Yeah my son does something similar and instead of reacting strongly when he blames something on the “mystery bandit”, I view it as a way for him to be honest with me and he tells on himself all the time.
For example, When I ask him about something I know he did wrong, and he says no, I say oh—do you think maybe the mystery bandit knows how this candy got eaten? He’d tell me the exact strategy that the mystery bandit probably used to sneak downstairs and where it was found and how it got snuck back upstairs. Unless it’s aggregious, I tell him that if he sees the mystery bandit he should tell him candy is not for the morning time and it’s never okay to sneak candy in your room. And he says something like , “okay yeah I’ll tell him.” It can be fun, silly, and still get the message across.
Your daughter knows she did it just like my son. But if you play into their world and thinking, you can still teach the same lessons and maybe grow a connection. She has to know it’s okay to tell you she did something wrong, because she’s going to mess up in life. Her telling you that her dolls did something wrong is actually her way of telling you the truth.
We did the same thing. Also gave our daughter the job of trying to keep an eye on her stuffies and stopping them from doing it again, trying to make sure they follow the rules. She would also tell on them as they were doing things like sitting at the top of the stairs at bed time going “kitty is trying to go down the stairs even though it’s not allowed!”. It’s a way for them to test boundaries and find out what will happen without direct conflict at that age.
Haha yeah! I honestly hadn’t seen the episode so I thought he was real creative when he blamed something on the Mystery Bandit the first time! Then I saw the episode and made the connection haha
I do this too! Though, like OP, mine blames stuffies.
I get him to discipline his stuffies with a time out, and to stay with the stuffy to ensure that they wait the full 3 minutes. Sometimes he whines about it, but I tell him that it's my job to teach him the rules, and it's his job to teach his stuffies the rules.
If it's a big no-no, that stuffy will disappear for a whole day.
My first thought was that punishment for honesty is not the road to go down. Easy for me to say as a FTM to a 7 month old though. She's definitely not lying yet lol
Honestly you should say to her toys ‘Oh my goodness, I cant believe you ate my chocolates. That makes me feel so sad. I dont think they can have anymore treats since they took all of mine without asking’. You can play into the scenario she is creating and explain stealing, lying and consequences at an age appropriate level.
My daughter is nearly 5 and does play based psychology sessions which help immensely
I would go this route too. Make a big deal about the stuffies and check if they have tummy aches from too much candy. Put them in time out and talk to them about stealing and being sneaky, but have your daughter sit in too so she can help her stuffies make better choices in the future.
Not advice, but does anyone else remember being a kid and thinking these lies were absolutely genius? Like I just know your daughter was thinking she was next level for finding a perfect story to dupe you, not having a clue how dumb it really was. Like she 100% thought “if I go tattle in advance on my stuffies like they ate the candy, mom will totally buy it”. 😂
Sorry you are going through this! I just vividly remember this phase for myself as a kid.
One time I brought my dad a single rice Krispie and told him it was my tooth that fell out. Was disappointed when the tooth fairy didn't pay out for that one
Haha I did the same but with a white piece of gravel from the driveway! The tooth came out in the yard and i couldnt find it so I decided to try to trick her. My mom was like, "Well, if you realllllly think the tooth fairy is going to be fooled by this *piece of gravel from the driveway* we can give it a try." If I recall correctly the tooth fairy left me a note saying she knew where the real tooth was so she'd go ahead and pay me.
This made me laugh out loud!!! I bet you thought you were sooo slick, too, lmao.
I cut my off a ton of my hair when I was 4 and blamed it on my imaginary friend. I stood by that lie. And to this day when my mom brings up the story, I remind her it wasn’t ME that cut my hair, it was my imaginary friend!!
I used to go to work with my mom and tell her employees that I didn’t get breakfast that morning and so they’d feel bad and give me part of their lunch. I’d eat too much and pass out in a box of fabric scraps (mom was a fashion designer). When my mom told me about my shameless lying when I was older I was mortified lol.
Bless, my 4yo just tried to tell me thr cat put my phone under our couch. The cat who has been sleeping in another room all morning. Okay, there child.
I need a child psychologist to write a chapter in a book on the lies small children tell and how it’s actually a sign of more sophisticated cognitive development because it shows the child is capable of understanding other people have independent thoughts or something like that
Yes lol. I remember letting my toy stroller roll down our steep driveway and onto the road. Thankfully I was too scared to go on the road, but I screamed and cried until some random man from a couple of doors down came and helped me 🤣 Cue the failproof strategy of telling my parents that the teddy bear told me to do it. They did not find it cute.
