The Little Liar

toddler liesI may have been vexed by Baby Boy’s lack of words last week but today’s post is about Little Monkey and her many words. Many words that form little lies. Yes folks, my kid is a liar! Apparently that’s normal at this age according to Google and the numerous parenting sources. If you’re looking for a solution to lying preschoolers, look elsewhere because this is not that kind of post.

Two weeks ago this is what happened 

Me : ” You’re not eating that chocolate are you?”

Little Monkey  : “No I ‘m not” (sing song voice)

Me : “That’s a good girl”

 

 

I walk in and there’s silver wrappers everywhere and no chocolate eggs to be found anywhere.  Wait? What just happened here? Did she lie? I wasn’t sure what my response should have been and didn’t have time to Google “what do I do when my 3.5 year old lies” so I yelled a sarcastic ” Who ate these then?” and followed up with “Lying isn’t nice” before I stormed off.

 

It wasn’t a one off because we’re noticing more and more lies. Many of them involve hidden stash of candies or pushing Baby Boy and refusing to take responsibility. Having done some reading I’ve come to learn a couple things. Firstly that apparently kids who lie may be cognitively advanced than their truthful peers . AEH? That’s a thing? Moving on, apparently changing my tone when I catch her in the act might help. Instead of ” Did you eat the chocolate?” where I’m pretty much setting her up for failure I should use something along the GENTLE (not sarcastic) lines of ” Wonder who could have eaten these?”

 

toddler liesWell guess what? The hubs tried that last night when he saw a bunch of papers strewn across the bedroom and we got ” The Ceiling.”  Yes folks the ceiling is up to quite a bit of mischief at our place. Young kids start with lies for fear of getting yelled at and at times they really don’t believe they did said act because they WISH they hadn’t done it. It’s almost a subconscious way of protecting themselves.

As with many things I plan to turn to our cartoons and movies to help us out a bit. It’s like the folks at Netflix knew that something was going on at our place because this month’s theme is all about liars. With the new show Bloodline on offer for the adults (We have so many shows we’re watching that we haven’t had a chance to check this one out yet) there’s a couple good ones for the tiny tots as well. We watched the Curious George Burger episode two nights ago and while it didn’t fully explain the act of lying, Little Monkey and I had a chat about what happened in the episode and how George the monkey told the truth in the end and how everyone was happier knowing the truth.

These were the other suggestions sent our way but we’re yet to explore them – have you watched any of them?

  1. Super Why!: S1,E15: Humpty Dumpty and Other Fairytale Adventures: Pinocchio
  2. Clifford the Big Red Dog: S1, E26: The Kibble Crook
  3. The Adventures of Chuck & Friends: S1, E9: The Pothole / Chuck’s Perfect Plans

 

We just started this lying journey so I’m ready to hear about how you’re dealing or have dealt with tiny tots lying. We don’t plan to ignore them but the lies are coming at us many times a day and we need a strategy to deal with our Pretty Little Liar (wait who watches that show?)! I suppose I should start by stopping the white lies myself…”A baby dirtied the pool today so we can’t go swimming” was last night’s one when I didn’t want to bathe them twice in one day! Opps!

  • Sarita @ it's my girls' world
    April 15, 2015 at 1:39 pm

    I caught my almost 3 year old in a lie this morning too!! I was horrified as my six year old only recently began tell little ones!!! I feel your pain girlie!!

    • Yashy
      April 16, 2015 at 8:51 am

      hah! There must be a “lying germ” in the air Sarita!

  • Anne Taylor
    June 6, 2015 at 2:44 pm

    One of my daughters was such a wee liar! It was so long ago that I don’t remember how I dealt with it lol Now that I have brand new grandbabies, I’m just waiting for that phase to start.

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