A bunch of little liars

I once read about a Mother who was tired of her sons' lies. So, she told them that she was going to lie to them as much as they lied to her. For two days, she lied to them. She lied about plans to take them to the park, what was for dinner, that they could go out for ice cream, that she would get them that new game they wanted. Everything she said was a lie, and by the second day, her sons asked her to stop.

Did the boys still lie? Of course, but significantly less.

Or maybe it was less, because it turns out that parents are really bad at detecting children's lies. The experiments described on that link found that not only do we want to believe that our own children are honest, but we want to believe it of other children as well. Because of that, we are really bad at figuring out when they are lying to us.

There are lots of reasons that children lie - to stay out of trouble, to protect feelings, or because they can get away with it. It's going to happen, and we may not even realize it.

To combat the urge to lie, most parents focus on honesty and becoming good role models for our children. We also try to reward truthfulness whenever we can. One tip (also on that link) is that when parents do catch their children in a lie, they should to understand the motive for the lie, and not punish the liar.

What is the most recent lie that you told? Tell me in the comments.