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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Fibbing at age 4 - how do you handle it?

20 replies

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 09:57

Dd's very nearly 4 and, as I've read so many other mums on here say, her behaviour has taken a definite turn in the last couple of months. She's cross, often rude and very willful.

But the one thing that I don't have a clue how to handle is fibbing. For instance, little things like yesterday we were in the park and I saw her pick a flower from one of the flower gardens. She came over and gave it to me and said 'I didn't pick it, I found it on the floor' I asked her outright if that was the truth and she said it was. I know in the large scheme of things it's not great crime but I'd like her to have a sense of right and wrong / truth and lies. Or is she too young?

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Enid · 31/07/2006 10:08

if you see her doing it then I would just say that its wrong to pick flowers

if you get worked up abotu them telling the truth it will do your head in tbh

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 10:20

I do tell her it's wrong, I mean she knows it's wrong, that's presumably why she's fibbing . So do you think at this age they're too young to handle being taught about truth / lies?

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DominiConnor · 31/07/2006 10:29

I've read that lying is actually a specific and importan developmental stage. DD now has some model of what is going on in your head. She's moved beyond dealing with the apparently random acts of adults, and is now trying to manipulate them.
As such, to them it's not a "moral" thing at all.

also they will observe that adults are not 100% honest. When you say "we'll play with that later", does it always happen ? Small things to you perhaps.

Obviously I have no idea about your discipline regime, but we've been firm on politeness, and they just don't get things without "please, thankyou" etc. That's a a long slog, and never 100% of course.

We've also gone in for extending references over time.
If you promise a kid X, then not just do it a day or two later, but also say "we promised you X on Tueday, and so here it is".

Kids notion of time is different to ours, and "truth" is a sort of function of when things happen. Some cultures, especially oriental ones have more a "now" view of things, and that's like a child's view. Things other than "now" aren't so real, and thus they are what you think they are.

Thus although it's possible that DD was lying to get out of trouble, her model may well have been that if she believed what she said about the past, then it was all right. Thus she would have been confused, not educated if you were to give her a bad time over it.

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 10:50

Ok DC, thanks for that. That's what I was wondering really - if she KNEW she was lying or her sense of truth / fiction is too undeveloped yet to have control over it.

I think I've been fairly disciplined with her so far. She's polite and generally well behaved. We've hit a bit of a tricky patch with her lately though in which she's testing boundaries more than before.

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poopy · 31/07/2006 11:09

A very wise friend of mine who is a mother of 4 gave me a good piece of advice: If you saw your child do something wrong, why ask them if they did it when you knew all along that they did? Don't give them the opportunity to lie when you knew they did something they shouldn't have IYSWIM? I did something similar and DS got into trouble for lying when really all along I shouldn't have given him the opportunity to lie about it ...
Another thing that I have done with lying when DS was younger was that I told him that I know he is lying because his cheeks go red .... OK, so that is a bit of a lie ... BUT it works a treat because he would come to me and say, "I didn't do it! Are my cheeks red?" So I would say, "Well, do you think they ought to be red?" and he would usually confess ....

Now he is 6 he has worked that one out but he seems to have grown out of indiscriminate lying (I read too that it is a normal part of growing up - lying that is ... they try to tell you what they think you want to hear ... and then they work out that by lying they have a chance of not being in trouble).

I think the sense of right and wrong comes with maturity ...

DS broke a window the other day by trying to throw a bouncy ball through the cat flap (it hit the window instead) ... I heard the glass break and know him well enough to work out that in the time it took him to come and tell me he worked out a way to get out of trouble (he was far too calm in telling me) - he told me that his sister had broken the window. It was a simple, "Is that the truth?" which led him to confess ... 2 years ago he would never have given in ...
He got into more trouble for lying than for breaking the window ... (lost time on the computer for breaking the window but lost his weekend time on the playstation for lying) ... after talking about it he KNEW that he wouldn't have lost his playstation time if he had told the truth in the first place ...

Sorry for the ramble but no, IME a 4 year old is not too young to teach that lying is wrong but it takes time for them to 'get it' IYSWIM?

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 11:14

Yes I do get it, thanks for your ramble! I think I might stand back and observe for a while and see how things go with her. She definitely does the telling me something she thinks I want to hear stuff!

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donnie · 31/07/2006 11:16

this is a good thread - my dd will be 5 in November ahd she does lie about silly things too. I try not to make a big fuss but at the same time I do point out that the truth is better.I like the red cheek thing, might give that a try!

I agree that lying is probably a step in development.

My dd has had fibs told about her by peers( eg she did such and such when she didn't)and it has upset her, so I use that as an example of why it's better to be truthful. Do unto others etc.

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 11:19

Sometimes her 'lies' are just weird flights of fantasy and make me want to laugh. Like she told me a little boy at school put her bobbles round his neck and turned purple and floated out into the playground like a purple balloon. This was the reason she came home with no hair bobbles. She was so serious when she told me, like she believed it herself!!

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donnie · 31/07/2006 11:21

I think that's not really lying, it really is her imagination which is a good thing.

mummyhill · 31/07/2006 12:01

Thank you for this thread. We have heard loads of fibs this weekend and dh and i were getting quite stressed.

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 12:35

Same here, mummyhill. How old is your ds / dd?

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mummyhill · 31/07/2006 13:18

DD is is 4.5 and has only started fibbing in the last 3 months. She has allways been willful but has been quite well mannered till she started going to preschool. She has also become more aggressive which is a concern as most of the aggression is directed towards me or her 10 month old brother.

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 14:38

My dd's behaviour has also gone down hill since she started pre-school in January this year. She hangs out with some very bolshy girls and I guess she both mimics them because it seems 'cool' (they're older than her) and because it helps her to 'fit in.' Dd's never, yet, been aggressive towards me but she does argue with me a lot more now and has been known to call me 'poo poo head' from time to time.

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Caligula · 31/07/2006 14:48

My dd will lie about something she did in front of me when I tell her firmly that she did it. So "I'm going to take a toy away because you threw that powder on the floor" "I didn't Mummy, I didn't " "But Calguletta, I saw you do it and Nero saw you too, you did do it, didn't you?" "No! I didn't! "

It's very annoying but I've given up on trying to confront her, I don't think she's ready to face it. She wants it not to be true so if she screams at the top of her voice that it isn't, it won't be.

I just hope that by the age of 18, she's grasped it

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 15:15

Sounds VERY familiar caligula. Personally I'm not holding out hope for an 18-year-olds honesty ... But maybe somewhere between about 7 and 13 we can expect a little truth?

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Caligula · 31/07/2006 15:17

Ooh, far too optimistic... between 7 and 10 I reckon...

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 15:19

7 and 11?

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Caligula · 31/07/2006 15:29

Original poster

imaginaryfriend · 31/07/2006 16:03

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Xena · 31/07/2006 16:10

Exactly what we are struggling with atm with DD1 (ds1 never really lied, or not that I know ). Have tried to tell her that she will get into trouble twice, once for lying and once for what she did wrong, we are praising her when she tells the truth straight off.
With 4 DC's its hard to know who 'did it' so i've also tried explaining that I won't be able to belive her is she keeps telling fibs.

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