When do they know the difference between truth and lies?

My 3yo has started lying. For several weeks, it's not been any big deal. Little things here and there. I have just been trying to use the instances to teach him the difference between a lie and the truth. I would tell him "what you are saying is not true. It is called lying. Pretty soon you will get in trouble for lying...." etc etc.

This afternoon he came out of the bathroom. The rule is to close the door so that the little ones don't go in and play in the toilet. I asked him if he shut the door (I hadn't heard it close...so I knew it was open). He said "yes." To give him the benefit of the doubt, I asked him to just go check. He went and came back and said "yes, it's closed" again. I know he didn't close it. So this was a flat out lie. I told him I was going to go check and if it was open than I knew he was lying and he would be in trouble. Needless to say...he went running to close it!

So my real question is just: When do they know the difference? I don't want to time him out or spank him for something that he doesn't really understand. But I think he might be starting to know the difference. He is very bright. Also, what kind of punishment do your 3yo's get for lying?

Thanks!

 

That is a hard thing I think for kids to figure out. I found with my oldest DD it took her awhile to figure out what is "joking" and what is "lying". It's a hard concept. We do time out here or lose TV time, those seem to work best with my oldest. I think you really have to use the situation and try to explain it to him. Maybe next time, go over with him to check to see if if the door is closed and then when you find it's not, say "the door is not closed and you told me it was that is not telling the truth", then tell him when you don't tell the truth you have to be punished, if that is what you are planning to do. If the door is closed and he was telling the truth make a big deal about him telling you the truth. You may even need to tell him what truth is and give some examples of truth and a lie. We would give my oldest DD scenarios to give her an idea of what was the truth and what was a lie. When you catch him telling the truth, be sure to praise him.

But I really feel it's a hard concept for kids to learn. Good luck!

 

Amy had some good advice!

I don't think kids really really get the concept of lying until they are closer to 4, but you can start helping him learn now.

I babysat a little boy (4 yo) who lied to get out of trouble. The problem was that his lies were easily and immediately discoverable. (Like your shutting the bathroom door example). What I did was put him in time-out for the offense and the lie, so 2 timeouts in a row. Normally I wouldn't put a kid in time out for forgetting something, but I wanted him to get the idea that forgetting something or telling me the truth right away resulted in a small punishment or (usually) no punishment at all, but lying made it worse and you would have your nose in the corner for quite a while. He eventually stopped lying, I just had to be super consistent.

 

I agree with Amy that this is a difficult concept for children to learn. Also I think we complicate the matter by it being OK to "joke" or "fib". It's not a simple as learning the black and white of truth and lies, there are also all the shades of grey of pretending, joking, tricking etc.

At the age your son is he is probably just starting to figure out the difference. I know that my big girls are still leaning the subtle differences between OK and not OK lies. I would not start to punish him yet, I think you probably need to work more on him understanding the importance of telling the truth first.

Here are a couple of articles I found on dealing with lying; Lying 1 Lying 2 (you need to scroll down a bit on the second page).

 

It's true that it is really difficult for them to learn. Hard to learn the difference between lying, joking, & telling those little lies that we all tell to avoid hurting people's feelings. "Do you like my new hairdo?" "Oh, yes" when really, "not so much" might be the truth. It's a hard concept to teach them, but the best you can do is keep reinforcing it & explaining the difference between the two. As they get older & more mature, they start to understand the finer points of right & wrong.

Although, I must say, the lying to keep themselves from getting in trouble is tempting even to the ones who are old enough to know better!

 

The other thing I've read about, and seems to ring true with my 3 year old, is that lying is more of a wishing it were the way they are telling you, instead of lying. Maggie also goes through the joking/kidding thing, and we are working on it, but she still doesn't quite understand lying is bad, teasing is a different concept thing. There was a pretty good article on it in Parents magazine a couple of months back - if I can find it, I'll send you a link.

 

In my experience, when they start lying because they don't want to do it or to get out of trouble, they are starting to understand. When their lies are just fabricated stories, they are experimenting with truth/fiction kind of things. My daughter used to lie all the time for crazy things like What did you have for snack? Cookies, when they had toast kind of thing. But when asked if she did something she wasn't supposed to, it was still a yes (truthful). As soon as she figured out lying occassionally about those kind of things seemed to get her out of things (until I caught on it was a lie), she started getting consequences. Usually time outs, always some kind of appology (which would include making up for the lie, like an extra chore or a random act of kindness kind of thing).

 

I am afraid that telling the truth has to be taught, in my experience. The more you teach them about thier imagination and it not being "real" the more they will understand the truth. My kids just came out of the stage where they believed everything that they said could be real and true. They turned four in August. I kept reaffirming that the truth does not change by what we imagine.

This gets sticky when they start asking questions about stuff that you don't want to tell the truth about, like Santa and the Tooth fairy. At least my kids did. Santa died around 6.5 for my oldest boy. He has had a good time since then helping with little brothers.

They are just testing what is the truth at that age. Consistency in correcting the fibs is what will win out in the long battle of truthfullness.