Interview time: November 7, 2023.
Location: Mental Health Center, Changzhou De'an Hospital.
Psychological counselor: Zhu Haixia.
Case Summary: Why Children Lie and How Parents Can Guide Them Correctly.
Huang Eniang, she pushed Xi Niangniang, she pushed Xi Niangniang", as a famous scene of palace fighting in "The Legend of Zhen Huan", "Did Haoyue lie" made many Zhen scholars argue. After all, "at the beginning of man, nature is good", in the eyes of most people, children are innocent and ignorant of the world, and will definitely not deceive and frame others, as the emperor said in the play, "She is only six years old, can she lie?".”
"Band-Aid Experiment".
Recently, a kindergarten teacher did a "band-aid experiment" that attracted the attention of many netizens, she took advantage of the children's nap to put band-aids on different places on their bodies, and when the nap was over, the teacher asked the children: "You have a band-aid here, how did you get hurt?".The children's answers were surprisingly varied.
The little girl with a band-aid on her forehead said, "It was a mosquito bite!."”
The little girl with a band-aid on her chin took the initiative to report: "I knocked it while playing on the slide!".Pain!”
The little boy with a band-aid on his finger said, "I was bitten by someone!."”
The little girl with a band-aid on her cheek pointed at the boy next to her and said, "He pulled me away, pulled me to wrestle!".And the "enthusiastic crowd" helped to testify: "Hmph!You're all hugging Tutu and wrestling!”
Although the children have noses and eyes, but in fact all this is not happening at the moment, a Band-Aid is enough to overturn the entire kindergarten, and also let us see the children's ability to "talk nonsense".
Children's "lying behavior" is mixed with reality and is difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and adults need to carefully distinguish between them.
Psychologists divide children's lying behavior into two types:
Unintentional Lying vs. Intentional Lying
No intention to lie – no need to be overly nervous
When psychologist Piaget studied children's thinking, he found that there is a "animistic period" in the pre-operational stage of children's cognition (2 7 years old), that is, children in this time period think that everything is alive, such as the doll in the arms and the microwave oven at home. Although children at this stage have self-awareness, their cognitive level and language ability are not fully developed, their memory is not accurate enough, and their understanding of problems is also simplistic, and the division between the subjective world and the objective world is still relatively chaotic. Lies are part of the mind, with which they express their desires, and in the context of this characteristic of psychological development, some of the child's actions cannot be understood as "lying". For example, when a child tells others that there is Ultraman in his home, it is actually that the child does not distinguish between the virtual image in the cartoon and the real existence in reality. The same is true of the "Band-Aid Experiment", the child did not lie deliberately, but based on his own life experience, such as "bitten by a mosquito", "fell down the slide", "was knocked down" and so on, he made a reasonable imagination of the "Band-Aid", that is, "out of nothing" in the eyes.
How to boot: Parents don't need to be overly nervous about unintentional lying, which is a normal stage in a child's development and a sign of imagination. If they can better distinguish between reality and fantasy and learn to express more objectively, then the frequency of unintentional lies will gradually decrease until they disappear.
Intentional lying – requires patience to discern
Intentional lying is the child's active lying behavior in order to achieve a certain goal, but it is not necessarily a real sense of deception, and parents need to understand more to determine the reason for the child's lying. For example:
1.Cause for concern。Young children in the stage of self-centered development are very eager to get the attention of those around them, and sometimes they will lie to get the attention of others. For example, in a multi-child family, Dabao sees that his parents are always revolving around Erbao, so he will tell his mother that he has a stomachache, and use a lie to get his mother's attention and get more company;Lonely children often boast that they have a lot of fun toys at home, but there are no toys at all, and this lie is to get the attention of other children and get playmates.
How to boot: Parents need to pay more attention to their children and discover their real needs under the lie in time. At the same time, encourage your child to be brave enough to express his or her true needs, such as "Mommy I want you to hug me too" or "I want to play with you" instead of lying.
2.Evading punishment。If children know that they will be punished for telling the truth, then they will escape by lying, and this "ability to survive" is almost self-taught. For example, when parents questioned whether they watched TV when they were young, the child would bite to death and refuse to admit to peeking at TV in order not to be scoldedWhen you are lazy and don't do your homework, you will lie to the teacher, accidentally lose your homework or forget it at home, all in order to maintain your good image and avoid punishment.
How to boot: After making a mistake, regardless of whether the parents will punish or not, the child's psychology will be stressed, and in the process of weighing the truth and the falsehood, they will naturally choose the side that is beneficial to them. Severe criticism and punishment will only drive children to protect themselves with lies, rather than taking responsibility and solving problems. Therefore, parents should create an environment for their children to dare to speak the truth, affirm and praise their children's truth-telling behavior, and calmly help them correct their mistakes, so that children know that their parents' love for them will not disappear because they have made mistakes, so as to eliminate children's fears and develop a good habit of honesty and frankness.
It is important to note that parents should remember not to ask questions that they already know the answers to in the process of guiding their children. For example, if your child sees a cookie crumbled on the corner of his mouth, don't ask him "Did you really not eat the biscuit?"Because this can easily provoke the child's "defensive lying" and trigger more lies. You can directly say, "I see that there are crumbs of biscuits in the corner of your mouth, you can't steal them next time", so as to reduce the child's room for lying, guide the child to face the facts, and make honest explanations. Don't keep asking your child why he's lying, because in parent-child interactions, "why" is an interrogation term, which can easily amplify the severity of the problem, exacerbate the child's panic, damage the parent-child relationship, and make it more difficult for the child to tell the truth.
The impact of parents and teachers' words and deeds on children is subtle, so you also need to lead by example, such as "don't deliberately make your child short in order to save tickets", "don't lie to your child that you are working in order to play with your mobile phone", "don't let your child help lie that you are not at home in order to avoid entertainment", be honest and trustworthy, seek truth from facts, dare to act, and set a good example for children to learn.
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Zhu Haixia. Master of Psychology, Level 2 Psychological Counselor, Psychologist.
In recent years, he has been mainly engaged in psychological counseling and psychological counseling such as family relations, parental parenting styles, and mental disorders in children and adolescents. He is good at psychological work with common psychological and behavioral problems such as depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.