Liar Liar

At what age would you say as a parent you began experiencing lying from your child? 2-3 years old? 6-8 years old? We didn’t get to experience lying until our children were in their teens, since that is the age we adopted them. Even then they didn’t choose to start lying with us until a good year and a half with us. Makes you wonder why all of the sudden? I shrug my shoulders to think of an answer. At what point did they go from complete honesty and open communication to hiding and deceitfulness? Many reasons come to mind… Traumatic background… Teen culture…

Our adopted teens came to us with very little background given to us from Children Services. We have learned most of their background from the kids own mouth. I won’t go into great detail over this. From what they have shared makes us realize why they have chosen to do the things they have. Just like lying to us, they do it because it is what they know to do. To get what they want, to protect themselves, to survive, to even protect us.

The most normal thing for a teen to do is lie. When I was growing up lying wasn’t something I ever struggled with. I learned early on there is no point to it because the truth always comes out. For teens now though they see it as a way of life. They will lie about even the smallest of things too. Lie to a friend about why they don’t want to hang out with them. Lie because telling the truth will hurt their feelings too much. Lie because friends want to hang out, but not all friends are invited. So many small lies!

I look at all these small lies and think how is my child even trustworthy. Well simple answer is, they aren’t. When I tell my children I don’t trust them they just look at me with blank stares, like really. I tell them, hard to trust someone when they lie. Even over small things. I give them examples of why I don’t trust them, by telling them I just heard you lie to your friends. They just shrug it off and say that’s different. Nope, it’s not.

The biggest thing I have learned from my children lying to us, is that they are doing it because they are so ashamed over what they are hiding. They have told us, ‘I lied cause I thought you would be disappointed in my choice’. We tell them their choice is their own, they will have to make those everyday living with what comes after. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We had told our children when we met them during the adoption process that our biggest thing we would not tolerate would be lying. Everything else can be talked about and worked out.

So where do we go from here? A lie may seem like such a small thing, but man can it lead to so many other things you will start compromising on. We try to engrain in our children honesty and open communication will go far in this life.