they
(03:31):
didn't even have to tell in thefirst place.
You wouldn't even have caredanyway.
But they lie.
Whatever it is, we're going toget into it, and especially in
this first part.
One, we're going to talk aboutwhy so many of us fundamentally
misunderstand lying in youngerkids, that's, kids up to about
age seven.
We'll talk about moreintentional lying or lying in
order to avoid punishment.
(03:52):
We talked about that a littlebit in this part.
We'll talk about that a lotmore in part two, which is why
I've separated that out.
This episode was going to betremendously long in comparison
to my other episodes that arestructured in this way.
Some of my guest episodes go alittle long, but I don't want
you to feel like my gosh.
There's this daunting hour and10 minute episode that I don't
(04:13):
know if I could listen to all inone, and so I've split it into
two so that it can be a littlebit more digestible for you, and
I hope that you really, reallyenjoy it.
But if it sounds a little weird, sometimes it says like oh, I'm
going to you know, like at theend of this part it's going to
say something like okay, nowwe're going to go into you know
a break so that I can tell youabout ways to connect with the
old parent.
And then the episode abruptlyends.
It's not anything wrong withyour podcast app, it's not
(04:35):
anything wrong with your device.
It's just that, after recordingthis episode, I thought to
myself you know what this reallyshould be two episodes, not one
.
And so, without further ado, letus jump into the whole topic of
lying, specifically with reallyyoung kids three year olds and
six year olds at the beginninghere with our first question.
So let's go into those.
(04:56):
The first one comes fromMeredith.
She says I'm dealing with mythree year old daughter, who's
been lying a lot lately, whetherit's having to use the bathroom
or when she's brushed her teeth.
When I ask her, she will oftenjust boldly lie.
I feel like she needs to learnthat lying is wrong.
How do I teach that?
Well, meredith, first of all, Itotally agree with you Kids do
(05:20):
need to learn that lying is anunfruitful activity that will
not lead to life affirmingflourishing later on.
Right, if you are in arelationship with someone and
you're regularly lying to them,whether that's a marriage or
even the context of work, theseare the things that really erode
relationships and trust.
(05:41):
You know, apart from empathy, Ithink dishonesty a lack of
empathy, I should say dishonestyis probably the second most
common killer of long termrelationships.
And so, with that being said,with that being the case, I
think it is massively importantthat we teach our kids about
honesty and how to be honest,and yes, it starts when they're
three years old.
But we also have to understandthat I actually don't think that
(06:03):
three years, three year olds,have a capacity to lie.
What do I mean by that?
Well, when I think about lying,I think about a person who is
intentionally manipulating thetruth, or being dishonest,
hiding the truth or beingspecifically false about the
truth, saying the opposite ofthe truth in order to come to
(06:28):
some personal gain or to avoidsome personal hardship, and
we'll talk about that later on.
So the question is is a threeyear old when they are lying
about brushing their teeth orwhen they're lying about?
I think about the cookie thatmy kids eat, right?
If I ask my kid, have you had acookie?
And they're three years old,their mouth will be covered in
(06:49):
chocolate and they'll look at mestraight in the face as if they
could pass a polygraph test andthey'll just say no and it's
like, well, yes, you did have acookie.
But ultimately I don't thinkthat these are intentional
manipulations by our kids.
Oftentimes and this actually isgonna be true for our second
question as well but oftentimeswe think of this as, like man,
(07:11):
my kid's just trying to asserttheir will or they're trying to
manipulate me.
Three year olds do not possessthe developmental capacity, the
prefrontal cortex development,in order to be able to lie into
this manipulative way.
They don't, they just don'thave an ability to think in
those terms, and people willoften hold children to this
(07:33):
super high standard of honestyor any sort of behavior right,
any sort of emotional regulation.
They'll hold children to toohigh of a standard because they
fundamentally misunderstand howthe developing brain works.
Paradoxically, many of the samepeople make excuses for adults
all the time who have fullydeveloped brains, who act out
(07:55):
emotionally or lash outemotionally when they do possess
the capacity Not that all of usdon't lose our cool sometimes
but adults who do possess thedevelopmental capacity to be
able to self-regulate.
So the question is is a threeyear old doing that?
And I think fundamentally theanswer is no.
So what is happening with athree year old.
Why do they lie?
Well, the first reason thatkids lie, as you can imagine and
(08:16):
I don't wanna get too deep intothis, I'll go into it in the
next question is to avoidpunishment.
Kids all lie all the timebecause they think that if they
don't lie, that they'll bepunished as a result.
And when I say punishment here,I'm talking about the
intentional harm or withholdingor the leveraging of a action
(08:40):
that will feel in some wayuncomfortable to a child in
order to de-incentivize ordis-incentivize, I should say
them from doing something thatyou don't want them to do.
So if your child colors on thewall and they know that they
will be God forbid spanked or atleast screamed at or put in a
timeout away from you orsomething like that some other
(09:02):
punishment for coloring on thewalls they can sometimes lie
about that.
Now, oftentimes three year oldsdon't even possess that
capacity to be able to draw thatconnection, and so if they're
lying at all, it's becausethey're unconsciously or
subconsciously aware thatsometimes telling you what has
happened has resulted in theirdiscomfort, and so this is an
(09:26):
example of oftentimes kids will.
Three year olds who are punishedregularly for different actions
will lie about positive things.
Did you do this?
And they'll say no because theyhave just learned to withhold
all information from you, right?
Because they know I don't knowwhat's problematic or what's not
problematic.
I mean, this is a fundamentalpart of growing up.
If you don't remember coloringon the walls before you knew it
(09:48):
was gonna be a problem, Icertainly have that memory at
five years old of coloring onthe walls in my childhood
bedroom and in the closet of mychildhood bedroom and thinking
it's gonna be covered up by theclothes that are there.
My parents are not gonna careand kind of boldly showing them
what I had done.
And hey look, I've written myname 150 times in this closet
(10:08):
and my parents being like whatthe heck did you just do?
This is terrible.
So they may not even know whatthey're doing is problematic,
but they have learned at somepoint.
I don't tell, I hide everythingbecause I don't know what's
gonna get me in trouble or notin trouble, right?
So that's the number one reason.
But I wanna get into that laterbecause I think with
three-year-olds it's not even aconscious thought at that point.
(10:29):
Number two kids lie becausethey're trying to figure out.
Three-year-olds lie becausethey're trying to figure out,
like, what will happen when theytell the.
When they're dishonest, theyjust will often willy-nilly say
no to a question to which theanswer is actually yes, or yes
(10:50):
to a question to which theanswer is no, Like, hey, did you
brush your teeth?
Yes, even though they didn't.
Did they forget that theydidn't?
It's possible, but they'll justanswer, they'll just kind of
assert this autonomy in thismoment and there's not a lot
that you can do about that and,in my opinion, not a lot that
you should do about that.
(11:11):
In fact, my best advice forparents who are at this stage of
development three years old,four years old, five years old
is to not ask your kid questionsthat you know the answer to, at
least as it relates tosomething like this.
It's possible, if you're tryingto teach them about the world,
there's something that you mightwant to ask a question that you
(11:32):
don't know the answer to.
Don't take this too far or toliterally when I'm saying this,
but you know, if you know thatyour kid didn't brush their
teeth, don't say did you brushyour teeth, say it's time to
brush our teeth and just walkthem into the bathroom Now they
may still say I already brush myteeth because they know that
you've already asked them to.
But at this point you just saywhere it's time to brush our
teeth, we're going to brush ourteeth.
