What to do when your child lies? Why punishment doesn’t encourage honesty

Is it normal for a young child to lie?#

Yes. In experiments where children aged 3–8 were told not to look at a toy in the room, most of them looked and later denied having looked. The ability to lie was linked to how well a child understands other people’s thinking and how well they can control themselves (Talwar & Lee, 2008). In other words, first lies are also a sign that a child is beginning to understand that other people can’t see inside their head. That doesn’t mean lying is fine — only that it isn’t a disorder or a sign of a “bad child”.

As children get older, they lie more often and are better at keeping a lie going under further questions (Talwar, Arruda & Yachison, 2015). That’s why it’s worth working on honesty early — and in the right way.

Does it help to punish a child for lying?#

Probably not. Researchers compared 84 children aged 3–4 from two schools in West Africa: one used harsh punishment, the other didn’t. The children from the punitive school lied more often and were also better at keeping up the lie under follow-up questions (Talwar & Lee, 2011). The authors summed this up by saying that a punitive environment encourages not only dishonesty but also the skill of covering up wrongdoing. This was a comparison of two schools, so it doesn’t prove that punishment alone caused the difference.

The logic is simple: if the truth means punishment, the child learns that the truth doesn’t pay. What they tend to learn is to cover things up better, not to make fewer mistakes.

In another experiment with 372 children aged 4–8, children who were told by an adult that it would make the adult happy if they told the truth told the truth more often than children who weren’t given that appeal. And an appeal to the child’s own good feeling (“you’ll feel good about yourself”) worked better when no punishment was threatened than when it was (Talwar et al., 2015).

Does the story of Pinocchio teach children to tell the truth?#

Surprisingly, no. A study with children aged 3–7 compared classic stories. The tales of Pinocchio and of the boy who cried wolf — both show the bad things that happen to a liar — did not reduce lying. The story of young George Washington, who admitted he had chopped down the cherry tree and was praised by his father for telling the truth, increased truthfulness. An adult read the story to the children just before asking them whether they had broken a rule — so what was measured was immediate owning up in the experiment, not long-term behaviour. When the researchers changed the same story so that it emphasised the bad consequences of lying, it stopped working (Lee et al., 2014).

So what made the difference was not whether a story “is about the truth”, but whether it shows that telling the truth brings something good.

So what should you do when your child lies?#

The studies above, together with guidance on parenting that is warm and clear at the same time, point to a few steps:

1. Don’t ask when you already know. “Did you spill the milk?” when there’s a puddle on the floor is an invitation into a trap. Try instead: “I can see the milk’s been spilt. Come on, let’s wipe it up.”
2. When your child owns up, thank them for the truth first. “Thank you for telling me. That was brave.” Only then deal with the damage.
3. Putting things right instead of punishment. A broken mug gets glued back together, spilt milk gets wiped up. The child learns that a mistake can be put right.
4. Say that the truth makes you glad — in advance, not as a threat: “I’d always rather you told me the truth, even when it’s hard. I won’t be cross with you for telling me.”
5. Avoid labels. “You’re a liar” is about what the child is. “That wasn’t true” is about what they did — and that can change.
6. Read stories where telling the truth pays off, not ones where the liar’s nose grows.

Harsh or humiliating punishments are also linked to worse outcomes for children beyond lying; a large meta-analysis found worse outcomes with physical punishment (smacking) in 13 of the 17 areas it looked at (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016).

When is lying a reason for concern?#

An occasional lie to avoid punishment or to get something is common. It’s worth talking to a child psychologist or a paediatrician when lying is very frequent and goes together with other difficulties (for example aggression, stealing or serious problems at school), or when you feel your child is hiding something out of fear — in that case it’s more important to find out what they are afraid of than to deal with the lie itself.

Watch out for the opposite side, too: a child should never feel they have to keep a “secret” with an adult that makes them uncomfortable. The difference between a good secret (a birthday surprise) and a bad secret (someone is hurting me and wants me to stay quiet) is one of the basics of keeping children safe.

How our comics work#

In a story about honesty, the hero carries a small lie like a pebble in their rucksack, and it gets heavier with every new lie. When the hero owns up, a character in the story first thanks them for the truth, and only then do they look for a way to put things right together — in the spirit of the studies above. The story doesn’t try to frighten the child with the consequences of lying. We don’t promise that your child will stop lying; we offer a story in which telling the truth pays off.