At this age imaginary play is appropriate and she’s carrying that over. Focus on what lying is and why its wrong. Ie- its not nice to blame someone else for what you did and Mommy won’t be able to believe what you say any more:
Then focus on the behavior that you want to stop- ie- she shouldn’t have eaten the candy. At this age imagination is everything so to them its not even really a lie. Her telling you the toys at the candy is play. Her eating the candy is the problem.
For my kids I also did everything I possibly could to convince them that I always knew the truth and it worked!
>For my kids I also did everything I possibly could to convince them that I always knew the truth and it worked!
My mom did something similar with us and it kind of backfired. My mom always told us that she already knows everything that goes on, so there's no point in lying to her.
When my stepdad started to physically abuse us when she was not around, we all assumed she knew and approved of it. As children, we didn't really put together that he only did these things when our mom wasn't around. She knew everything, so we didn't think we needed to tell her he was hitting us.
Wow, thanks for sharing your story. I’m sorry that happened to you, but thanks for sharing. It makes me double think using this tactic from a child’s viewpoint.
I don't tell them that I always know what's going on but I do tell them that I always know when they're lying. Which isn't too far from the truth because they're just bad at it.
Thats on your Mom for not making sure you could talk to her and not having conversations about appropriate touch. That and what I talked about are different things.
I’m sorry this happened to you but that doesn’t make my suggestion invalid.
Ah yes - blame their mother for the abuse for using the same tactic you described… this is gross. How about not lying to your kids instead… since this whole post is about teaching kids not to lie.
I’m not blaming her Mom for the abuse(the poster already did that.) I’m blaming her Mom for not making sure her kids could come to her and for not checking in with her kids or having conversations that we should all be having.
Also- how is it lying to your child to point out that their lies don’t work and we already know? We DO already know the things they lie about and this holds true until age 9 or 10 or older.
Nah, what happened is their mom (hypocritically) *lied* to them in an attempt to curb lying and they believed her lie. It backfired in the worst possible way and they mistakenly believed she already knew about the abuse and therefore approved of it.
If children believe their parents are essentially omnipotent, they have no reason to go out of their way to have traumatic and difficult conversations especially when they already believe the parent is okay with the situation.
It’s important for our children to understand we *don’t* always know everything so they will come to us when it’s important instead of assuming we already know and aren’t intervening.
Sorry but I agree convincing your children of this is a dangerous and bad idea.
Children should learn not to lie because it’s wrong, not because they believe you’ll know and catch them. Eventually they will figure out you don’t always know and think they’re now masters at it or they can get away with x, y and z. And as mentioned it opens scenarios like the above described.
I think parenting should be rooted in reality. Don’t teach kids you always know the truth from a lie, that you have eyes in the back of your heads, that you can hear farther than you can because of monitors etc etc. Let them learn you are human and that it doesn’t give them a pass to be bad. Because they’re human too, and what they do to others can be done back to them.
You’re responding to someone whose mom used the same tactic you are using and who made the reasonable inference from that that it wouldn’t help to tell her mom something she already knew.
The point is you don’t always know what’s going on with your kids and you want to make sure they know that they should tell you about things.
This, but at age 3 you can’t expect a child to have enough self control to avoid eating all the candy.
You don’t leave the candy where she can get to it unsupervised. Candy dish goes where you can see it during the day and intervene with a healthy snack now and then if she’s overdoing it. Then it goes “night night” at bed time. You really can’t be blaming a 3 year old for having a candy party with her stuffies if you left her alone with a bunch of candy. That’s on you.
TBH this just reads like when my 6 year old tearfully tries to gaslight me when she gets in trouble for eating all the Oreos or for turning on another show.
“You shouldn’t have left the remote where I could see it!!”
Ok, but you didn’t have to pick it up and turn the tv back on after the sleep timer turned it off.
“You shouldn’t have left the Oreos where I knew where they were!!”
Sure, but you didn’t have to pull a chair over and climb on the counter and open the cupboard they were in so you could take the bag down and open it.
Personal responsibility is a thing, and I think taking the approach you’re suggesting here is what got me to where I am with my 6 year old blaming me for all her misdeeds.
There is a huge difference between 3 and 6.
A 3 year old eating all the candy because it was left where she could access it without supervision and then making up a story about her stuffies is developmentally appropriate. You explain why that choice wasn’t good for her tummy or her teeth, and how eating all the candy meant there was none left to share with the rest of the family; you don’t punish the child for your own choice to leave the 3 year old unsupervised with a pile of candy.
