Stop your Child from Lying to You

Today's episode is a rare treat. I had a fantastic coaching conversation with a parent of a 4 year-old around an ongoing problem at their house around not listening and not telling the truth when asked about it, and I have her permission to share it with you here!

Listen as she shares more of the background into this particular moment as well as her concerns around the behavior, then tune in to hear what I recommended to her (and anyone else who can relate!)

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVERED...

• Insight into the developmental shifts happening at this age
• What to STOP doing in the future when faced with this behavior
• What TO do to prevent this situation from happening again (that does not include punishment)

DON'T MISS-

• Perspective that will give you a sigh of relief

I believe in you + I'm cheering you on.
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Transcript

Danielle Bettmann  0:04  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood, I mean. Have too much anxiety and not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud - this podcast is for you.

Danielle Bettmann  0:38  
This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann, and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, showing her insecurities, her fears, her failures, and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you, that you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away, and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here.

Danielle Bettmann  1:14  
Hey, it's Danielle. Your Positive Discipline Certified Parenting Coach for strong-willed kids ages two to 10. I help defeated parents find validation, support, and proven techniques to parent their strong-willed kids with composure, connection, confidence, and cooperation through a four-month group coaching program based on the Wholehearted Framework I've developed over years of working with families one-on-one. If you've just found the podcast. Go to failingmotherhood.com to view a playlist of our most listened-to episodes, as well as where to start if you have a strong-willed child.

Danielle Bettmann  1:48  
I am so glad you're here. I have been chatting over the last couple of weeks with several graduated clients who thanked me for the episode from two weeks back making weekends easier for everyone. Apparently, I didn't realize it, but I had timed it out quite conveniently to be the episode before a three-day weekend for many that went substantially better than weekends passed for these families. So if you are looking to improve weekends at your house and missed that episode, I highly recommend going back to listen before this next weekend arrives. And of course, if you are looking to master the kind and firm approach your strong-willed child needs without crushing their spirit or walking on eggshells, go to parenting wholeheartedly.com/confident, and watch the Calm and Confident free master class with your partner, so that you can both learn the three types of parents of strong-willed kids and call each other out, the four misconceptions of what to stop doing that's not going to help in making it worse and the four scripts of what to do instead, as well as lay out your path to the relationship you want with your child when they're a teen down the road.

Danielle Bettmann  3:06  
Now, in today's episode, I'm sharing a behind-the-scenes clip from a recent coaching call from inside my program. It is with a parent of a four-year-old boy who was sharing an example from their week and their concerns around the lying, and I just shared the whole clip here for you to be able to learn right alongside them. Huge thanks and shout out to this parent for permitting me to share it. Now I share some background insight into lying at this age, what I tell her to stop doing in the future, and how I recommend handling the behavior going forward. So if your child ever evades telling the truth at your house and you worry about it, unsure that how you're handling it is right, then you are in the right place. Let's dive in. Here is my conversation with this parent.

Parent  4:05  
So to make the long story short, I don't know if it's more like the lying or the fact that I'm afraid there's going to be something important one day he won't tell me, like withhold from me. But just for example, he lies about a lot of things. My son is four years old, but this is just the most recent example. So we also have a hard time keeping him in his room and stuff, and he's kind of grown out of naps. He doesn't nap anymore, but I still want there to be rest time. He goes to school 8 to 3 and comes home a mess. So yeah, I decided, okay, you're going to be able to watch Max and Ruby in my room after school by yourself. Because if he comes home and he's around his brother, immediately, he's just irritated. So, I left the remote within his reach, and I came back in the room to check on him, he's gotten out of Paramount, watching Max and Ruby, and he's watching some weird show on YouTube. But I guess it was like, it wasn't a real show. It was a kid show, but it's like adults playing with Kid Toys. I was like, yeah, no, I've told him before, we're not allowed to watch things that aren't a real show, whatever. I said, I'm trusting you. I'm going to turn on Max and Ruby, but don't change it again. So comes back in the room, and again, he's onto something else. I could see on the monitor, you know, the baby monitor, that he's up and like doing it. So I tried to give him a chance to tell me. I'm like, did you get the remote and change the channel? Like, are you allowed to watch this? I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. And I'm like, you're not in trouble. I just saw on the monitor that you got up. I just want to know, no, I didn't. I didn't. So that's just one example of kind of, like, I don't know why he's lying, because I've said to him before, like, you're not in trouble. you're not going to be in trouble, and I follow through, like, I try not to react, but did you do X, Y and Z? And yeah, he doesn't swear by it, but if he could, he would swear that he did not do that, so I'm just worried in the future if there's something like important that he needs to tell me he's gonna lie about it or not tell me, because I don't know if he's afraid or I even tried to tell him the story the boy who cries wolf and kind of go over it with him, and he seemed to semi get it, but continues to not tell the truth about a lot of silly things. So, yeah, I don't know what to do, because I'm afraid it'll turn into something bigger.

