Blog #12

When kids lie, it is a natural part of childhood development and isn't necessarily completely bad. Early lieing can be linked with good social skills in the future. When toddlers lie it is mostly a lie to gain something for themselves. When the 2 year old pulls the cats tail and says their imaginary friend did it, the smart thing to say is "The cat has feelings too". Since their too young to understand that lieing is bad, getting angry with them isn't the right thing to do since the child won't know what they've done wrong. When preschoolers lie it's usually about freewheeling relationship with reality. This is when they believe in monsters under the bed, imaginary friends etc. These things do things that the child can't. They believe it so it's not really a lie because it is just playful thinking. When school children lie it's usually because they want you to stop nagging. This is the age of a white lie. A white lie isn't completely bad since it can show signs of social awareness and sensitivity. There is also the lie of when they lie about something because they are afraid to disapoint their parents or of what the punishment will be. When tweens lie about homework it could be that their under stress and don't want to talk about it. When they aren't telling you everthing that they would have 4 years ago it doesn't mean their hiding things. It's just part of growing up.
I think this is an interesting article because children aren't meaning to be bad when they lie and don't usually think about it when they do lie. All of these reasons explain a lot about why kids lie and i think that parents would be a lot more understanding of their children when they lie.