My Child Lies to Me

Dear Parent,

Children only lie when they have a valid reason to do so. Remove the reason and they won’t need to lie. The reason is fear; the child does not feel safe to tell the truth.

Your nephew already had plenty of pressure to prove himself worthy. He is afraid to fail. He is afraid that if his grade is not high, he won’t be loved or approved by you. By asking him about his grade you have shown that you are invested in his performance and you measure his worth by his grade. By rewarding the high grade you confirmed to him that he should get high grades in order to gain your approval. 

Now that you rewarded him it is extremely scary for him to admit that this was not the grade he got. Now that you rewarded him and demonstrated that you care about his high grade, it makes no sense to tell him that the truth won’t “get him in trouble.” It is too late.  

To help him feel safe to be real with you next time, don’t ask about grades and achievements and don’t praise or reward anything he does. Instead take him for a treat unconditionally, for no reason other than loving him. Treat him when he fails or when he achieves nothing in particular, so he knows that his worth does not depends on grades or accomplishments and that you love him unconditionally. He deserves love simply for being himself. Take the pressure off by taking away expectations. Tell him you love him and he needs no high grades or anything else to please you.

Please read my article “Getting Out of the Way,” which was published in Mothering magazine issue #71. You can find it on my site: http://authenticparent.com/articles3.html

In addition, the CD set, Trusting Our Children, Trusting Ourselves, has a full one hour and a half CD on the harm of praise and rewards. You can find the CD set here:

http://authenticparent.com/audio-video.html  

You can also read my three part article on avoiding praise in Life Learning magazine archive. In addition, Alfie Kohn’s book, “Punished by Rewards,” covers the harm of both praise and rewards thoroughly. 

Praise and rewards lower a child’s self-esteem by making him dependent on external approval. He is then afraid to fail and must hide when he does. When a child feel secure, he learns what he wants for his own sake and not to gain approval or love. Grades are not important. Love is. When your nephew regains his ability to do things authentically, not for gaining your approval, he will not need to lie.

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com/index.html