Now, if you go down this pathwith your kids of did you brush
(11:56):
your teeth?
Yes, I don't believe you.
I did.
Let me see your toothbrush,it's not wet.
Here's this logical no, I did,I promise I did.
I don't know why it's not wet.
And they just go in and go inand go out and they won't even
say I don't know why it's notwet, right?
They don't even have thatdevelopmental capacity to lie in
any sort of nuanced way.
It's hard for me, even as anadult, to remember and to
(12:17):
empathize with how kind of blackand white their thinking can be
on this.
But really, if you go down thispath with your kids, the result
is not going to be positive.
So don't go down that path.
Just don't cue the lie.
Don't ask questions to whichyou already know the answer.
It is not a way of teachinghonesty to cue them to lie, to
(12:40):
give them an opportunity to lieand then to tell them that
they're lying right.
This is just kind of a bait andswitch, because, kids.
You don't know what they'regoing to say and oftentimes
their thinking is their brainwill be so underdeveloped that
they'll just speak without evenconsidering what they're saying
as they're talking.
This is a problem that I havewith some people.
(13:01):
Adults in my life, they thinkwithout speaking, but kids
almost universally think withoutspeaking, at least at this age,
and so don't cue the lie.
And then the third thing here isthat kids will lie in order to
seek out opportunities to haveautonomy, right.
So a kid will do at this agealmost anything to gain some
(13:22):
autonomy, to gain someopportunity to agency and
control over their life.
And so lying is part of thatautonomy seeking.
It's part of the learning wherethey are in the world and how
they relate to the world.
And as a result, you know, themore you can help a kid to seek
out that autonomy in healthyways, the more that the
(13:43):
unhealthy manifestations of thatautonomy the kid who says no to
everything, or the kid who lies, or the kid who adamantly
refuses to get into their carseat or to put on their shoes, a
lot of that stuff is just.
They need to have a sense ofautonomy, they need to have a
sense of agency, and if youdeprive them of opportunities to
act out that autonomy and thatagency, if you are constantly
(14:05):
hovering over them and makingsure that they never get hurt or
that they never have anaccident or this or that or the
other, that they never doanything problematic, they will
find ways to do it, and oftenthat comes out as lying right.
That's what the research tellsus is that if you deprive a kid
of their sense of agency andautonomy, eventually they will
just lie to gain that agency andautonomy.
(14:26):
And so, with the super youngkids, that's where I would start
.
How much autonomy can I giveaway?
How many times can I reallyallow my kid to feel a sense of
agency?
Can I have my kid cook with me,even if it's going to be more
messy and probably not taste asgood in the end?
Can I help my, have my kid helpme clean up around the house?
(14:47):
Right, do some chores with me,even though, as the result, the
chore will probably take threetimes as long and be, you know,
slower.
One of the things that I like todo with my three year old.
He's very visually, spatiallytalented, and I guess I
shouldn't praise him in that way.
He has a lot of resilience asit relates to visual, spatial
tasks and colors, and so for himit's Legos Not a lot of three
(15:09):
year olds can do and he's Iguess he's almost four but not a
lot of almost four year oldscan do complex Lego sets.
They do make Lego sets that arelike four, four year olds, but
I sat with him for three and ahalf hours yesterday in multiple
sections he wasn't just likeall all the time in one sitting
and he slowly built the Lego setof a squid that was designed
(15:31):
for like an eight-year-old, Ithink.
And did he need some someassistance from me?
Sure he did, but I actually lethim struggle.
I let him completely do it onhis own if he really wanted to
put a piece on that he was justreally struggling with, and it
took him Three minutes to putone piece on and he had to take
it off five different timesbecause he couldn't match it up
with the picture.
Exactly right, but he justwanted to keep struggling.
(15:52):
I just let him do that becauseI'd rather the autonomy come out
in that healthy way of I'mgonna do this in my way and it's
gonna take me forever, but I'mgonna accomplish it and you
should see him carrying thisthing around.
Guys.
He is just absolutely like somuch pride, so much like I did
it.
I did this all by myself.
I'd much rather it come out inthat way than for it to come out
(16:15):
in the.
I'm just gonna seek outWhatever negative autonomy I can
get.
Hey, guys, I am abruptlyinterrupting myself in the
middle of this part one of ourtwo-part lying episode To just
let you know that the way toconnect with me better Then you
can even connect with me here onthe podcast is through my email
list.
If you want to find a way to addyourself to that email list,
(16:35):
all you got to do is go to theshow notes or the link below the
description below.
Wherever you're watching thisor listening to this Podcast,
you go to the show notes and thefirst link will be a link to my
stand store where you can putyour first name and your email
in.
And if you're daunted byjoining an email list because
you think to yourself man, I gettoo many emails already and I
get too many sales emails and Ijust get my entire inbox is full
(16:58):
of junk and I already have todeal with so much of this, I
don't just want one more guytrying to get me to buy
something.
Understand that that is reallynot what the email list is all
about.
The email list, unlike mostemail lists that you will join
in your whole life, is primarilytargeted at helping you become
a better parent.
So the vast majority of theemails that I send are just my
(17:20):
typical Thursday email, whichmanifests as kind of a blog
style content.
Often it might be an additionalKind of bonus aspect to a topic
that I'm talking about on thepodcast.
I've done that a couple timesrecently.
Last week it was just a reallyinteresting, kind of
heartwarming but also kind ofgross and funny story from my
(17:40):
own parenting journey.
That happened last week.
I didn't really have time to doa lot of research for that email
list because I do.
I Research for every single oneof these episodes and for every
single one of the emails that Iput out.
I put in a ton of time to dothat, and so I didn't have time
to do that last week because Ihad sick kids and so I just
talked about that and that canbe some some of the emails that
you'll get.
It's stuff that you know.
(18:01):
You'll learn way more about mylife in the email list, in these
blog style emails that I sendout on Thursdays, and so if
you're not doing the email listyet, please do that.
I I just I give it all away inthere.
I will send you in the firstweek and a half that you have
are on the email list.
You'll get like three or fourof my best emails that I've ever
written.
And, yes, occasionally thereare places in the email list
(18:23):
where I might tell you about anupcoming event.
I don't allow people to joininto the email process, like I'm
not gonna allow a marketer touse my email list to send you
guys information about a productthat they're pushing or
something like that.
I don't do any of that, butoccasionally I will let you know
if I'm hosting a paid webinaror a paid virtual class or if
(18:45):
I'm releasing some sort of likepotty training guide.
That's something that I thinkwe're gonna be doing not too
long in the future.
And then, of course, the book.
When the book becomes availablefor pre-order, I may link to
that or I will link to that inthe email list.
But primarily, overwhelmingly,the emails that you will get for
me are just intended for free,to help you parent better,
(19:05):
because that is my goal withthis platform To help people
parent better.
So, without further ado, let'sget back to the episode, and
I'll be back with you at the endof this one, even though it
might not sound like theepisode's gonna end.
It is so.
That's with the really littlekids.
Let's move on to a kid who's alittle bit older and I'm gonna
get into some of the things thatI have already been talking
about with a three-year-old, butnow kids twice as old.
(19:27):
So this is Brian, and he's afather to a six-year-old boy.
He says that he's been showingsigns of dishonesty.
He often fabricates stories toavoid getting in trouble.
I know this is probably normalbehavior, but I also want it to
stop.
So what should I do, brian?
This is a fantastic question,and this is actually most of the
questions that I get aboutlying.
(19:49):
Occasionally I get an olderquestion, like like the one that
we're gonna talk about here ina moment.