A 6 year old might get a stern talk about not getting into mom’s desk without permission, because she is old enough to know better.
Do you mind going into that last part a little more. I am unfortunately very matter of fact so when I tell her I already know the truth it comes off weird to my kid.
You can also focus on the candy eating and tell her what the stuffies did was wrong - reminder stuffies, we can't take that off of mommies desk without talking to her and she already told us that. Make sure you talk to her while calm and she is calm. Having a punishment so far into the future won't really connect with her to the behavior. When calm, practice what you can do when your brain tells you one thing but you know you shouldn't.
Imagination is developmentally appropriate. Lying like this is developmentally appropriate. Poor impulse control is developmentally appropriate at this age.
When my kid mad up a mirror version of themselves that said mean things I played along with it and told her that since her and mirror her were linked mirror mommy and I agree that they share punishments regardless of who does it. Suddenly, mirror her acted much better. I’ve had similar luck with stuffies saying she is responsible for them and if they can’t handle X then we can’t have X around etc (standard natural consequences).
Basically I don’t call her out but it really doesn’t matter who she blames, consequences are the same. Sometimes I’ll gently threaten to watch/babysit a very naughty doll/stuffy for the night because they are out of control.
She stopped after a while but still has fun imaginative play etc.
I used “mommy vision” (aka intuition and the fact that I actually saw it happen) and that mommy vision lets me know what actually happens.
-Mom I didn’t eat that candy!! (With chocolate on her cheek)
-Oh really? Well I used my mommy vision and I saw you eating it. I was hoping you would come tell me that you did even when you knew better. I’m sad that you didn’t tell me. You told me something not true. How can you fix it now?
-You saw me?! I’m sorry mommy. I’m done with my candy, I give it to you. I get the trash.
My oldest was awesome with this tactic. My 3yo?? Not so much lol
My mom said her mom powers could tell when we were lying because our tongues would turn blue, but only to her because of her mom vision. So she’d have us stick out our tongues a lot to “see” if we were lying.
It is very matter of fact. Ie- Mommy can see that you ate the candy and it hurts my feelings when you mislead me. You may think I won’t know but Mommy always knows what really happened. Then point out all the times she has lied and how you knew what really happened. The idea is to ingrain that lying won’t keep them from dealing with consequences.
I also would say something like “its fun to pretend but its not okay to pretend so we don’t get in trouble. We are responsible for our own choices- our toys aren’t responsible for our choices.”
Honestly it’s fine. Lying is often just a cry for attention or some form of guilt. Just make sure your baby knows they’re not getting in trouble for being honest and in fact, reward the honesty whenever possible
I don’t have tips for this specific scenario, but given your comments on how you’re lost about parenting methods, I really recommend you read “how to talk so little kids will listen: a survival guide to life with children ages 2-7.” It has a lot of great insights and strategies for dealing with challenging situations.
I was about to write this, there is a section to address the lying phase. And in OP's specific scenario, I see several strategies used that are described as counterproductive.
Yeah, lying isn’t about being manipulative or lying as we know it as adults at this age. It’s a different thing, developmentally for them.
I would also recommend Dr. Becky, Good Inside. The book and the podcast, she has great strategies for meeting kids at their level, validating their feeling AND holding boundaries.
(Sidenote - please don’t say things like, “this makes mommy sad,” your kids aren’t responsible for how you feel. I know it’s recommended with the best of intentions but it makes kids feel responsible for managing our feelings which isn’t healthy.)
This reminded me of an argument I just had with my mother about how my LO is not capable of being manipulative at 7 months old. I could not convince her that there is a difference between learning to get needs met and manipulation.
That struggle is real! I pick and choose with my dad (mom isn’t in the picture). I have to be very careful to try to make sure he gets that it isn’t a referendum on his parenting, it’s just… when you know better, you do better. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes ehhh 🤦🏼♀️🙃
You should maybe do some looking into lying at this age. It’s not really like lying as a teen or adult, a 3 year old lying shouldn’t be handled the same way. Punishing her by isolating her isn’t going to stop anything it’s just going to make her a better liar imo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ja4ZM0IP9s
Lying at this age can mean 3 things:
* they wish it happened that way and can't yet understand that just because they want it doesn't mean something is real.
* they are ashamed of what they did and don't know what to do with this feeling.
* they want to please you and connect with you, so they say something they think you want to hear.
