4 year old lying

[xctsclrx]

I know it is normal for a 4 year old to lie, but do they understand what a lie is? My DS has been telling stories a lot lately. not even to get out of trouble, but just because. 

I tried explaining it to him, but he didn't seem to understand. 

Any tips? 



ETA: He is also getting pretty good at it, which worries me a little. 

[2chatter]

Totally normal! I don’t think they totally get it. Try concrete examples - hold up a green shirt and tell him you wore it yesterday and to remember that. Then tell him a story about how you spilled coffee on your shirt but it didn’t matter because you were wearing a brown shirt.

I also totally lied to my kids to illustrate this. It worked. They will have to pay for therapy as adults, ha.

[waverly]

I think they kind of get it kind of not. Lying is a developmentally appropriate and part of their brain development.

Obviously should be discouraged. I hear a lot of parents do more sever punishment for lying for example time out of 3 minutes for doing X and additional 3 minutes for lying.

I call my kids out on it a lot. A lot of times it’s super obvious and they are kind of looking at me like is she going to believe this? They are trying to see if they can be successful through lying and if I am going to fall for it/ pushing their boundaries.

[sdlaura]

Yeah, totally normal! I try to reward them telling the truth, even if it’s about something I would normally punish them for. Like DS1 will confess that he snuck chocolate into his bed and I’ll thank him for telling me the truth, and ask him to please ask me next time and eat it in the kitchen so it’s cleaner I think punishing for lying is likely to encourage better lying.

[traveltheworld]

DS lied at that age (and continues to lie). Serious lying gets punished, but I let some of the exaggeration stuff go - like if he said he scored 100 goals playing soccer, I'd point out that it's impossible and I'd appreciate knowing the real truth, but I don't necessarily follow up with any punishment.

[186momx]

Normal and hopefully will be a short lived phase. I call DD out when it was an obvious lie the more in-depth stories I would start asking questions and she would finally fess up.

DD had me going for a couple weeks with this story in K about how she got to be in Mr. S 5th grade class during the day. She gave really great examples of things they did and how much more fun it was in 5th grade than in K. Like 5th grade had to run 10 laps during PE instead of just 1 lap and the cool dividing math they were doing. I finally asked her teacher who looked at me like I grew and extra head. It took another week for her to fess up it was just a story of how she wished she was in Mr. S class and be a 5th grader. Fast forward to today and Mr. S thinks DD is the cutest thing and he is going to be in for it when she finally does get to 5th grade.

[k3am]

DD regularly tells me that DS magically showed up at her school. They play together and all her friends like him. He’s really good on the monkey bars and never needs a diaper change because he uses the potty.

Cool story, kid.