Occasionally I'll get a toddlerquestion, and a lot of the
toddler questions come frompeople who grew up in
authoritarian households, oftenwith a highly hierarchical
religious system, where you knowat two years old if you were
caught lying you might get aPhysical spanking or something
(20:10):
like that because you knowthat's a sin or that's immoral
or this or that or the other.
Many parents kind of intuitivelyunderstand that a
three-year-old doesn't reallyknow what they're doing.
As it relates to lying anddishonesty, more difficult for
many parents is the six-year-oldwho lies to cover up something,
to not get in trouble.
(20:30):
Or, even more kind ofFantastically for so many
parents, my kid just told me themost outlandish ridiculous
story about walking home fromschool with, you know, my, their
cousin who picked them up orwhatever.
Or my kid told me thisridiculously outlandish story
about something that happenedduring lunch that involved
(20:53):
aliens and lasers and stuff, andwhen I pressed them they were
like no, that really happened.
I promise it really happened.
Okay.
So here is.
Here is a place in developmentthat really really is difficult
for so many parents to identifyand understand.
At the age of five, six, evenseven years old kids
imaginations are still soincredibly robust, because this
(21:17):
is part of the growing andlearning process is having
amazing imaginative, creativethinking and and we should do
our best to continue to fosterthat in our kids, to be honest,
because these are the kids, thekids who possess that and then
can maintain that throughouttheir life.
For the kids that wind up beingmassively successful but also
have massive life satisfactionbecause they're the critical
(21:41):
thinkers who can go into theworkforce or industries,
entrepreneurship opportunitiesand critically thinking,
creatively thinking, solveproblems that the rest of us
can't, because that creativethinking was lost through the
process of development andusually through the process of
being schooled in some way.
Critical thinking is not super,super high on the priority list
(22:02):
for schooling systems that havestandardization, because
critical thinking and creativethinking are not really
measurable standards.
It's much easier to measuresomeone's ability to follow
instructions than it is tomeasure someone's ability to
creatively problem solve, and sothat's how most of our
education system is set up.
We want to make sure thatpeople are progressing in a
certain way, and so we kind ofruin kids to that.
(22:25):
To an extent that's one of thereasons why I homeschool.
People don't know that Ihomeschool a lot.
I don't advocate forhomeschooling for everyone.
I don't think that parents whosend their kids to traditional
school, public school, privateschool, whatever, are bad
parents at all.
I was public schooledthroughout my entire childhood.
I loved my childhood.
I loved school to it.
Sometimes, you know, no kidloves school all the time.
(22:47):
I don't think I met my wife inhigh school.
If I had not been going to thepublic high school, I'm sure as
heck would not be as happy as Iam today.
For that reason alone, becauseI definitely punched above my
weight with that one.
But because of that right,because one of the reasons why
we homeschool anyway andactually we practice something
called unschooling which I'm notgoing to get into in this
episode, maybe I'll do anepisode all about it is because
(23:08):
we want to prioritize creativeand creative thinking and
critical thinking, collaborativethinking too, in our kids.
And will this be a foreverchoice for us?
I have no idea.
Maybe, you know, when our kidsare in middle school, we'll make
a different choice.
Maybe, with you know, kids thatare younger, I might make a
different choice for them than Imade for my oldest, but at
least for him it made all thesense in the world, because, you
(23:29):
know, we wanted to continue tofoster this imagination.
And what we understand, though,in in talking to kids and child
psychologists talking about this, is that kids who are of this
age seem to possess a really,really high cognitive ability.
Often right, these kids canread, they can write, they can
do basic math, they can do theirtime even.
(23:52):
You know more complicated maththat maybe you and I didn't
learn when we were that young,but that they may learn now.
And you know academicenvironments, things like
multiplication, division.
They can do all of thesecognitive practices, things that
we associate with later stagebrain development, but in some
ways their brain is still verymuch so underdeveloped, and one
(24:14):
of the ways is being able toidentify whether or not saying a
thing is true, makes it true,or even remembering with any
sort of clarity.
And so a kid who's five or sixor seven years old, who has
asked a question, who may notremember the exact answer to
that question, may find thatallowing their imagination to
(24:37):
creatively fill in the gaps ismore enjoyable than to, you know
, just say I don't know.
And especially kids who forwhom it's not been stamped out
of them and they don't have afear of dishonesty because
they're being allowed toflourish and they're not being
constantly badgered about.
Well, is that exactly how ithappened which, by the way, we
(24:58):
can talk about that later on?
But but for kids this age it'snot super effective to do that.
Unless it's a safety issue, weshould not be trying to, like,
interrogate kids or, you know,press kids for answers to things
that happened, and so, becauseof that, kids will often fill in
the gaps and parents just don'tunderstand this because they're
like no, no, no, I can see thatdevelopmentally, from the
(25:20):
cognitive capacity, they can doall these amazing things.
They can read, they can write,they can do math, whatever they
can do all these amazing.
They know geography right.
Kids have amazing ability topossess cognitive processing.
How could it be that they stilldon't know that telling
somebody that something happenedthat didn't happen, or lying
about a thing, doesn't make ittrue?
Well, that's exactly what'shappening.
They can, the kids of this agecan tell you something that is
(25:45):
factually incorrect, that didnot happen, and yet they can
feel kind of in their heart thatit did happen.
That way Because theirimagination and their perception
of reality are, kind of, youknow, both at the same time
developing, and so understandingthis reality will give us a lot
(26:06):
more empathy for our kids.
Understanding this reality willhelp us to understand that our
kid often is not intentionallymanipulating us.
Again, three year olds don'tdevelop, even possess the
capacity.
Maybe a six year old does, butoftentimes that's not the goal.
They often are just trying tofigure out how does the world
work?
If I say something happened,does that mean that it happened?
(26:30):
And, by the way, adults who arelistening to this, parents who
are listening to this we do thistoo all the time.
We believe a story for so longthat it feels true to us.
I know so many parents who havegone through this, parents who
absolutely will insist that theyremember something happening
(26:52):
from their childhood that didn'tactually happen.
I'll give you an example.
In my own life, I was asked on arecent podcast that I was not
on the whole parent podcast, butit was somebody who I had on
the whole parent podcast.
They were talking about themovie Superbad, which includes a
character named Fogle, which,of course, is my last name and
somehow I got mixed up in mymind, probably 15 years ago, 10
(27:14):
years ago, whenever that moviecame out.
I got mixed up in my mind thatthe writer of that movie Was
this guy who went to high schoolwith my brothers.
Now, my brothers did go to highschool the same high school
that I went to with a guy whowent on to be a somewhat famous
comedic writer.
He wrote things likeworkaholics and and other TV
(27:35):
shows and kind of in that samesame kind of mid 2000s raunchy
comedy type thing.
And this guy did go to highschool with my brothers there's
no doubt they knew him, he, hewas around them and and he was
making movies and making TV atthe same time that Superbad came
out, which is kind of in thesame vein as his type of comedy.
(27:57):
And so I got in my head I don'tknow how I got this in my head
with my brothers told me it, orProbably not.
I probably just drew a falseconnection at some point that
that character, fogle, while notbased on my brother's, got his
name for my brother.
Well, I reiterated this on thispodcast because I hadn't
thought about it like 10 years.
You know that this happened.
It doesn't really come up thatoften anymore.
(28:18):
It's not a really you knowregular movie.
People don't just call out likeFogle to me on the street
anymore.
But for the guy who wasinterviewing me, like yeah, he
remembers it because he's alittle bit older than I am and
that was a you know foundationalmovie in his early 20s that he
thought was like really, reallyfunny and he quoted it all the
time with his Workfriends.