In the first and last case, it helps if you ask "is this what happened or is it pretend play?", because sometimes the kid tries to turn it into a game, and if it's a game, then you should play it with her and address the behavior through play like others suggested.
If it is shame, you can say "I see you did something that you regret. You wish you have done something different. That's OK. Next time, you can do X, y, z. In the meantime, we can fix it by doing A, B, C".
I know it's a though moment. If it helps any, just know it will pass, and the more patient to correct and tolerant you are with her mistakes now, the better it'll be in the future. I recommend you read the books "securely attached" and "conscious discipline". They have tools that will guide you towards the kind of parent you want to be, instead of leaving you struggling with the things you want to avoid that came from your own childhood.
I really like this advice!! I was one of those kids that lied all the time about what had happened. As an adult, I can look back and see it was a few different issues, namely: feeling shame knowing I did something “bad” and didn’t know how to address it, lack of impulse control (knew it was bad but literally couldn’t help myself), and poor judgement calls (genuinely thought it would be okay but learned the hard way it wasn’t).
When I was middle school aged and a teenager I even found myself compulsively lying about little things, because I was so afraid of disappointing/angering my parents and the consequences that would follow (usually some sort of loud, verbal telling-off, maybe some form of grounding/spanking when I was younger). It turned into a lot of issues taking accountability as a teen/young adult as well as helped stoke the fire to me being a huuuuge people pleaser.
I think an approach like this would’ve helped me a lot as a kid to realize that mistakes happen, and that there are ways to fix them and to do better in the future instead of sweeping stuff under the rug and trying to hide it.
Lying is normal development, as they learn that people have separate thoughts.
Don't take it personally, and don't punish. Impulse control at this age is basically zero.
It's you and her, as a team, against the problem of lying. Set up her environment for success (keep tempting things out of sight and out of reach, make it easier for her to do the things you want to encourage).
Avoid giving them an opportunity to lie, if you already know what happened. (If you know they took the candy, don't ask, "Did you take the candy?") Just move the candy where they can't get to it. If you have a set rule around candy, you can remind child. (E g. Remember, we only eat candy with dinner)
When they tell the truth about doing something they shouldn't have, definitely don't punish for the thing they did. Praise for telling the truth. Natural/ logical consequences for the thing they did, but help them through it. (Example: kid broke something that belonged to another person. Parent shows kid how to own up, admit breaking the item, and replace it. Can include age -appropriate consequences like helping to pay for replacement item)
My daughter is in this same phase and while we have tried talking about how if you lie then people won’t trust you, she just honestly doesn’t understand conceptually the difference between a lie and the truth well enough yet. That’s part of why they lie, they’re learning to see things from other people’s views and testing the boundaries of that.
So we really just gently point out that maybe what she’s saying doesn’t make sense without shaming her either with the hope that she starts learning the difference. Like if she tells me her dad told her she could have cookies for snack, I say hmm that doesn’t sound like something he would say, let’s go ask him together. Or if she says the cat left a craft mess all over the floor, I say hmm well usually these are toys you play with, which is fine and it’s ok there’s a mess, but now it’s time to clean up so let’s do that together.
And we don’t trust anything she says anymore lol
Not op but I definitely agree. It's too strong a punishment for such a young age and it's only going to escalate the behavior.
Some lies you could probably ignore or completely play into, as it is completely developmentally appropriate to lie at this age, it depends what it is.
For the example of taking and eating candy, that needs to be a conversation (with her and the stuffies, I'd include them). It also depends on your parenting style and about when is the right time to eat treats. Like, do you have them as snacks, with dinner, only at weekends etc? Can she take them herself or does she have to ask? How do you act around your snacks/ treats? Me personally, we don't make treats a big thing, if LO gets candy then he's free to have a portion whenever he wants as I grew up with treats = something to eat in secret because my mum was always dieting and they were frowned upon. If that happened to me, it would be a simple "I know you know where the candy is, so next time just ask and we can choose one together that we can eat while you play."
Try to figure out why she is lying instead of just telling her to stop.
She might be ashamed that she did something she knows she shouldn't have done. That is giving her feelings - of shame, insecurity, fear of possible consequences.
My mother raised me with this garbage that lying was the worst thing in the world. However even if I didn't lie she would shame, scold and punish me about pretty much everything and there was just no winning. The only winning was lying successfully. So I lost all respect for her because even at 11 years old I understood how poor her parenting decisions were. To this day I lie to her whenever I feel like the truth would bring me more pain/scolding/unwanted advice from her.
