Lying

[Lucy88]

My DS is 6 and is generally very honest - a bit too honest sometime and will tell me when he has done something that he shouldn't have done. He knows the difference between lies and telling the truth - been like this as long as I can remember.

However, my Nephew (who is 4 and a half) constantly lies. He comes to our house quite a lot and stays 1 weekend a month. Just a couple of examples - I will ask him if he ate all his tea and he will say 'Yes'. My Dad will tell me he didn't and Nephew will only admit to not eating his tea when I mention telling lies and being truthful. He will also break something or pull something apart or generally be destructive and I will ask him about it and he will tell me he didn't do it. I will explain that he was the only person playing with it or he was the only person in the room with said object he has broken and he will still say he didn't do it. He will only own up when again I mention about the diffrence between telling the truth and telling lies.

Is this normal for a child of this age? I'm struggling with it a bit because my DS was never like this even at the same age.

Not sure whether to mention to my sister that she perhaps needs to work on this with him.

All children lie. My DD1 is a particularly good liar. I looked into this and the research evidence was that, as said, all children lie. The peak age of lying is 12. Brighter/creative children lie for longer ( because they are better at coming up with believable lies and therefore it's longer before they are called out on them). The way to deal with it is to call them out. Research also suggested that when they do lie you do not give them "wriggleroom". Don't say "did you say this/do this?". Say "you said this/did this". At your DN's young age, I'd say that gentle but firm best approach. Try "boy who cried wolf" as a morality tale.

All NT children lie! Only deeply deceived parents think that their child doesn't. The only genuinely honest children I've ever met were AS ones who were actually not capable of not telling the truth.