Coping with Compulsive Lying
S. L. Crum, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.

Parents often ask in frustration: “What can I do to stop his lying? I’ve taken away all his privileges and everything in his room!” The fact is that all children lie at some point in time. Unlike academics or good manners, it is something they learn without direct instruction. At some point they simply demonstrate the capacity to exaggerate, to alter the truth so it reflects them more positively or helps them avoid an undesirable consequence. They learn to omit facts that are not convenient, to weave intricate stories that parents almost believe too complex to be false, and even to flat outright deny what is as obvious as the nose on their face.

Lying is a concern to most parents because when someone lies habitually, we cannot have a meaningful relationship with them. If they claim to have been hurt or bullied, we don’t know if they really need protection. If they complain of feeling sick, we are uncertain whether to take them to the doctors or send them to school. If they deny taking their brother’s toy and assert that the broken one is not theirs, we don’t know which child needs to be confronted with the consequence of not caring for their toy. If our teenager tells us that a parent will be home during a party, we want to believe them. But, when they are a compulsive liar, we become distrustful and suspicious. Then, as lying escalates children become more defiant; just doing what they choose regardless of possible consequences because they believe they can just lie their way out of the situation.

One good habit for parents is to simply routinely verify whatever children share with us. For instance, if a child says I’m invited to Sharon’s birthday party, but there is no written invitation, pick up the phone and speak directly with Sharon’s mom. If a teenager says that they are all going to Bob’s for Pizza and to play some video games, verify with Bob’s parents that this is actually the plan. Confirm the times, who will be supervising, and that no alcohol is being served. If your child comes home and says there is no homework tonight, then immediately email the teacher to confirm and hand your child some practice school work that will require as much time as homework would normally require. This way, your child gets some extra skill practice, maintains the routine, and gets absolutely no benefit out of lying about homework. Just do this all the time, verify everything on a routine basis, and your children will know from the get go, that there is little point in lying because mom and dad verify everything. Now if your child complains that you don’t trust them simply state: “It’s my habit to confirm details. I have found that it works for me in many areas of my life, and I plan to continue with that practice”. In other words, don’t defend your actions, don’t engage in debate about them, and don’t alter them.

Meanwhile, the fact remains that once there is a cycle of lying and distrust, it is very difficult to disrupt this cycle and replace it with a more positive set of behaviors. To do so requires a considerable about of consistent time and effort. To address compulsive lying, we need to explore why a child lies, and then develop a comprehensive plan to eliminate this undesirable behavior.

Lying As An Indicator of ADHD or ODD

For some children, lying is a function of impaired brain function which impedes their ability to inhibit impulses and to link their actions with subsequent consequences In this case, lying is likely to be accompanied by stealing, aggressiveness, temper tantrums, and stealing. A child with ADHD or ODD or TBI or Bipolar Disorder or a Personality Disorder may require more than the typical interventions to help them with lying behavior. Parents may need to explore medications which help improve inhibition, neurofeedback combined with cognitive training to develop executive skills such as anticipating consequences, and perhaps psychotherapy to help their child learn to connect cause and effect and develop other coping mechanisms to replace lying.

The fact that lying may be tied into a disability, however, doesn’t mean that your child should not have consequences for lying. If we say that we wrote something when someone else did, we can be sued. If we blame someone else for our errors, we can be charged with slander or libel. If we claim to have the credentials of a medical doctor and treat patients without having attended medical school, we would end up in jail. In the real world, lying has very real consequences and your child needs to learn this lesson.

Factors that Contribute to Lying

Whether or not your child has an impulse control or other disorder that pre-disposes them to lying, there are other factors that need to be identified and addressed.

Lying out of fear

A common reason why children lie compulsively is fear. They fear being punished, so they lie to avoid punishment. They fear how someone in authority will react to their actions, so they lie to avoid that reaction. In this case, to address the lying behavior, parents have to address the fact that their child needs to learn that opinions and reactions of others are less important than doing what is right simply because they know it is right. They also have to be taught that whatever they do or say wrong, you will love them.