And so, you know, I said, yeah,I actually think that's based
(28:39):
on the name, is actually basedon my brother.
Well then, after the podcast, Ilooked it up.
So I went, man, I just saidthis on a podcast.
How do you know if that's likereally true?
I like have this memory of thatbeing true and if you asked me,
like I would have totally toldyou that that was true.
But you know, did I just makethat up?
Is that just like something inmy head that I like that that's
(28:59):
not accurate.
So I fact-checked myself andturns out I was completely wrong
.
I was this Canadian guy whohelped write with Seth Rogen,
helped write super bad and themtogether they had, they had
known this guy who the characterwas based on and it was his
actual name.
So somehow that had gottencorrect.
Like they didn't just make upthe name, it was somebody that
they had known.
But somehow, in the process ofyou know, learning that story
(29:22):
and then also having this otherstory, I had created a meta
narrative for myself in mychildhood about this happening
and about this being somehowrelated to me and my family in
my name, and that just becametrue for me, right?
And it was not that I wasintentionally lying, it wasn't
that I was in beingintentionally dishonest.
You're trying to be moreInteresting than I am.
Again, it has nothing to dowith me.
It was have to do with mybrothers, who you know.
(29:43):
Again, no, no relation, no realrelation to me as a person.
It doesn't benefit me at all,but it it still felt real to me,
and so we do this all the time.
Our kids do this Constantly, andinstead of something that
happens over ten years where youslowly kind of talk yourself
into, this is a true thing Forthem.
(30:04):
This can happen all the time,so this can be.
I was walking home from schooland I tensed all my.
This is something again for mychildhood.
I tensed all my muscles up andI ran really fast and I learned
that I could run even fasterthan I thought I could run so
fast that I was the fastesthuman on planet earth.
This is something I believe.
In first grade I Did this.
I was.
I knew it sounded ridiculous,but I was like I think that's
(30:26):
true, though I'm pretty sure ifI do this in this way, it feels
that way to me and because itfeels that way, it's true.
This is the the essence ofgrowing up and developing.
Being able to separate truthfrom fiction is actually a later
Developing thing.
It's not something that wedevelop early on.
And, by the way, guys, this issomething that we deal with all
(30:47):
the time Cognitive dissonanceadults experience this.
You know, if you believe acertain thing about a political
candidate that you support,people can provide you with
evidence in the country of that,and it won't matter, you will
still continue to believe it,right?
So because of this, this is alater developing thing and it's
challenging for many adults.
It's extremely challenging foryoung kids, and so don't
(31:09):
immediately go to.
My kid is lying in order tomanipulate me.
My kid is lying intentionally.
Oftentimes, kids just don't know, and the best way that you can
approach that with them is saylike, oh, that's a really crazy
story, how did you think of thatstory?
And they might say, oh, itreally happened.
Like, wow, that must be reallycool to really feel like this is
and it sounds patronizing,right when I'm saying it to an
(31:30):
adult, but that must be reallycool to have that experience as
a kid.
And Then they can kind of dolike yeah, yeah, and I do.
You know that I can like dothat all the time and I've had
conversations with young kidsthis age.
I was like, oh man, can youlike, can you make stuff like
that just happen to you?
And they'll be like, yeah, Ican just kind of wish it and
then it will happen.
(31:50):
And so you know, I'll get herein the last piece about not
lying to avoid punishment withthe nine year old.
I want to, I want to reallyfocus in on that, but before
that let me take a real quickbreak to talk about some things
that you can, other ways you canconnect with whole parent.
All right, and that's wherewe're going to abruptly end
(32:11):
today Because, like I said, Irecorded this one as a whole
single part.
But you know what it's a twoparter.
It needs to be a two parter.
As you've already seen, we'vebeen talking for a long time
about lying.
I hope, if you have youngerkids especially, this episode
has been helpful to you.
If you have someone else inyour life who has kids under the
age of, let's say, seven yearsold, or even seven year olds who
you don't know if your, iftheir kids are struggling with
(32:32):
lying, I can almost guaranteeyou that their kids at one point
, have struggled with lying forthe exact reasons that I've laid
out so far.
It's not an intentionalmanipulation, this is just a
natural part of development.
Some of it's totallyunconscious, it's un, you know,
it's just part of growing.
They just don't even know andbecause of that, if you have a
parent in your life who has kidsup to that age, I bet you they
(32:54):
would love this podcast.
I bet you they would love toknow more about this, because so
many of us get so nervous whenour kids, you know, spit out
that first lie at two years oldor three years old or whatever,
and we don't know how to respondand we're like man, this is a
value system for me and I reallycare about doing this Well,
telling this episode.
You can't imagine how lifeaffirming had has been, as I've
(33:16):
walked with literally hundredsof parents who have struggled
with lying with their kids,again, of all ages, but
especially parents, kids who arein that three to seven year old
range.
When they start to do that, forwhatever reason, you have no
idea how many parents have justsaid John, hearing your take on
this, or hearing the evidencebased or the research take on
(33:37):
this, has made me feel so muchbetter about my parenting
journey, and so you don't haveany clue.
Probably all the people in yourlife who would benefit from this
Don't be a person who keepsthis stuff to yourself Share
this on your social media page.
Share this with parents in yourlife who have kids of that age
zero to seven, or who areexpecting kids, and you know,
down the road they're going torun into this and maybe they can
(33:58):
get ahead of it.
Share this episode with them,and even if they don't thank you
for it right now, I bet you youare doing them an incredible
service, and not only that maybea little tune into some more
episodes and learn some morethings too.
Without anything else to say onthis episode, I'll see you in
two days when I come back, ormaybe it's already up if you're
(34:18):
listening to this.
After the fact, when we talkabout our nine year old and we
get into some of the reallyintense stuff lying to avoid
punishment let's talk about itnext time.
On the whole thing,
Three-year-olds do not possess the developmental
capacity, the prefrontal cortexdevelopment, in order to be able
to lie into this manipulativeway.
They don't.
They just don't have an abilityto think in those terms and
people will often hold childrento this super high standard of
(00:21):
honesty or any sort of behaviorright, any sort of emotional
regulation.
They'll hold children to toohigh of a standard because they
fundamentally misunderstand howthe developing brain works.
It's a brand new day.
Hey, wake up every morning andsay it's a brand new day.
Hello and welcome to the WholeParent Podcast.
(00:42):
We are doing something out ofbusiness today.
This is actually going to be anepisode about Hello and welcome
to the Whole Parent Podcast.
My name is John.
I am at Whole Parent on all ofthe social medias TikTok, at
least while it's still around inthe United States Instagram,
facebook, youtube, all of theplaces but you have found me on
(01:04):
probably what is my currentfavorite platform, which is the
Whole Parent Podcast, where wego in depth on how to raise
resilient kids usingevidence-based approaches,
empathy, connection, maybe alittle woo-woo stuff, and all
with the effort and with theintention that you will parent
with more confidence, becauseparenting is tough.
(01:25):
And this episode, which isactually going to be split in
half.
We're going to do the secondpart of this episode because
I've already recorded theepisode.
I'm just doing the intro lateryou will get on Thursday, so
you'll get this one on Tuesdayand then two days later you got
to wait You'll get part two onThursday.
It's a little reminiscent ofthose American Idol you have to
(01:45):
wait and vote and whatever.
I guess maybe that's a badcomparison, but I grew up in the
mid-2000s, early the 90s, inthe mid-2000s.
So yeah, I remember that.
