My DS has a habit of telling porkys

[LusciousLemons]

My lovely DS (7) is a really smart and creative kid - loads of personality. He has a habit of telling creative stories (aka lies). These aren’t damaging lies and they aren’t hurting anyone but they are entirely untrue and can be incredibly far fetched. People do believe them on occasion however and they can cause confusion. Examples include having a false limb, the playing field at school used to be a golf course, his friend climbed Everest, etc. At the moment I let most of them slide - but I do stress the importance to my kids of telling the truth - and I worry I should be doing something about this. Anyone have any advice?

I honestly would quietly pull him to the side and tell him to stop the lies, everytime he is telling them. Eventually he will become known as a liar and that is not nice when people start being mean to him and taking the mick.

Punish him. If there’s no consequences it will just get worse.

This is normal and lots of kids go through this. Do not make a big deal of it at all. Every time you hear something that isn’t true meet it with a cheery and obvious, ‘mmmm, that’s not how I remember things’ and move on. He will 100% grow out of it. You do not need to start punishing this behaviour.

Sounds like he just has a really vivid imagination, I wouldn’t be punishing him for that, but I would have a chat about how stories like that are really fun to make up and tell, but it’s important to make sure that the people he’s telling them to know it’s a story, so maybe find a form of wording he can use when he’s going to tell a story. Like ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing/hilarious/weird if’ and then he can launch into his stories.

He sounds like he’s being imaginative, I wouldn’t indulge it and I’d say are you tricking me - a playful way to encourage him to tell you the truth. I wouldn’t be too hard on him though.

Some kids go through this stage, most grow out of it.

There's no need to punish him when they're not causing any harm.

Thanks everyone! Punishment feels wrong as he has no intention to hurt anyone. I like the idea of making it (kindly) clear that I don’t believe him and encouraging his creative stories into other outlets. Appreciate the responses