Danielle Bettmann  6:56  
No, you're not alone. And you know, are you worried about something that matters? Because that is a very important skill and value, you know, for the long run. So there are a couple of pieces to this that I think are important to understand. One is that between four and five, there is a very big developmental shift around fantasy versus reality, where lying is not the same as a nine-year-old lying versus a four or five-year-old lying because when they're in this developmental shift, they are very much kind of reckoning through and testing, how can I create my own reality? What is fantasy? Because, you know, they're immersed in a bunch of other fantasy worlds, and their brain is like working on, on pulling them apart and understanding what is real versus, you know, something that's made up. And so in their head, when they lie at this age, they are almost wanting to just say, well, that's the reality I'm creating. Basically like, you know, it doesn't matter what I say is what actually happened rather than what actually happened happened. And they're kind of testing like that idea of not can I get away with it, but can it just be true if I say it essentially so not, not that it's still not an important thing to, you know, implement and address and correct, but just understanding where he's coming from helps you not worry to the same depth as you were, you know, with a nine-year-old lying to your face because it's just coming from a very different motive and different. 

Parent  8:45  
Yeah, that does make me feel a little better that I don't have, like, a pathological liar. 

Danielle Bettmann  8:49  
You don't, no, and again, lying is not like for the most part, we see it as being a very integrity-based action, and kids see it as a very effective defense mechanism. So like different opinions, different perceptions,  same behavior, but on their side, it's coming from a much more innocent place of this is actually a great way to get me out of a jam, and I'm going to use it because it makes sense to me, and it seems to work, and they don't see a bigger issue with that. And, you know, it's our job to kind of help challenge that with a widening opinion of, you know, widening their perception of that. We also don't want to scare them into being like, you know, someday your life is going to depend on you telling the truth. Like meet them where they are, and just kind of scaffold it up, you know, one day, one year at a time, but a lot of that can just look like talking about what really happened in a way where you model and you narrate what you saw, not trying to and I would avoid for the next year or two, even asking him what happened, because it's just basically lofting a softball that he's not going to be able to, like, stop himself from the kind of failing at so instead, I would focus on modeling - I saw this, I heard this. So that would look like, hey, I checked on you on the monitor, I saw that you had gotten up. We talked about this. I can't let you, you know, go change the channel again, so that there's not even a conversation about, did you or didn't you, or giving him that platform to kind of defend himself, deny it, because now we have a second problem, and you'd rather just keep it at the first problem, so that we can focus our energy on why we're not changing the channel, as opposed to why it's a problem. You didn't tell me, you didn't change the channel, right? Like we're losing the plot. More issues, and again, later on down the road, you've had this conversation, practiced it, we've narrated it. His brain's in a different place. You then can say, I still saw you on the monitor. I know that you're not telling me the truth. That's a problem, you know, addressing it, that higher level way down the road, but in the meantime, I would just narrate. I saw this. We talked about it. I can't let you, you know, and then you as the parent, have to basically know when is a temptation too hard or a problem like too readily available that he does not have the impulse control to solve himself. And then you basically, you know, you go to, how can I change the environment? And that might look like you say, All right you know the expectation, you know the rule, and you're still changing it. I'm gonna have to not let you watch in my room anymore. Put a password on that account, you know, put the remote up somewhere that you can't reach it. We've already discussed just deleting YouTube from the TV. So there you go, yeah, deleting the app like there has to be a follow-up. Then that solves that fundamental problem because you don't have the impulse control yet. How can I set you up for more success that eliminates this from being a problem and not just relying on his goodwill or your, you know, conversation about it, because at a certain point, at his age, he can't help him help himself? And there are things that you can do that eliminate that problem, you basically say, Okay, you're showing me, I need to take more steps to solve this problem, right? And that's gonna look like, no longer having that on this TV. And then you're not like saying, because you did this, here's your punishment. I'm taking away YouTube. You're just saying, Okay, there's a problem here. You need my help solving -  the solution will be, it's no longer on this TV. Yay. Win, win, right? A different PR campaign. 

Parent  13:10  
That all makes sense because I have found myself asking him, like, giving him the opportunity for him to tell me, and I didn't think about it that way. But you're right. He's only four. I should just say I know you did this and so thank you.

Danielle Bettmann  13:26  
 And you know, not a shame on you type thing you're just saying, matter of fact, as a parent, I have eyes on the back of my head. Here's what I know to be true. 

Parent  13:36  
Yes, okay, that's simple. I didn't think of it that way, but I will definitely try and do that this week, and hopefully, it'll go a little bit better. I'm glad he's not like some evil, lying person.

Danielle Bettmann  13:55  
Nope, you're good, right? Thank you, not just him. 

Danielle Bettmann  14:05  
Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now share it in your Instagram stories, and tag me. If you love the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood on a daily basis, and if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong, willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen, schedule your FREE consultation using the link in the show notes, I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you and I'm cheering you on.