So yeah, if you want to hear therest of this episode, you'll
notice the way in which itsounds once we dive into the
topic today, which is lying.
We're talking about why kidslie.
We're hitting three differentages across the two episodes a
(02:06):
three-year-old, a six-year-oldand then on Thursday we're going
to hit the nine year old.
As you dive into this episodeand as you kind of consume and
let this information wash overyou, and hopefully, as it's
applicable and you can implementit in your life, I want you to
understand that if you aresitting here right now and going
, I don't know what to do whenmy kids lie.
That's what this is all about.
(02:27):
And so as we go through this asI give you the information that
I'm giving you.
Please understand.
None of us know what we're doingin parenting.
Sometimes it just feels sooverwhelming and I just really
hope that, listening to anepisode like this whether you
have a three-year-old, whetheryou have a six-year-old, whether
you have a nine-year-old,whether you have an 18-year-old,
and you're thinking back abouthow you did things and maybe
(02:47):
going maybe I didn't do thingsexactly right.
Or whether you're stillexpecting your first child or
not even expecting your firstchild, or you have a child
that's under the age of speechand so you haven't had any lying
yet because they haven't evenstarted talking yet.
Wherever you find yourself onthe parenting journey, I just
want you to leave feeling alittle bit better, a little bit
more confident, because a lot ofus feel like, man, I must be
(03:10):
doing something wrong if I don'tknow exactly what to do in
these scenarios and you're not.
It's totally acceptable andunderstandable to not have all
of the answers.
We all make mistakes.
It's just part of life and it'spart of growing.
And so your kid's going to makemistakes, and sometimes, when
they make mistakes, they'regoing to lie about those
mistakes.
Sometimes the mistake is justgoing to be a lie that they
(03:31):
didn't even have to tell in thefirst place.
You wouldn't even have caredanyway.
But they lie.
Whatever it is, we're going toget into it, and especially in
this first part.
One, we're going to talk aboutwhy so many of us fundamentally
misunderstand lying in youngerkids, that's, kids up to about
age seven.
We'll talk about moreintentional lying or lying in
order to avoid punishment.
(03:52):
We talked about that a littlebit in this part.
We'll talk about that a lotmore in part two, which is why
I've separated that out.
This episode was going to betremendously long in comparison
to my other episodes that arestructured in this way.
Some of my guest episodes go alittle long, but I don't want
you to feel like my gosh.
There's this daunting hour and10 minute episode that I don't
(04:13):
know if I could listen to all inone, and so I've split it into
two so that it can be a littlebit more digestible for you, and
I hope that you really, reallyenjoy it.
But if it sounds a little weird, sometimes it says like oh, I'm
going to you know, like at theend of this part it's going to
say something like okay, nowwe're going to go into you know
a break so that I can tell youabout ways to connect with the
old parent.
And then the episode abruptlyends.
It's not anything wrong withyour podcast app, it's not
(04:35):
anything wrong with your device.
It's just that, after recordingthis episode, I thought to
myself you know what this reallyshould be two episodes, not one
.
And so, without further ado, letus jump into the whole topic of
lying, specifically with reallyyoung kids three year olds and
six year olds at the beginninghere with our first question.
So let's go into those.
(04:56):
The first one comes fromMeredith.
She says I'm dealing with mythree year old daughter, who's
been lying a lot lately, whetherit's having to use the bathroom
or when she's brushed her teeth.
When I ask her, she will oftenjust boldly lie.
I feel like she needs to learnthat lying is wrong.
How do I teach that?
Well, meredith, first of all, Itotally agree with you Kids do
(05:20):
need to learn that lying is anunfruitful activity that will
not lead to life affirmingflourishing later on.
Right, if you are in arelationship with someone and
you're regularly lying to them,whether that's a marriage or
even the context of work, theseare the things that really erode
relationships and trust.
(05:41):
You know, apart from empathy, Ithink dishonesty a lack of
empathy, I should say dishonestyis probably the second most
common killer of long termrelationships.
And so, with that being said,with that being the case, I
think it is massively importantthat we teach our kids about
honesty and how to be honest,and yes, it starts when they're
three years old.
But we also have to understandthat I actually don't think that
(06:03):
three years, three year olds,have a capacity to lie.
What do I mean by that?
Well, when I think about lying,I think about a person who is
intentionally manipulating thetruth, or being dishonest,
hiding the truth or beingspecifically false about the
truth, saying the opposite ofthe truth in order to come to
(06:28):
some personal gain or to avoidsome personal hardship, and
we'll talk about that later on.
So the question is is a threeyear old when they are lying
about brushing their teeth orwhen they're lying about?
I think about the cookie thatmy kids eat, right?
If I ask my kid, have you had acookie?
And they're three years old,their mouth will be covered in
(06:49):
chocolate and they'll look at mestraight in the face as if they
could pass a polygraph test andthey'll just say no and it's
like, well, yes, you did have acookie.
But ultimately I don't thinkthat these are intentional
manipulations by our kids.
Oftentimes and this actually isgonna be true for our second
question as well but oftentimeswe think of this as, like man,
(07:11):
my kid's just trying to asserttheir will or they're trying to
manipulate me.
Three year olds do not possessthe developmental capacity, the
prefrontal cortex development,in order to be able to lie into
this manipulative way.
They don't, they just don'thave an ability to think in
those terms, and people willoften hold children to this
(07:33):
super high standard of honestyor any sort of behavior right,
any sort of emotional regulation.
They'll hold children to toohigh of a standard because they
fundamentally misunderstand howthe developing brain works.
Paradoxically, many of the samepeople make excuses for adults
all the time who have fullydeveloped brains, who act out
(07:55):
emotionally or lash outemotionally when they do possess
the capacity Not that all of usdon't lose our cool sometimes
but adults who do possess thedevelopmental capacity to be
able to self-regulate.
So the question is is a threeyear old doing that?
And I think fundamentally theanswer is no.
So what is happening with athree year old.
Why do they lie?
Well, the first reason thatkids lie, as you can imagine and
(08:16):
I don't wanna get too deep intothis, I'll go into it in the
next question is to avoidpunishment.
Kids all lie all the timebecause they think that if they
don't lie, that they'll bepunished as a result.
And when I say punishment here,I'm talking about the
intentional harm or withholdingor the leveraging of a action
(08:40):
that will feel in some wayuncomfortable to a child in
order to de-incentivize ordis-incentivize, I should say
them from doing something thatyou don't want them to do.
So if your child colors on thewall and they know that they
will be God forbid spanked or atleast screamed at or put in a
timeout away from you orsomething like that some other
(09:02):
punishment for coloring on thewalls they can sometimes lie
about that.
Now, oftentimes three year oldsdon't even possess that
capacity to be able to draw thatconnection, and so if they're
lying at all, it's becausethey're unconsciously or
subconsciously aware thatsometimes telling you what has
happened has resulted in theirdiscomfort, and so this is an
(09:26):
example of oftentimes kids will.
Three year olds who are punishedregularly for different actions
will lie about positive things.
Did you do this?
And they'll say no because theyhave just learned to withhold
all information from you, right?
Because they know I don't knowwhat's problematic or what's not
problematic.
I mean, this is a fundamentalpart of growing up.
If you don't remember coloringon the walls before you knew it
(09:48):
was gonna be a problem, Icertainly have that memory at
five years old of coloring onthe walls in my childhood
bedroom and in the closet of mychildhood bedroom and thinking
it's gonna be covered up by theclothes that are there.
My parents are not gonna careand kind of boldly showing them
what I had done.
