Calm Parenting Podcast - The Truth About Lying & How To Stop It

Episode Date: January 1, 2023

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Calm Parenting Podcast listeners get an exclusive 20% off an IXL membership when you sign up today at ixl.com slash kirk. Visit ixl.com slash kirk to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Do you have a child who lies all the time? And it seems pathological. Like they'll lie about something. You'll be like, I have it on videotape that you did that. And they'll say, oh, that was someone impersonating me that wore my clothes. You're like, no, just tell us the truth. It'll be better if you tell the truth and it's an integrity issue. And I want you to know it's not always an integrity issue. And I want to give you some perspective on this because it's an integrity issue. And I want you to know, it's not always an integrity issue.

And I want to give you some perspective on this because it's really, really important. And because if you go down the wrong path, it can have serious consequences for your relationship with this child in the future. And if you don't handle it the right way, they will lie even more or they will get better at covering things up. And we

don't want that. So that's what I'm going to address on this episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast. So welcome. This is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need help, reach out to us. Email our son, Casey, C-A-S-E-Y at CelebrateCalm.com. Tell us about your family, ages of the kids. What are you struggling with? We get together as a family. We will reply to you personally and usually very quickly because that's our mission. We want to help you. If you need help with any of our products and resources, reach out to Casey as well. He can help you whether you need a payment plan or some additional help. Just let us know. We're pretty easy. So here's the deal. And this comes up literally every day in our email inbox about parents freaking out about their child

lying. And I want you to know a few things. One is this, 99.9% of your kids are not sociopaths. They're not narcissists and they're not gaslighting reprobates, right? They aren't. They've fallen into a habit of lying for reasons that I'm going to get into. But for perspective, think about this. When your child lies, it demonstrates that he has a conscience and he knows right from wrong, right? Your child does something wrong and he knows it was wrong and that's why he lies because why? He doesn't want to get in trouble for what he did, right? Just like every adult and every politician on this planet. And I agree with you. Yes, yes, we want to instill in our kids the importance of telling the truth, of being honest, of building trust,

of living with integrity. So part of my advice to you is stop lecturing about that and by the way, everything else and start living it. Model it. Your greatest lecture to your kids is what you do and how you live, right? There's no need to lecture your kids about the importance of being giving and kind. Just show them that in your everyday life. When people cut you off in traffic, when people at church say something bad about you, when you have other conflict in your life, model it.

Your kids are watching you and they will see. Look, I agree with you 100%. Kids should tell the truth. It's important to have integrity in life. But I believe most of the time we blow this up into something that it's not. And I want you to bear with me here as I explain this. Think about this. Of course, kids lie. Imagine that you a kid, and I don't care if you're two or five or eight or 17, you end up doing something impulsively. By the way, that's what kids are supposed to do. Be impulsive. Beware. Please be aware of professionals, whether it's teachers, psychologists being like, oh, your child has impulse control issues and we need to put them on medication and do X or whatever it is. Kids are supposed to be impulsive. Why? Because that's how you learn, right? We want

kids to be impulsive so they're not impulsive when they're 35 and 45 after you marry them, right? So don't freak out about that. Being impulsive is part of being kid. Now, if your kids are on the spectrum, if they have ADD or ADHD, they're going to be even more impulsive. Why? Because it's a brain stimulation issue.

And I encourage you, please listen to the ADHD University program, and we will take you through the brain process of why your kids seek order and structure, why they, with their sensory issues, and especially the brain stimulation issues. Look, part of the reason your kids push your buttons is because their brains get bored, and it's very easy if I look at my sister, or I push my parents' buttons, I now get a lot of intensity, wakes my brain up. It explains a lot of things that your kids do. But let's go back to this.

