Why do kids lie to their parents? The question sounds quite silly when you think about it, but then again, what could be more intriguing to find to a question such as this one – one that we often wonder about and that keeps us up during the night, making us think and wonder what could possibly be the reason this time because whether we admit it to ourselves or we don’t, we know for a fact that we too lied to our parents as kids.
The Bare Truth
Even though that is pretty much enough of an answer in itself, keeping in mind the generation gap between parents and their children and all, the thing that we learn as a parent is that it is never a good thing to be lied to by your own kid, even though we, the parents, might have also done the very same thing to our parents as kids. While the motives and the lies have pretty much stayed the same, the consequences of each and every single one of them have become far worse than they used to be.
What Makes a Kid Lie?
In the age of technology, there might be a number of reasons for why kids lie. Each and every one of those lies depends on the person on the receiving end of the lie. Such as:
Friends
A teenager may lie to his or her friends for many reasons, a few of which may have to do with;
Social Standing
If your child has friended up on the social ladder, then there is a very good chance that they might be lying to their friends about certain things in their life, such as the place they call home or the place they went for vacation this summer.
Tests
Teens often lie to their peers about the tests they might have that day, claiming that they haven’t prepared for the test when in reality they have and they want to tell their friends that on the off chance that their friend might cheat off of them and possibly get them both into trouble.
Spread Rumors
The worst thing any teen can do to their friend or their peer is spread untrue and ill rumors about them. It is one of the chief propagators of teen on teen hate and may eventually have disastrous consequences.
Teachers
Teachers are mostly on the receiving end of two very famous lies i.e. I am not feeling well in order to get out of boring class, or I forgot that I had to do it – a common excuse when they didn’t prepare for a test or have failed to complete their homework assignment in time.
Parents
While teens, or kids in general, lie to their friends or teachers out of selfish reasons, the lies that a child tells to his or her parents mostly stem from the quilt. They almost never have a nefarious reason for lying to their parents, but at times, what they see as innocent and fun things to do may end up having disastrous consequences that may follow them for the rest of their life. A few of these initially fun but eventually life threatening scenarios include;
Partying, Alcohol, and Drugs
While there is nothing wrong with partying with their friends on a weekend at one point or another, it is, however, quite bad if the partying includes things like alcohol and substance abuse. It is things like these can have a negative effect on your child both on the temporary as well as long-term basis. Temporary in the way that they might get addicted to it and long term in the sense that they might be legally charged for consumption as well as possession of such things, depending on their age.
Grades
When your overachieving child gets poor grades or when your teen fails a pop quiz, they usually lie to their parents about their actual result because their parents might scold them about it, or worse, they might be broken-hearten because they disappointed them.
Relationships
If your child is in the relationship with someone who they might think that their parents wouldn’t approve of, they lie to their parents about it. At times like these, they don’t even think that their parents might be right to stop them from doing such a thing but they might still go ahead and continue to do it because they might just be being a tad bit rebellious and or maybe because they don’t know any better.
Bullying
Whether your child is being in school or online, they would not tell their parents out of shame mostly. On the other hand, if your child is the one that is bullying his or her peers, they would not tell their parents about that either out of fear of the consequences.