And hey look, I've written myname 150 times in this closet
(10:08):
and my parents being like whatthe heck did you just do?
This is terrible.
So they may not even know whatthey're doing is problematic,
but they have learned at somepoint.
I don't tell, I hide everythingbecause I don't know what's
gonna get me in trouble or notin trouble, right?
So that's the number one reason.
But I wanna get into that laterbecause I think with
three-year-olds it's not even aconscious thought at that point.
(10:29):
Number two kids lie becausethey're trying to figure out.
Three-year-olds lie becausethey're trying to figure out,
like, what will happen when theytell the.
When they're dishonest, theyjust will often willy-nilly say
no to a question to which theanswer is actually yes, or yes
(10:50):
to a question to which theanswer is no, Like, hey, did you
brush your teeth?
Yes, even though they didn't.
Did they forget that theydidn't?
It's possible, but they'll justanswer, they'll just kind of
assert this autonomy in thismoment and there's not a lot
that you can do about that and,in my opinion, not a lot that
you should do about that.
(11:11):
In fact, my best advice forparents who are at this stage of
development three years old,four years old, five years old
is to not ask your kid questionsthat you know the answer to, at
least as it relates tosomething like this.
It's possible, if you're tryingto teach them about the world,
there's something that you mightwant to ask a question that you
(11:32):
don't know the answer to.
Don't take this too far or toliterally when I'm saying this,
but you know, if you know thatyour kid didn't brush their
teeth, don't say did you brushyour teeth, say it's time to
brush our teeth and just walkthem into the bathroom Now they
may still say I already brush myteeth because they know that
you've already asked them to.
But at this point you just saywhere it's time to brush our
teeth, we're going to brush ourteeth.
Now, if you go down this pathwith your kids of did you brush
(11:56):
your teeth?
Yes, I don't believe you.
I did.
Let me see your toothbrush,it's not wet.
Here's this logical no, I did,I promise I did.
I don't know why it's not wet.
And they just go in and go inand go out and they won't even
say I don't know why it's notwet, right?
They don't even have thatdevelopmental capacity to lie in
any sort of nuanced way.
It's hard for me, even as anadult, to remember and to
(12:17):
empathize with how kind of blackand white their thinking can be
on this.
But really, if you go down thispath with your kids, the result
is not going to be positive.
So don't go down that path.
Just don't cue the lie.
Don't ask questions to whichyou already know the answer.
It is not a way of teachinghonesty to cue them to lie, to
(12:40):
give them an opportunity to lieand then to tell them that
they're lying right.
This is just kind of a bait andswitch, because, kids.
You don't know what they'regoing to say and oftentimes
their thinking is their brainwill be so underdeveloped that
they'll just speak without evenconsidering what they're saying
as they're talking.
This is a problem that I havewith some people.
(13:01):
Adults in my life, they thinkwithout speaking, but kids
almost universally think withoutspeaking, at least at this age,
and so don't cue the lie.
And then the third thing here isthat kids will lie in order to
seek out opportunities to haveautonomy, right.
So a kid will do at this agealmost anything to gain some
(13:22):
autonomy, to gain someopportunity to agency and
control over their life.
And so lying is part of thatautonomy seeking.
It's part of the learning wherethey are in the world and how
they relate to the world.
And as a result, you know, themore you can help a kid to seek
out that autonomy in healthyways, the more that the
(13:43):
unhealthy manifestations of thatautonomy the kid who says no to
everything, or the kid who lies, or the kid who adamantly
refuses to get into their carseat or to put on their shoes, a
lot of that stuff is just.
They need to have a sense ofautonomy, they need to have a
sense of agency, and if youdeprive them of opportunities to
act out that autonomy and thatagency, if you are constantly
(14:05):
hovering over them and makingsure that they never get hurt or
that they never have anaccident or this or that or the
other, that they never doanything problematic, they will
find ways to do it, and oftenthat comes out as lying right.
That's what the research tellsus is that if you deprive a kid
of their sense of agency andautonomy, eventually they will
just lie to gain that agency andautonomy.
(14:26):
And so, with the super youngkids, that's where I would start
.
How much autonomy can I giveaway?
How many times can I reallyallow my kid to feel a sense of
agency?
Can I have my kid cook with me,even if it's going to be more
messy and probably not taste asgood in the end?
Can I help my, have my kid helpme clean up around the house?
(14:47):
Right, do some chores with me,even though, as the result, the
chore will probably take threetimes as long and be, you know,
slower.
One of the things that I like todo with my three year old.
He's very visually, spatiallytalented, and I guess I
shouldn't praise him in that way.
He has a lot of resilience asit relates to visual, spatial
tasks and colors, and so for himit's Legos Not a lot of three
(15:09):
year olds can do and he's Iguess he's almost four but not a
lot of almost four year oldscan do complex Lego sets.
They do make Lego sets that arelike four, four year olds, but
I sat with him for three and ahalf hours yesterday in multiple
sections he wasn't just likeall all the time in one sitting
and he slowly built the Lego setof a squid that was designed
(15:31):
for like an eight-year-old, Ithink.
And did he need some someassistance from me?
Sure he did, but I actually lethim struggle.
I let him completely do it onhis own if he really wanted to
put a piece on that he was justreally struggling with, and it
took him Three minutes to putone piece on and he had to take
it off five different timesbecause he couldn't match it up
with the picture.
Exactly right, but he justwanted to keep struggling.
(15:52):
I just let him do that becauseI'd rather the autonomy come out
in that healthy way of I'mgonna do this in my way and it's
gonna take me forever, but I'mgonna accomplish it and you
should see him carrying thisthing around.
Guys.
He is just absolutely like somuch pride, so much like I did
it.
I did this all by myself.
I'd much rather it come out inthat way than for it to come out
(16:15):
in the.
I'm just gonna seek outWhatever negative autonomy I can
get.
Hey, guys, I am abruptlyinterrupting myself in the
middle of this part one of ourtwo-part lying episode To just
let you know that the way toconnect with me better Then you
can even connect with me here onthe podcast is through my email
list.
If you want to find a way to addyourself to that email list,
(16:35):
all you got to do is go to theshow notes or the link below the
description below.
Wherever you're watching thisor listening to this Podcast,
you go to the show notes and thefirst link will be a link to my
stand store where you can putyour first name and your email
in.
And if you're daunted byjoining an email list because
you think to yourself man, I gettoo many emails already and I
get too many sales emails and Ijust get my entire inbox is full
(16:58):
of junk and I already have todeal with so much of this, I
don't just want one more guytrying to get me to buy
something.
Understand that that is reallynot what the email list is all
about.
The email list, unlike mostemail lists that you will join
in your whole life, is primarilytargeted at helping you become
a better parent.
So the vast majority of theemails that I send are just my
(17:20):
typical Thursday email, whichmanifests as kind of a blog
style content.
Often it might be an additionalKind of bonus aspect to a topic
that I'm talking about on thepodcast.
I've done that a couple timesrecently.
Last week it was just a reallyinteresting, kind of
heartwarming but also kind ofgross and funny story from my
(17:40):
own parenting journey.
That happened last week.
I didn't really have time to doa lot of research for that email
list because I do.
I Research for every single oneof these episodes and for every
single one of the emails that Iput out.
I put in a ton of time to dothat, and so I didn't have time
to do that last week because Ihad sick kids and so I just
talked about that and that canbe some some of the emails that
you'll get.
It's stuff that you know.
(18:01):
You'll learn way more about mylife in the email list, in these
blog style emails that I sendout on Thursdays, and so if
you're not doing the email listyet, please do that.
