#238: Relating to Littles, Middles, and Bigs - Lying & Building Trust
Did you lie as a kid? We did!
Do your kids lie? Ours did!
We are taking a "hot parenting" topic and breaking it down for littles, middles, and bigs. Today’s topic is Stopping Lying and Building Trust.
Do you want to have honest kids? We hope so!
Do you want your kids to trust you and share what is going on in their world? We do too!
Don and Suz discuss so many valuable parenting tools in today’s episode. If your kids are struggling with valuing the truth, this episode is for you!
Here are a few things they discussed:
What is the motivation for the lie?
- Kids don’t feel safe
- Afraid parents will overreact
- Don’t want to get in trouble/face the consequences so the lie is more favorable than the truth
- They want to be accepted by others or to protect others
- They don’t feel good about themselves, so they lie about their achievements- stop this lie by speaking into their identity
The main reason kid’s lie is they want their parent’s approval over whatever the thing is they are lying about. They want our approval more than they want the truth - isn't that wild? So what do we do as parents? We must make telling the truth valuable. We cannot get angry when our children lie or they will continue to lie. Our reaction directly determines the continues behavior of lying or not.
How this applies to Littles, Middles, and Bigs:
- For ALL ages: Don’t label your child a liar. Speak who they are and that’s who they will be
- Littles lie to protect themselves and feel out boundaries
- Middles lie out of insecurity of self, world, don’t know what to do, relationship with parents not open & safe
- Bigs lie because of trust in parents, world is telling them not to tell parents
Final Thoughts:
- Building trust with each age group
- How to respond when you find out they are lying
- Know that deep down kids want to tell their parents all the things so it’s our role to help them do that despite what the world says, how they feel, how we respond. We get to walk along beside them as they face the world