So you've got a kid. They do something impulsively and then realize what's wrong. Well they know it's wrong and they know they're going to get in trouble for doing it, so what would any normal human being do? Lie? Blame someone else? Make up a story? Cover it up? Ignore it? Deny it? Think about this. Look at one of the most ancient pieces of literature known to mankind. And ancient literature is written to reflect human nature at the time. A man is told by an authority figure not to eat the fruit of a certain tree. You eat from any of these trees,

don't eat from that one. What does the man do? He eats from the tree of the forbidden fruit. And when confronted by the dad in the story, what does this human being do? He lies. He makes up a story and he blames it on his wife. Why? Because he was attempting to cover his shame. That was one of the oldest pieces of literature and it reflects a human truth that we want to cover our shame and we do so by lying and blaming other people. It's nothing new. For those of you who grew up on Leave it to Beaver, that was the storyline of literally every episode. Little Beave and his friend Larry would do something impulsive and stupid. Then they'd realize, uh-oh, we're going to get in trouble with Ward. And then they would make it worse by trying to cover it up. Every episode. And we could relate to it as kids

because that's what we did. Moms and dads, you and I do this almost every single day, just in more subtle ways. We're not always completely honest about things. We tell little white lies. We shade the truth. We ignore, we deny that we have certain issues. Why? Because it's hard to face consequences. We sometimes feel embarrassed or ashamed and we don't like conflict. And that, by the way, is why you have not had that difficult talk with your spouse because you dread his response. True? So imagine you're a little kid, even a teenager. You've been in trouble most of your life because you're not a naturally compliant child like your perfect siblings or classmates. You're always in trouble, always losing stuff. So you do something impulsively, you do something wrong.

Now there are all these big adults around you, right? Mom, dad, teacher, with the power to take away things that you enjoy most, with the power to make you feel bad about yourself, grilling you incessantly about this incident. And in your fight or flight mode, in a normal reaction to feeling embarrassed or ashamed or bad about what you did, in a normal reaction to avoid a consequence, you did what the dude with the fruit tree did.

You did what little B did and what presidents of all stripes do, what billions of people before you have done. You make up a story. You lie. You deny it. you blame someone else. And if I'm being honest here, I think that we as parents sometimes are partially responsible for this. We create so much drama around a normal human response that we sometimes encourage this kind of response, right? We get flustered and start lecturing endlessly. And I do mean endlessly about the need to tell the truth, about it being an integrity issue, about how can

I ever trust you if you won't tell us the truth? And to be honest, it's nauseating. I mean that seriously. Stop making this into something larger than it is. An impulsive kid who doesn't want to get in trouble. Otherwise, you will make it worse. And I've said this before, but I'll repeat it. It is a trust issue, but in ways you haven't considered before. Sometimes kids lie because they can't trust you. Because if they really do tell the truth, they know you will overreact or lecture endlessly and talk about integrity and reinforce the shame and shake your head at them, right?

Do you kind of see that? And so many of you, look, many of you are not honest with your spouse and you haven't been for years, why? Because you dread your spouse's response, whether it's indifference, denial, anger, turning it around on you, if you are honest with your spouse. Some of you aren't honest with your parents for the same reason, because, right? Because look, many of you lie about your child.

You just did that during the holidays because you dread the judgment of your family. I want us to make it easy for kids to tell the truth when they mess up. So normalize it. And I do mean this. I'm not saying excuse it. That's different. I normalize it. Of course you lied because you were embarrassed. Of course you lied. You knew what you did was wrong. That shows me you have a conscience and that's a great trait. Why would it be so bad to just normalize? Of course you lied because you just, you did something wrong. You don't want to get in trouble. That's a normal human response. You don't stop there and say, oh, it's normal. That's fine. Keep doing it. That's not what I said. You're just normalizing so we're not blowing it up. It's just like we talk with anxiety, right?

I don't know why you can't go to that new taekwondo class. I don't know why it's so hard. Your brother and sister never have a problem with it. Well, now you just shame them. And now you write instead of saying, of course, you're anxious. Going to new places is hard, right? Schoolwork. Of course, that writing assignment is hard. You have all these great ideas in your head and they're all swimming around and you don't know which one to start with and it gets confusing. So you do the normal human thing, which is put it off until the last moment, right? Now, see, you're speaking. Oh, this is a good insight. When you normalize it, you're speaking truth to your child about the traits and about the situation, right? Of course you lied because you knew it was wrong and you didn't want to get in trouble.