I I just I give it all away inthere.
I will send you in the firstweek and a half that you have
are on the email list.
You'll get like three or fourof my best emails that I've ever
written.
And, yes, occasionally thereare places in the email list
(18:23):
where I might tell you about anupcoming event.
I don't allow people to joininto the email process, like I'm
not gonna allow a marketer touse my email list to send you
guys information about a productthat they're pushing or
something like that.
I don't do any of that, butoccasionally I will let you know
if I'm hosting a paid webinaror a paid virtual class or if
(18:45):
I'm releasing some sort of likepotty training guide.
That's something that I thinkwe're gonna be doing not too
long in the future.
And then, of course, the book.
When the book becomes availablefor pre-order, I may link to
that or I will link to that inthe email list.
But primarily, overwhelmingly,the emails that you will get for
me are just intended for free,to help you parent better,
(19:05):
because that is my goal withthis platform To help people
parent better.
So, without further ado, let'sget back to the episode, and
I'll be back with you at the endof this one, even though it
might not sound like theepisode's gonna end.
It is so.
That's with the really littlekids.
Let's move on to a kid who's alittle bit older and I'm gonna
get into some of the things thatI have already been talking
about with a three-year-old, butnow kids twice as old.
(19:27):
So this is Brian, and he's afather to a six-year-old boy.
He says that he's been showingsigns of dishonesty.
He often fabricates stories toavoid getting in trouble.
I know this is probably normalbehavior, but I also want it to
stop.
So what should I do, brian?
This is a fantastic question,and this is actually most of the
questions that I get aboutlying.
(19:49):
Occasionally I get an olderquestion, like like the one that
we're gonna talk about here ina moment.
Occasionally I'll get a toddlerquestion, and a lot of the
toddler questions come frompeople who grew up in
authoritarian households, oftenwith a highly hierarchical
religious system, where you knowat two years old if you were
caught lying you might get aPhysical spanking or something
(20:10):
like that because you knowthat's a sin or that's immoral
or this or that or the other.
Many parents kind of intuitivelyunderstand that a
three-year-old doesn't reallyknow what they're doing.
As it relates to lying anddishonesty, more difficult for
many parents is the six-year-oldwho lies to cover up something,
to not get in trouble.
(20:30):
Or, even more kind ofFantastically for so many
parents, my kid just told me themost outlandish ridiculous
story about walking home fromschool with, you know, my, their
cousin who picked them up orwhatever.
Or my kid told me thisridiculously outlandish story
about something that happenedduring lunch that involved
(20:53):
aliens and lasers and stuff, andwhen I pressed them they were
like no, that really happened.
I promise it really happened.
Okay.
So here is.
Here is a place in developmentthat really really is difficult
for so many parents to identifyand understand.
At the age of five, six, evenseven years old kids
imaginations are still soincredibly robust, because this
(21:17):
is part of the growing andlearning process is having
amazing imaginative, creativethinking and and we should do
our best to continue to fosterthat in our kids, to be honest,
because these are the kids, thekids who possess that and then
can maintain that throughouttheir life.
For the kids that wind up beingmassively successful but also
have massive life satisfactionbecause they're the critical
(21:41):
thinkers who can go into theworkforce or industries,
entrepreneurship opportunitiesand critically thinking,
creatively thinking, solveproblems that the rest of us
can't, because that creativethinking was lost through the
process of development andusually through the process of
being schooled in some way.
Critical thinking is not super,super high on the priority list
(22:02):
for schooling systems that havestandardization, because
critical thinking and creativethinking are not really
measurable standards.
It's much easier to measuresomeone's ability to follow
instructions than it is tomeasure someone's ability to
creatively problem solve, and sothat's how most of our
education system is set up.
We want to make sure thatpeople are progressing in a
certain way, and so we kind ofruin kids to that.
(22:25):
To an extent that's one of thereasons why I homeschool.
People don't know that Ihomeschool a lot.
I don't advocate forhomeschooling for everyone.
I don't think that parents whosend their kids to traditional
school, public school, privateschool, whatever, are bad
parents at all.
I was public schooledthroughout my entire childhood.
I loved my childhood.
I loved school to it.
Sometimes, you know, no kidloves school all the time.
(22:47):
I don't think I met my wife inhigh school.
If I had not been going to thepublic high school, I'm sure as
heck would not be as happy as Iam today.
For that reason alone, becauseI definitely punched above my
weight with that one.
But because of that right,because one of the reasons why
we homeschool anyway andactually we practice something
called unschooling which I'm notgoing to get into in this
episode, maybe I'll do anepisode all about it is because
(23:08):
we want to prioritize creativeand creative thinking and
critical thinking, collaborativethinking too, in our kids.
And will this be a foreverchoice for us?
I have no idea.
Maybe, you know, when our kidsare in middle school, we'll make
a different choice.
Maybe, with you know, kids thatare younger, I might make a
different choice for them than Imade for my oldest, but at
least for him it made all thesense in the world, because, you
(23:29):
know, we wanted to continue tofoster this imagination.
And what we understand, though,in in talking to kids and child
psychologists talking about this, is that kids who are of this
age seem to possess a really,really high cognitive ability.
Often right, these kids canread, they can write, they can
do basic math, they can do theirtime even.
(23:52):
You know more complicated maththat maybe you and I didn't
learn when we were that young,but that they may learn now.
And you know academicenvironments, things like
multiplication, division.
They can do all of thesecognitive practices, things that
we associate with later stagebrain development, but in some
ways their brain is still verymuch so underdeveloped, and one
(24:14):
of the ways is being able toidentify whether or not saying a
thing is true, makes it true,or even remembering with any
sort of clarity.
And so a kid who's five or sixor seven years old, who has
asked a question, who may notremember the exact answer to
that question, may find thatallowing their imagination to
(24:37):
creatively fill in the gaps ismore enjoyable than to, you know
, just say I don't know.
And especially kids who forwhom it's not been stamped out
of them and they don't have afear of dishonesty because
they're being allowed toflourish and they're not being
constantly badgered about.
Well, is that exactly how ithappened which, by the way, we
(24:58):
can talk about that later on?
But but for kids this age it'snot super effective to do that.
Unless it's a safety issue, weshould not be trying to, like,
interrogate kids or, you know,press kids for answers to things
that happened, and so, becauseof that, kids will often fill in
the gaps and parents just don'tunderstand this because they're
like no, no, no, I can see thatdevelopmentally, from the
(25:20):
cognitive capacity, they can doall these amazing things.
They can read, they can write,they can do math, whatever they
can do all these amazing.
They know geography right.
Kids have amazing ability topossess cognitive processing.
How could it be that they stilldon't know that telling
somebody that something happenedthat didn't happen, or lying
about a thing, doesn't make ittrue?
Well, that's exactly what'shappening.
They can, the kids of this agecan tell you something that is
(25:45):
factually incorrect, that didnot happen, and yet they can
feel kind of in their heart thatit did happen.
That way Because theirimagination and their perception
of reality are, kind of, youknow, both at the same time
developing, and so understandingthis reality will give us a lot
(26:06):
more empathy for our kids.
Understanding this reality willhelp us to understand that our
kid often is not intentionallymanipulating us.
Again, three year olds don'tdevelop, even possess the
capacity.
Maybe a six year old does, butoftentimes that's not the goal.
They often are just trying tofigure out how does the world
work?
If I say something happened,does that mean that it happened?
(26:30):
And, by the way, adults who arelistening to this, parents who
are listening to this we do thistoo all the time.
We believe a story for so longthat it feels true to us.