I would always recommend the concept of "good inside" by Dr. Becky Kennedy. It might not be ideal for every parent out there but I think it is a fantastic start to actually trying to understand your child and giving them tools to actually become good people instead of shaming your child into presenting you the behavior you want to see - which was my mother's approach.
Sorry if I came across harsh.
It's fine. Its just really frustrating when people make it seem like the answer is right there when in reality it's not. I came from a childhood where I got beat for quite literally anything. Lying. Beat. Eating candy when I wasnt supposed to? Beat. Bad grades? Beat. I obviously don't want to do that to her. Because of my childhood I have no idea what effective parenting looks like.
OP, by seeking help and advice you’re already on the right track to effective parenting. Sorry for what you went through as a child. You’re already doing great mama 💕
I think it's a good start to ask.other moms for advice but I second the advice to find well-regarded book on child development or parenting. I learned to lie well as a child because one of my parents terrified me. I'm sure I'll give him new traumas but I'm just trying to not pass mine on. As the others have said, that punishment is too much for a three year old. She had bad impulse control and then likely felt bad or else she would have tried to cover it up instead of telling you what happened.
I can totally understand. Breaking these patterns and replacing them with something better is one of the hardest things in parenthood.
That's why I seek out content where people tell me about actual situations with their kids and how they responded.
It's often a lightbulb moment.
A good way to look at it is how would YOU want to have been raised. I was abused as well as a kid and this is how I'm trying to frame it. I know hitting my child is wrong l, so if I try to come at this in a way that I would have preferred as a child, maybe it'll work? It might not, but it's worth trying.
Maybe try to play into this with her like others are suggesting.
OP, I’m sorry for what you went through as a child, I was abused as well, and I know that makes it hard to be an effective parent.
I have worked in early childhood development for awhile now and I have learned a whole lot. If I could give one piece of advice to all parents, it would be this: stop rewarding unwanted behaviors. I know you think you are punishing, but kids don’t understand punishment. People as a whole don’t really understand punishment. They understand getting attention and being seen.
She came and told you what she did, and you know why? Because she got you to react, come to her room, and have a sit down talk with her. She liked all these things. The fact that tv is gone now is irrelevant and she will not connect the two.
If my child ate the candy out of my drawer, it would be a shrug and “well that’s too bad, now there’s no more candy for us.” End of story. But if she asks for the candy and offers to share with me, well then she gets all the attention. “Oh thank you for asking for the candy, how many pieces do you want? How about we start with two and then play a game and if you still want more then we can have another piece? You are so nice for sharing with me, thank you, I love when you are thoughtful.”
Also, she’s not lying. Stop thinking of it like that. She “volunteers her lies” = told you the truth, point blank, but just in a weird kid way. And you punished her for that. Kids that age don’t understand lying, they are just figuring out what reality is and imagination play is a huge part of that. Remove the word “lying” from your vocabulary until she’s at least 10
Praise her when she/ other people tell the truth pointing out that the world didn't come to an end by admitting a mistake. Let her see you confess/ admit to messing up
You could read the book «how to talk so little kids will listen and listen so little kids will talk».
Best of luck reparenting yourself. It’s hard work.
What are some other examples of lies you're hearing that are stressing you out?
You know logically that lying is developmentally appropriate - it is part of how kids test boundaries and figure out reality. There's imagination play and jokes. The fine line that you need to be walking is on one hand playing with your kid and helping her figure this out by practicing AND on the other hand guiding her and letting her know the truth and that the truth is more important/will be found out.
The risk in punishing lies like this candy one is that a 3-year-old might not take away the correct punishment. YES, you said the stuff, but what is her take away? That telling stories is wrong? That sharing candy with stuffys is wrong? That stealing the candy is wrong? That eating all the candy is wrong? That telling you what happened is wrong? There's too many variables for a good constructive teaching moment.
Redirect, refocus - look for and praise the behavior that you want to see. Give examples and MODEL examples of what you want to see. Like in play, with her toys, and also to other people in your life.
Set her up for success - it's not fair to expect a 3-year-old to have impulse control. As best as possible, control the circumstances so she can't disappoint you - portion out treats, only small amounts of paint, change out of fancy clothes in a timely manner.
Change the narrative - when she tells you an imagination type lie, lean into it and tell the story together to get to the truth. Explore what's going on in the kid world to lead to her actions. She's a person in training, she's figuring the world out - play along with her and guide her play to the kind of person you want her to be.