Meanwhile you need to evaluate your own temperament and make certain that your child is not afraid because you are unpredictable or frequently angry and bellicose when your child misbehaves. Make a list of expected behaviors and specific consequences for each behavior. Then, share this list with your child, and calmly enforce it. Over time your child will learn that you are not being precarious and they will know what to expect for each infraction. Thus they will not motivated to lie for fear of an angry capricious reaction from you. For example.

Expected behavior	Consequence for failure to comply
Put all toys away by 6pm each night	Dad picks up toys laying around and donates to local orphanage
Homework before play	Skip your homework, skip play the next day.
Feed dog	You don’t eat until the dog has.

Each consequence is directly tied to the desired behavior, and needs to be immediately enforced without second or third or multiple reminders. You want to create a consistent predictable environment for your child where your word is your bond. If you say, your child will not eat until the dog is fed, there is no negotiating on that.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t compromise once in a while when there is a legitimate reason. For instance, let’s say bedtime is 8 pm and staying up past 8 pm means a half hour earlier bedtime the next day. But, there was a concert that caused school to run an hour longer than usual and your child didn’t get any time to wind down after coming home from school before having to do chores and homework. In that case, when your child asks to remain up till 8:30 or 9:00, you might make it clear that due to the day’s exceptional circumstances you are willing to compromise and make an exception. The important point here is that your child knows you are listening to them and considering their needs, but, you are not altering the basic underlying rule.

Lying out of imagination

Sometimes, lying begins rather innocently with a child who has a great imagination making up a believable story and then being reinforced by the fact that someone believed their story. If this happens enough times, a habit forms that is difficult to break. So, to help prevent this type of scenario, give your child other positive outlets for their storytelling. This might include having them put on puppet shows or orchestra family plays. It might involve encouraging your child to write a book which you can help them self-publish. In other words, direct their natural creativity into constructive and socially acceptable story telling rather than permitting it to develop into the habit of lying.

Lying out of habit

Regardless of why your child begins lying, once they do and find it useful, they will repeat the behavior. If it is repeated often enough, lying becomes a habit in the same way that brushing your teeth does.

To help your child avoid the habit of lying, avoid confronting your child with hostility when you discover that they have lied. Let them know that you are disappointed in them when they lie and that lying is not an acceptable behavior. Enforce whatever your age appropriate family consequence for lying is – i.e. going to the person you lied to and telling the truth, doing some extra community service, writing an essay on the value of honesty. But, don’t demean the child, shout or physically punish them because these actions will only teach the child to lie in order to avoid these reactions in the future.

Parental lying

Believe it or not, you may be unintentionally modeling lying behavior to your child. Do you cheat on your taxes? Do you fail to tell the checker when she has given you too much change? Do you tell someone a dress looks great on them when it really is very unattractive? Do you make verbal commitments that you fail to keep? Do you tell a child that someone in the hospital will be fine, when you know they are critically ill? If you engage in any of these behaviors, you are modeling lying and telling your child that lying is acceptable. Even when you believe you have a good reason to lie, keep in mind that your children do not appreciate the nuances of lying. If they see you lie on one occasion, they don’t understand why they should not lie. So, to address lying you have to change your behavior and practice telling the truth. You also need to provide your children a range of models for truthfulness. This may be cartoons and videos for children that give lessons about being honest. It may mean seeking out books that have lessons about honesty. It may mean pointing out when you observe someone to do something honest. In short, you need to make telling truth a priority instruction and a priority behavior for everyone in your home.

Negative Anticipation

Children also lie because they over anticipate a negative reaction from someone in their lives. You’ll hear them say things like: “I knew my mom would say ‘no’, so I told her we were going to your house instead of the mall.” The fact is mom might have permitted the child to go to the mall, after asking a number of questions about who was driving, who would be supervising, what the planned agenda at the mall was. The most effective way to deal with the over anticipation of negative consequences is to have clear boundaries set out in advance. For instance, you might have a rule that says you can go to the mall with a friend if a parent is driving and remains at the mall. Or, you might have a rule that says, you can go to the mall if a parent drives you and there is an agreed upon pick up time, and you keep your cell phone on so mom or dad can check to be certain you are safe. When children know the limits, they are more likely to deal with them appropriately through negotiation. For instance, in the latter case, a teen might be embarrassed by your calling to check up on her, but, she’d counter offer that she’d go to the bathroom every hour and call you. This might be an acceptable to address both your concerns and hers. It let’s her know that you respect her feelings, and teaches her to respect yours; thereby decreasing the desire to lie.

