When is lying a problem.

[thesockmonsterofdoom]

Apart fromt he obvious answer of always.
My dd is 5 next month and she fibs a lot, only little things that don't matter obviously but i worry that she can lie so easily how are we going to find out anything that is going on when she is older.
Things like yesterday she went to tidy her bedroom, came down nearly an hour later and told me that she had tidied her room and it was lovely and that there was no need for me to check it.
Also it is always her sister that has done anything wrong, the other day her friend told me she had thrown something at her, she said it was dd2, I said no it wasn't so her reply, oh it was winnie the pooh.
She hits her sister a lot when I am not looking and denies that she has done anything or tells me that dd2 has fallen over.
any ideas what I can do about this.
We are going to re introduce sticker charts today and I am thinking telling the truth will be one of the goals.

[gagarin]

Five is rather young to understand what "the truth" means.

It's rather a vague concept in many ways - and for example children of 5 would not be used as witnesses in court because of this (odd example but it's true!)

And think of the times when we as adults don't tell the truth - all those white lies (do I look good in this? did you like your knitted teacosy Xmas present? etc etc)

For 5 year olds their responses often reflect what they WISH had happened. Or they tend to know what they person asking them wants to hear so just say it has happened (the tidying) without having the ability to see into the furture and realise what will happen when you go upstairs.

Some childrne of this age also have imaginary friends who do all the bad stuff!

This stage won't last but she needs your help to understand what the truth is and I think it is far too vague for a sticker chart for her.

[Elibean]

I agree with gagarin, this is pretty normal at 5. My dd is 4.7, and although she does it far less than she did, she can spin imaginary (and wonderful!) worlds in seconds, and doen'st always remember when they're real or not.

She does know what 'truth' means, though, and is practising with the concept - 'thats not true, is it Mummy' is something I hear about once a day atm. Or, thats not real.

And when she says 'yes, I've tidied my room/washed my face/done a wee' its true about half the time

[thesockmonsterofdoom]

That makes sense, she does definalty know what I want the truth to be. I was getting a little worried but that has really put things in perspective, thankyou.
She does the toilet thing, you wioll be stood at the side of her and she says I have wiped my bum and washed my hands, er no you haven't.
I worry a little because I was able to lie very easily to my parents and hid a lot of things that they really would have been better off knowing.

[gagarin]

the other thing is that it's mighty hard to reward children for telling the truth - and at the same time punish them for what they have admitted to!

So if a dd2 is crying and dd1 is asked "did you push her over" it's the same consequence for dd1 if she says "no" or if she says "yes"! A telling off. So no incentive there .

And there's always the chance that if dd1 wihses hard enough that she didn't actually push her sister that it will in effect not have happened as you never find out she was fibbing!

Life is hard.

and ps Father Xmas is a lie too; and the tooth fairy. How do we explain all these mixed messages!