4 year old telling lies. How can I deal with this?

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Yesterday 4 year old dd was playing with dh and at one point she tripped over. She came running to me and said "daddy pushed me over on purpose and im telling the teacher"

I was right there, dh did not touch her!

The other day she did the same thing, they were playing catch with the ball and it bounced off her head (soft ball) she started shouting "daddy hit me on my head" - it is true, he did throw the ball and it did hit her head but if she was to go and say this in school they'll obviously think dh is abusing her when it was just an accident while playing

We have had a talk with her explaining it's not right to tell lies etc but it seems she's doing it more and more now and when probed she will say "maybe I was just joking then"

Any advice on how to approach this with her?

It sounds more like you need to explain that these things were accidents. She's not exactly lying in either case?

What she says to you and what she says to the teacher are two different things; I doubt very much she'll remember tripping over, let alone bear it in mind until next week in order to give the teacher a full run down!

Your response should be to ignore her, otherwise she'll realise it gets a reaction and do it more.

In the extremely unlikely event that she does remember to tell her teacher and it turns into something, that's the point at which you have a strong word with her about lies/lying and how they can be harmful.

Thank you both. We will ignore it going forward as you're right, as soon as we spoke to her about it she did it even more and would find it funny

Yes she is. She said that daddy pushed her over on purpose. He didn't.

You need to teach her the boy who cried wolf story.

And stress that other children won’t want to be her friend if she makes things up about them to get them into trouble.

Reframe and then ignore.

She came running to me and said "daddy pushed me over on purpose and im telling the teacher"

"Yes, I saw you trip over when you were playing with Daddy, are you ok?"

daddy hit me on my head"

"The ball bounced on your head didn't it? Luckily it was a soft ball!".

Also, a good time to introduce the story of the boy who cried wolf.

Ah yes, I completely forgot about that story. I will be introducing it this week. Thank you @NuffSaidSam and @HerewegoagainSS

I agree with introducing the story of the boy who cried wolf. However, you'll need to be clearer with the reframing of her words.

She came running to me and said "daddy pushed me over on purpose and im telling the teacher"

"Yes, I saw you trip over when you were playing with Daddy, are you ok?"

Instead of saying 'yes', which is sort of agreeing with her statement, adjust it to: "You mean you tripped over when you were playing with Daddy? Yes i saw that, love/sweetie [insert any pet words]. Are you okay?"

daddy hit me on my head"

"The ball bounced on your head didn't it? Luckily it was a soft ball!".

This could be interpreted as daddy hit me on the head and the ball bounced on my head as well. Instead say,
"Do you mean the ball bounced on your head? [You can wait for her confirmation or continue] Ooh are you alright? Luckily it was a soft ball" [endearing tap on head or shoulders and send her on her way].

You have to be clear that her statement is incorrect and you're stating the correct one, then agreeing with or responding to that correct one.

My DD went through a phase of this (and it sometimes still happens). I never really thought of it as lying as I think she just genuinely didn't understand what happened. Little kids see their parents as kind of infallible so when you do something you don't mean to do it can be confusing for them especially if their emotions are heightened by being scared or in pain.

I'd just tell her it was an accident, daddy didn't mean to hit you with the ball or you tripped over your feet, it wasn't daddy's fault and be kind to her and soothe her because she's probably hurt and confused about what happened. Make a point to use the word accident or mistake to her regularly with her own behaviour (and yours) and she'll cotton on that we all do things we don't mean to do.