Attention Seeking

Though it seems counter intuitive, children sometimes lie simply because they enjoy the attention. Talking about the “big fish” they caught may elevate them in their peers eyes whether or not it is based in fact. Alternatively, when mom and dad are really busy with work and their own pursuits, lying may force parents to focus their attention on the child. Albeit negative attention, attention is reinforcing. To eliminate lying behavior that is reinforced by attention, you need to do two things: set aside time for your child each and every day, and shun a child when they lie.

This means if you have a child who seeks attention, set aside twenty minutes at a set time and place each day to do something with your child. This might be reading a book, playing Skippo, going for a walk, taking a bike ride. The choice of activity should be up to the child and can change at the child’s whim. The critical point is that the child knows they have this twenty minutes of your undivided attention each and every day.

This also means that when your child lies, you needs to communicate to your child that your don’t enjoy the company of liars, so you really don’t want to be around them right now. Family routines should continue as normal, but don’t voluntarily talk to or engage the child. If the family had an outing planned, call a babysitter and explain to the child that the rest of the family doesn’t enjoy being with someone who lies to them, so while the family goes to the beach, they will have to stay home with a sitter.

Do this calmly. This is not a “punishment”. It is not a way of getting back at the child or hurting them. It is simply a real life consequence of lying. When people lie to us, we don’t enjoy their company, and this is a lesson that is best for your child to learn at home. As for the twenty minutes per day, skip that on the day the child lied, so that lying behavior is not reinforced, but, resume it the next day so that your child knows your word is your bond. On the day of the incident say simply and clearly: “I won’t enjoy our special time today because I’m really saddened by your lying. So, we’ll skip it today but pick up with it again tomorrow.”

Consequences of Lying

Lying in the broader community has serious consequences. Perjury can end you up in jail. Promising to sell a certain product and substituting it with an inferior one is considered fraud. Printing your own money and saying it is real, is a federal offense. So, your child needs to know there are always consequences for lying. But, they should not be punished.

By punishment I refer to a situation where the adult imposes something arbitrary and unpleasant on the child in response to an undesirable behavior. Spanking a child is punishment. Putting red pepper on their tongue is punishment. Another form of punishment is when privileges unrelated to the lying are arbitrarily removed. For instance, you lied, therefore, you can’t have friends over today. This is arbitrary in that there is not natural connection between lying and friends. Conversely, if dad says “I wouldn’t enjoy our special time today because I feel hurt by your lying, so well skip just today”, while the child is loosing something special, it has a direct relationship to the lying and how that lying affected his father. Moreover, the privilege of spending time with dad is not being removed to hurt or punish the child. It is simply a natural consequence of dad not enjoying my company because I hurt his feelings.

If you are a believer in punishiment such as spanking. Rembmer that spanking should not be administered when you are angry or upset because it can become excessive and lead to abuse. It can also increase your child’s fear of you and therefore increase the child’s tendency to lie in order to avoid being punished.

Even more importantly, if a child is lying because they want attention, punishment reinforces the lying by increasing the attention they are receiving. If a child is lying because of anticipation of anticipation of a negative outcome, adding a punishment such as spanking does not function to alter this thought paradigm and therefore doesn’t decrease the likelihood of lying behavior. In fact, it reinforces the lying behavior because you confirmed that they were punished because they were caught and next time they will work on lying more convincingly.

What does work is having clear cut boundaries with clear cut consequences that are consistently and calmly enforced. Now, if your child is lying because he witnesses you employ lying as a strategy for avoiding dealing with difficult people or situation, the only thing that will help your child overcome this behavior pattern, is changing your own. If your child is lying out of habit, you need to reward and praise the child when they are truthful, and give them a sensible consequence when they lie.

Lessons on lying

An important tool in addressing lying behavior are realistic lessons on lying. Present through a range of media examples of how lives took a wrong path due to lying, and follow up with discuss of what other choices the person had and where those choices may have lead. Discuss responsibility and how we are diminished when we do not accept responsibility for our behaviors. Of course, the material you select and the depth of the lessons on honesty will be tailored to your child’s ability to comprehend.