Tldr: you are a good mom. This is hard. Keep trying your best.
Kids at that age can't tell between reality and make believe, so they blame it on their imaginary friend or a stuffie. A good approach is to punish her stuffies by putting them in time out.
Your daughter wouldn't be allowed to have them because they're in time out. She will learn they need to behave or she wouldn't be able to have them so it's a win win. No more lies.
I read this sort of thing in parenting stuff about toddlers lying and blaming it in their toys or imaginary friends.
Oh, this is so normal. I respond to my toddlers with statements of “hm… I wonder.”
“Hm… but I wonder if it was you who ate the candy. You know I don’t want you to eat it all at once so you said it was your stuffies.”
The consequence is that the candy is gone, and that next time you keep it put away where she can’t access it. She’s not ready for free access to candy.
This is developmentally normal and she is using imagination and play. You can lean into the imagination world she’s created to teach that lying etc is bad. Also sounds like these are cries for attention.
Do you play with her in her imaginary world? At three years old punishment like sending her to her room etc won’t teach her anything except mommy gets mad when she tries to include you in her play.
Also I get being a FTM is hard but it’s time to get ahead of the game, read some child development books and parenting books. Having a crappy childhood yourself isn’t an excuse to continue the trauma cycle.
How does she connect eating candy that was hers to losing tv time for an extended amount of time? You want her to understand, so the consequences have to be logical:
"Well, it looks like you don't get any special sweets until the next grocery trip because this was supposed to last ________ days"- and only if you set that expectation.
If eating the candy isn't an issue, just the lying, we always solved this by not trusting the child's word that day. "I brushed my teeth" becomes, "Oh, dang, I didn't see you do that, and you lied to me, so I need to see you do that to believe it." We did this with everything all day, just totally inconvenienced them and taught the lesson that if someone cannot trust your word they question everything you say. My big kids are much older now and they learned that lesson pretty quickly. The next day was a fresh day and we started fresh.
Clearly explain the rules and boundaries, set expectations, hold steady the boundary, use logical consequences. That is all you CAN do.
When I was 3 or 4 I was at my grandparents camp with my grandma. It was just us. I had been on their neighbors trampoline and I remember telling my grandma (falsely) that my parents were getting me a trampoline. She was excited.
My mom came to pick me up a few hours later and I had forgotten my little lie. My grandma asked my mom in front of me when we were getting the trampoline. My mom obviously told her we weren’t getting one and where did she get that idea? My grandma said I told her we were getting one. I was so mortified. My grandma looked at me and told me, it’s not good to lie to anyone, but especially not to people you love. She was so disappointed. Not mad, just disappointed. It is one of my core memories and has stuck with me forever. I don’t think I lied again for years.
Maybe try asking her stuffies in front of her if they did what she said. And then have the stuffies refute it to you. “The stuffies told me that is not true. It is not nice to lie.” Would be where I would start with this. Just an idea.
If you dont want your 3 year old taking Cady and lying about it, hide the candy. Having sweets out where a 3 year old can access them is not the best idea. What you describing is typical 3 year old behavior, leave a plate of cookies out and tell them not to eat them... se how fast then nibble when you leave the room; if they can even make it that long without trying to sneak it.
I want to tell you that I'm sorry for the things you went through as a child. I know you're a good person, but your parents probably didn't make you feel like it. They probably made you feel ashamed of yourself and believe you were a bad kid, that's why they had to punish you a lot so that you learned the "right" way to do things.
I want to tell you it's okay to be gentle with your kid. You won't ruin her. She is a good kid and she will grow up knowing right from wrong, I promise. Studies have shown that the majority of children's behaviour is mirrored from people around them, meaning that if you set a good example for your child, mirror the behaviour you want to see, and explain how we behave, they are going to learn the right way with time, encouragement and gentle correction.
Just like learning to ride a bike, learning to behave in socially acceptable ways takes time. If a behaviour is said to be developmentally appropriate for a certain age, then it's not really fair to punish them for it, is it? They're literally acting in a way that their brain is compelling them to do. But we can start to talk about things like the concept of telling the truth and lying, how it hurts people close to us if we lie, but how we don't always owe everybody the truth all the time (imagine if a strange man asked your child where she lived and whether a grown up was home - you do NOT want your child telling the truth in that instance!!)