That's truth. Instead of just shaming and making it generalizing about they don't have good character. It has literally nothing to do with their character. If I was being honest and really tough with you, I'd say it might have something to do with your character because you can't handle it like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men when people do tell you the truth, right? So we're going to normalize it and then teach. Discipline doesn't mean to punish. It doesn't even mean to give consequences. And I don't have a problem with consequences. Natural consequences are wonderful. Just don't expect consequences to always change the behavior. I want to teach, and that's what discipline, disciple means. So I'd rather have you role play the situation. Problem solving. A problem solve. Ask what they could have done differently in this situation and what they'll do differently next time. But watch my tone in doing that is having a conversation of like,

of course you did this impulsively at school with your friend because you thought it would be funny. And you know what else I know? When people laugh at your jokes, it makes you feel good about yourself. So of course, son or daughter, sometimes you act silly in class or you did something in the bathroom because you wanted the other kids to like you. That's a normal thing to do. Now, the problem with that is that you end up doing something wrong. And guess what? The principal catches you and you get in trouble with the principal, not all of your friends. See, that's what the issue is.

Another issue is you're trying to get people to like you by doing something silly or something risky. And that's just not a good path to go down because I guarantee guarantee your whole life you're going to want to have people like you even when you're in your 50s. So son or daughter, that's very normal that you did that at school. Now there are consequences for it because you can't plug up the toilet in the bathroom and have it cause a mess because now a custodian has to clean that up and that's not

fair to another human being and you're going to get in trouble with the principal. I'm not mad at you. It's a normal human thing to do. What I'm more interested in doing is helping you develop confidence inside and learn how to build friendships in a positive way. So you don't do that in the future, right? But look, let's say your son or daughter did that at school and they stopped at the toilet or did something like that. And then they lied about it. We get so hung up on the lying part. I can't believe that you did that.

That we never get to the real issue, which is they did it in the first place because they don't feel confident. They don't have a lot of friends. Many of your kids struggle to connect with kids their own age. And we never even get to the real issue because we're so embarrassed by their lying and so upset about it. And what I want to get to is to teach them how to not do this the next time. I want you to, at times, even identify with what they've done because you've done the same thing dozens of times in your life and so have I. By all means, give a consequence that's equitable if necessary.

I just don't want you to take all of this personally. I don't want you to lecture. Lecturing isn't teaching. Lecturing is parental anxiety because I'm afraid something's in the future is going to go wrong. And I so don't want you to do this. And I feel like a failure as a parent. And I don't want you to repeat the same mistakes I've made. And so I'm going to lecture and lecture and lecture and reinforce the shame. And now I'm going to cause more of it. So handle it matter-of-factly, right? You just heard me. Here's what you did at school. I get that. I've done the same thing before, differently, but same kind of thing. Sometimes, right? Sometimes you can even ask your child, so what do you think an appropriate consequence should be? Now, look, if we could get to the root of it, of what they did at school in the bathroom. Now, part of the consequence, what I would want them to come up

with is, hey, why don't I spend an hour with the custodian at the school helping him clean up sometime, right? Because that would be a very giving thing to do. Look, that is something that your kids would do because they have very giving hearts, right? And so that could be a consequence. But we never get to appropriate ones or teaching lessons because we're too busy freaking out and lecturing about the line, right? And I guarantee you some of your kids will choose a more harsh consequence, right? Realize consequences won't change the behavior. Human relationships change behavior. Giving kids tools to succeed changes behavior. And I'd encourage you switch your

mindset from playing gotcha with your kids, always catching them in a lie, waiting for them to mess up and lie. And we switch to actively giving them tools to succeed, showing them how to handle tough situations. Look, one of the reasons I mention our programs, the Calm Parenting Package or the Get Everything Package is this. Because we show you how to do this in great detail. We show you how to give kids tools to succeed so we can build their confidence. And I'd love for you to start the new year with all of those tools knowing this is how I'm going to handle that situation.

This is the script I'm going to use in the toughest situations. So if you need that, go to the website and get it because you can download it on the new app. And literally within minutes, you will have ideas and insight into your kids at your fingertips that will change this. And so the next year doesn't have to be filled with so much anxiety and wondering about your child and all of the power struggles. You can stop many of those, right? Most of all, this is what I want.

For you to build a close, trusting relationship with your kids so that when they do mess up, which I hope they do, I hope your kids mess up because that's part of life, they feel confident to come to you boldly in their time of need so you can help them, not shame or lecture them. I hope that makes sense and I hope you will practice some of those scripts and some of that this week when your kids mess up because that is a beautiful way to build trust with your kids and teach them how to problem solve so they don't keep messing up again and again and again and again. If you need help with that, email Casey at CelebrateCalm.com. Let us know how we can help you.

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