For a young child, stories from the Bible or the Book of Virtues might be a good starting point for lessons on honesty. For a middle age child something as enjoyable as watching Liar, Liar and discussing how his life was affected by both lying and truthfulness could be enlightening. A teenager might be asked to read what Socrates or Confucius had to say about honesty.

The fact is this is one area where you, the parent, are completely in control. You pick the medium and the content, you share it with your child and you point out the negatives of dishonesty along with the benefits of truthfulness. If appropriate, you reinforce the values of your family’s faith. This needs to be an ongoing process which occurs regardless of whether or not your child has a tendency to lie. For instance, you might routinely purchase children’s books, fables or tales that have important lessons or morals. Or, you might select animated movies or cartoon such as those from the Book of Virtues and substitute them for the rather unwholesome television shows directed towards our children.

You design your child’s comprehensive program of ethical training by example, by direct lesson, by the types of music and media you expose your child to. In this process bear in mind that you want your child to be one who understands that honesty is a virtue that permeates their lives. They must be honest in their academic or work endeavors. They need to avoid plagiarism when writing reports for school. They need to be trustworthy when working on the honor system, and have they need the integrity not to blame others for their mistakes, but rather accept responsibility and make amends.

These lessons need to be taught from very young ages and reinforced in different format as your child matures. It is much easier to take responsibility for stealing your brothers toy, than it will be for stealing your neighbor’s car if you haven’t learned to be honest with yourself about what your are entitled to and what is not yours for the taking. So teach your child from very young, and teach them often that honesty with themselves and others is an essential life skill and virtue. Help your child that honesty is like a good GPS that accurately tells you where you are and where the road will take you; while dishonesty is like a GPS on the fritz that sends your off in the wrong direction either making you late to your destination or precluding your getting there at all.

Lying and your child’s IEP

If your child has a problem with compulsive lying and is a classified student, this needs to be addressed both in their behavioral intervention plan (BIP) and in their IEP. As at home, the BIP needs to outline clearly and specifically what the consequences are for lying and these need to be directly related to the child’s lie. Likewise, if the child’s lying is a form of attention seeking, the IEP should include positive behavioral supports that reward your child and provide positive attention when he is honest and productive engaged. If your child’s lying is tied into an overactive imagination, the IEP should clearly direct adults to help the child channel that creativity into story writing, art work, poetry or another socially acceptable means of storytelling. If your child has a condition that impairs their judgment, then the IEP should include counseling as a related service along with goals to use social stories, role playing or problem solving games to develop the skills necessary to connect cause and effect and to explore other ways of handling situations. If impulsivity is the culprit, the IEP might specify feedback based impulse control training.

Detentions, in school suspensions, out of school suspensions are inappropriate forms of punishment for lying behavior, and your child’s IEP should specifically prohibit their employment. If the school staff doesn’t feel they understand the factors underlying your child’s compulsive lying behavior, then request a good psychological or psychiatric evaluation to help identify these so that positive behavioral supports and a plan to extinguish this undesirable behavior can be developed based on that data.

Schools often report that they don’t see the lying problem that the parent does. This is because the teacher has to divide her attention between so many children, and therefore, is not as aware of your child’s behavior as you are. Be proactive in this area, when you child comes home with a story about a classmate that doesn’t sound believable write the teacher to confirm. If your child gives you a story about having a time extension on a project, write the teacher to confirm. If you child brings home a book that is unfamiliar and says the teacher lent it to them, email the teacher to confirm. Doing this systematically will provide you accurate information about when your child is or is not lying. When, the teacher doesn’t confirm your child’s story ask your teacher how she plans to deal with this incident of lying in the classroom setting and make certain the school psychologist or counselor is apprised in writing of each incident. This way, when you need to bring this issue up in an IEP meeting you will have documentation that it is not only an issue outside of school, but also in school.

Presented as a community service by,

Susan L. Crum, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.
Special Needs Coach
Able2Learn
Email: Able2learn@live.com
Voice and Fax: 863-471-0281
Website: specialeducationsupport.org