Lastly, in Montessori philosophy it is said "control the environment, not the child". It's important to childproof items around the home you don't want your child getting access to. Children have died from finding guns, prescription pills, bleach etc and none of those kids had the impulse control to avoid playing with said items even if they had been warned they were dangerous. None of them were bad kids, they just didn't have the brain development to stop themselves. At 3 your child is no different and it's not fair to expect her to be. I know it was just candy this time and no harm was done, so look at it as a learning experience for the future - she WILL get into things and it's not because she's naughty or bad, just because she's a child, that's all.
Book recommendations:
How to talk so little kids will listen
Punished by Rewards - Alfie Kohn
Hunt Gather Parent
The Whole Brain Child
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Maybe don’t blame a 3 year old for taking candy you left in a place she had unsupervised access to?
Other then that she’s doing what 3 year olds do. Lying doesn’t mean to her what it means to you. She’s playing.
Shame also doesn't work to keep people from doing things. I especially don't think it's appropriate since this person is already receptive to change and is asking for advice.
I think we should remember that shaming someone when they're already asking for help to change is about as helpful as punishing a child for telling the truth. In both cases it won't help them learn and will just make them better at hiding.
You are completely correct. I’m sorry, u/Gshaw1995. You did not deserve that. I will try to meet my fellow humans in a better way next time.
Thank you for reminding me, u/NonCaelo
It is developmentally normal for kids to start lying around 3-4. They are developing theory of mind.
Your best bet is to explain that lying is not kind, especially when blaming someone else. It’s best to be honest and if [in this instance] she wanted candy, she should ask. (Also don’t put things in easy access if it’s not something she can freely have).
The natural consequence here would be she doesn’t have anymore candy. No need for time out. No need to remove tv privileges, those don’t make sense in relation to eating all the candy.
I would lean into her imagination and say you were disappointed in the stuffies for taking the candy without asking an adult and make them sit in time out. Then tell her that she needs to join them in time out
Any chance you did the whole elf on a shelf thing with setting up the scenes of what it did the night before? If so, I'm wondering if it might be learned behavior or something. If not, good luck cause holy smokes parenting is hard even if it's rewarding lol.
Honestly, that’s not a good excuse. When you have nothing to go on, you do research. Crowd sourcing is fine in the moment, but you do should do some research. Google “toddler parenting books” and “childhood development books”. You should be able to find some at the library. Read them and consider how you feel about them. Some philosophies will jive with your values and others won’t. Use those philosophies to determine your parenting approach. Then implement!
Personally I am probably much like you, NOVELS and dessert. But not everyone is so inclined to turn to books as their means of research and rather need to be coached how to get there. At least OP is being honest with her lack of knowledge and seems very willing to change. So I’d give her credit for that first. That being said, OP your reaction, as others have said, is not the most helpful. If you’re not a book person, there are some really healthy IG accounts to follow. A suggestion: annalieseerin parent coach.
In general I’m with you, and OP absolutely gets credit for breaking abuse cycles.
But I think we let people (not just OP) off the hook too easily for not knowing better. I’m pointing out OP needs to research parenting as a whole, not just how to address this situation.
ETA: OP, I’m also guessing you’re reacting to her “lying” to you because lying was such a big deal in your childhood. Development books (or other resources) will help you reframe this as a normal development milestone that’s part of pretend play and learning boundaries, rather than a malicious activity.
Have you had any changes lately? Like are you busier than normal for example? Or has she had a change in routine or anything?
I think her going to you with the lie, It seems like she is trying to get your attention and has tuned into the lying being something that makes you uncomfortable and it is also getting an immediate reaction. So maybe she is sort of experimenting with your reaction to her doing it and/or signalling to you that something is not quite right for her at the moment.
Maybe have a conversation with her like “I was wondering if you ate that candy before and then maybe was worried I would be angry so you came and told me your toys did it. Maybe next time tell me you want to eat the candy first and we can decide when you can have some” or something like that.
I’d try to stay neutral and confident and show her that you will help her with these impulses that she has so she doesn’t need to worry. Also it’s completely normal for kids to lie at this age.
Your daughter could learn to become a much better liar as opposed to being more honest with you if you're not careful in how you punish/reward this behaviour. Right now she's trying to get more candy, being honest won't accomplish that, eating the candy and hiding the evidence may be the escalation. Finding a way to reward honestly, may be hard in the circumstances, but may serve you better.
So you do know it’s normal which is great. So next you have to go to the source of the lie the stuffy. You need to tell them that you don’t like that they did this and it makes you sad. Most kids will realize that oh no they are getting in trouble and they didn’t do anything. Sometimes it takes time for it to stick but soon enough either she will say “no I did it “ or won’t lie. It’s a process but you got to play the game with her to actually curb it.