I know so many parents who havegone through this, parents who
absolutely will insist that theyremember something happening
(26:52):
from their childhood that didn'tactually happen.
I'll give you an example.
In my own life, I was asked on arecent podcast that I was not
on the whole parent podcast, butit was somebody who I had on
the whole parent podcast.
They were talking about themovie Superbad, which includes a
character named Fogle, which,of course, is my last name and
somehow I got mixed up in mymind, probably 15 years ago, 10
(27:14):
years ago, whenever that moviecame out.
I got mixed up in my mind thatthe writer of that movie Was
this guy who went to high schoolwith my brothers.
Now, my brothers did go to highschool the same high school
that I went to with a guy whowent on to be a somewhat famous
comedic writer.
He wrote things likeworkaholics and and other TV
(27:35):
shows and kind of in that samesame kind of mid 2000s raunchy
comedy type thing.
And this guy did go to highschool with my brothers there's
no doubt they knew him, he, hewas around them and and he was
making movies and making TV atthe same time that Superbad came
out, which is kind of in thesame vein as his type of comedy.
(27:57):
And so I got in my head I don'tknow how I got this in my head
with my brothers told me it, orProbably not.
I probably just drew a falseconnection at some point that
that character, fogle, while notbased on my brother's, got his
name for my brother.
Well, I reiterated this on thispodcast because I hadn't
thought about it like 10 years.
You know that this happened.
It doesn't really come up thatoften anymore.
(28:18):
It's not a really you knowregular movie.
People don't just call out likeFogle to me on the street
anymore.
But for the guy who wasinterviewing me, like yeah, he
remembers it because he's alittle bit older than I am and
that was a you know foundationalmovie in his early 20s that he
thought was like really, reallyfunny and he quoted it all the
time with his Workfriends.
And so, you know, I said, yeah,I actually think that's based
(28:39):
on the name, is actually basedon my brother.
Well then, after the podcast, Ilooked it up.
So I went, man, I just saidthis on a podcast.
How do you know if that's likereally true?
I like have this memory of thatbeing true and if you asked me,
like I would have totally toldyou that that was true.
But you know, did I just makethat up?
Is that just like something inmy head that I like that that's
(28:59):
not accurate.
So I fact-checked myself andturns out I was completely wrong
.
I was this Canadian guy whohelped write with Seth Rogen,
helped write super bad and themtogether they had, they had
known this guy who the characterwas based on and it was his
actual name.
So somehow that had gottencorrect.
Like they didn't just make upthe name, it was somebody that
they had known.
But somehow, in the process ofyou know, learning that story
(29:22):
and then also having this otherstory, I had created a meta
narrative for myself in mychildhood about this happening
and about this being somehowrelated to me and my family in
my name, and that just becametrue for me, right?
And it was not that I wasintentionally lying, it wasn't
that I was in beingintentionally dishonest.
You're trying to be moreInteresting than I am.
Again, it has nothing to dowith me.
It was have to do with mybrothers, who you know.
(29:43):
Again, no, no relation, no realrelation to me as a person.
It doesn't benefit me at all,but it it still felt real to me,
and so we do this all the time.
Our kids do this Constantly, andinstead of something that
happens over ten years where youslowly kind of talk yourself
into, this is a true thing Forthem.
(30:04):
This can happen all the time,so this can be.
I was walking home from schooland I tensed all my.
This is something again for mychildhood.
I tensed all my muscles up andI ran really fast and I learned
that I could run even fasterthan I thought I could run so
fast that I was the fastesthuman on planet earth.
This is something I believe.
In first grade I Did this.
I was.
I knew it sounded ridiculous,but I was like I think that's
(30:26):
true, though I'm pretty sure ifI do this in this way, it feels
that way to me and because itfeels that way, it's true.
This is the the essence ofgrowing up and developing.
Being able to separate truthfrom fiction is actually a later
Developing thing.
It's not something that wedevelop early on.
And, by the way, guys, this issomething that we deal with all
(30:47):
the time Cognitive dissonanceadults experience this.
You know, if you believe acertain thing about a political
candidate that you support,people can provide you with
evidence in the country of that,and it won't matter, you will
still continue to believe it,right?
So because of this, this is alater developing thing and it's
challenging for many adults.
It's extremely challenging foryoung kids, and so don't
(31:09):
immediately go to.
My kid is lying in order tomanipulate me.
My kid is lying intentionally.
Oftentimes, kids just don't know, and the best way that you can
approach that with them is saylike, oh, that's a really crazy
story, how did you think of thatstory?
And they might say, oh, itreally happened.
Like, wow, that must be reallycool to really feel like this is
and it sounds patronizing,right when I'm saying it to an
(31:30):
adult, but that must be reallycool to have that experience as
a kid.
And Then they can kind of dolike yeah, yeah, and I do.
You know that I can like dothat all the time and I've had
conversations with young kidsthis age.
I was like, oh man, can youlike, can you make stuff like
that just happen to you?
And they'll be like, yeah, Ican just kind of wish it and
then it will happen.
(31:50):
And so you know, I'll get herein the last piece about not
lying to avoid punishment withthe nine year old.
I want to, I want to reallyfocus in on that, but before
that let me take a real quickbreak to talk about some things
that you can, other ways you canconnect with whole parent.
All right, and that's wherewe're going to abruptly end
(32:11):
today Because, like I said, Irecorded this one as a whole
single part.
But you know what it's a twoparter.
It needs to be a two parter.
As you've already seen, we'vebeen talking for a long time
about lying.
I hope, if you have youngerkids especially, this episode
has been helpful to you.
If you have someone else inyour life who has kids under the
age of, let's say, seven yearsold, or even seven year olds who
you don't know if your, iftheir kids are struggling with
(32:32):
lying, I can almost guaranteeyou that their kids at one point
, have struggled with lying forthe exact reasons that I've laid
out so far.
It's not an intentionalmanipulation, this is just a
natural part of development.
Some of it's totallyunconscious, it's un, you know,
it's just part of growing.
They just don't even know andbecause of that, if you have a
parent in your life who has kidsup to that age, I bet you they
(32:54):
would love this podcast.
I bet you they would love toknow more about this, because so
many of us get so nervous whenour kids, you know, spit out
that first lie at two years oldor three years old or whatever,
and we don't know how to respondand we're like man, this is a
value system for me and I reallycare about doing this Well,
telling this episode.
You can't imagine how lifeaffirming had has been, as I've
(33:16):
walked with literally hundredsof parents who have struggled
with lying with their kids,again, of all ages, but
especially parents, kids who arein that three to seven year old
range.
When they start to do that, forwhatever reason, you have no
idea how many parents have justsaid John, hearing your take on
this, or hearing the evidencebased or the research take on
(33:37):
this, has made me feel so muchbetter about my parenting
journey, and so you don't haveany clue.
Probably all the people in yourlife who would benefit from this
Don't be a person who keepsthis stuff to yourself Share
this on your social media page.
Share this with parents in yourlife who have kids of that age
zero to seven, or who areexpecting kids, and you know,
down the road they're going torun into this and maybe they can
(33:58):
get ahead of it.
Share this episode with them,and even if they don't thank you
for it right now, I bet you youare doing them an incredible
service, and not only that maybea little tune into some more
episodes and learn some morethings too.
Without anything else to say onthis episode, I'll see you in
two days when I come back, ormaybe it's already up if you're
(34:18):
listening to this.
After the fact, when we talkabout our nine year old and we
get into some of the reallyintense stuff lying to avoid
punishment let's talk about itnext time.
On the whole thing,
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