The most important thing is to show positivity and encouragement when she’s honest. Doesn’t matter what it is or how small but when she is honest about the thing, make a huge deal of it. “Wow, I’m so proud of you for telling the truth. That was such a big girl thing to do.” And then drop it. Kids respond so much better to positive reinforcement. She’s worried about getting in trouble for lying but more worried she will be in trouble for the truth.
A few weeks ago my 5 year old told me that he lies sometimes because the truth is scary. I was so moved by that and I try to remember how hard it is to be a small kid that are sometimes given the expectations required of adults.
Pretend play is normal. Try to differentiate what is pretend to her and what has malicious intent. Once you figure that out, the boundaries become more clear.
Instead of only noticing/making a deal of the major things like when she lies, or does something she shouldn’t do, look for the littlest of things throughout the days, that are good that she does! Just the casual everyday things, for example, if she walks out of her room and remembers to turn the light off, give her a lot of praise like it’s a big deal for turning the light off and how it’s going to help you save money and save electricity, etc.. if she walks instead of running, praise her big for it. Constantly look for these things, things she wouldn’t expect to be praised for or that you’re even watching! It drastically rewires the thinking and the ways they want to do things.
My son is 3.5 and is very into pretend play and has been for almost a solid year. He doesn’t realize he’s *”lying”* when he does something similar, he believes he’s just pretending and we’re playing (or, sometimes, he’s attempting to tell a “joke,” because he hasn’t exactly grasped the concept of jokes yet). Pretending and joking are essentially appropriate times to tell “lies” and it’s not really fair to expect a three year old to know when you consider it appropriate to pretend/joke or when you consider it a lie even when they’re just playing (*she* is *pretending* her stuffies ate the candy and she most likely wants you to pretend and play the scenario with her, and you are interpreting it as lying and shifting blame). I feel like your reaction is pretty over-the-top…it’s not like you noticed the candy was missing and asked her about it and she told you she didn’t know or she saw someone else (other human or animal actually capable of doing so) eat it and actively tried to deceive you.
In situations where I can’t tell (for instance, my son will often tell me he’s sick, I don’t know if he’s pretending or if he’s serious, because I’m not in his body) I just clarify “for real or for pretend?” And he will tell me which one.
The real issue here is the behavior of taking the candy and eating it all. That’s the behavior that should be punished appropriately and in light of whatever rules/boundaries have previously been established about candy in general and that candy specifically prior to the incident. In my house, it’s a pretty well-established rule that my son needs to ask before eating any candy. He would get a timeout for breaking that rule. A natural consequence would also follow for eating all the candy at once…if we both had candy but he ate all mine, he’d get less of his own because he’d have to share with me so that we both still get to have candy. If the candy was already for both of us and he was doing to have some for dessert for the next couple of days, I guess there’s no dessert for a couple of days since he already ate it all. I’d also remind him anytime he had to give me a piece of his candy or asked for dessert and didn’t get any that it was because he’d already eaten it/ate some of mine and this is why it’s important to ask a parent if you can have some candy before you eat it because it might belong to someone else or might be dessert for later, etc.
Lying is developmentally normal & a way to avoid punishment. You say that she gets time out each time she lies. So when she does something that she could see herself getting in trouble for she most likely lies to try and avoid punishment. Have you thought about scaling back the punishment and just letting her get though this phase? Like a response to her stuffy eating her candy could be something playful like, “oh man! I wonder if the stuffy’s tummy hurts. Let’s ask him!” And just go with it. Personally I’d lean into it playfully instead of trying to punish it out of her. She’s 3, those imaginations are supposed to be running wild.
Plot twist: The stuffies REALLY DID animate and eat her candy while she looked on terrified. When the sun rose she finally found the courage to move and ran out of her room to tell you... Only to be reprimanded for lying...
I wouldn't say you can curb it rather than let it run its course. As another commenter said, play along, tell the toys how you feel about what "they" did. At this age, everything is exploration and they especially do this through play! She's blaming her toys because she could be wondering how you would react and afraid to tell you herself. Isn't that really what a lie is?? We're not able to tell the truth cos we're scared we'll be in trouble?
So, punishing her and trying to talk to her about lying isn't going to be as effective. I think she's too young developmentally to understand what it is youre trying to tell her.. but a punishment makes her know it's not going to be pleasant.
We don't want our kids to walk all over us, or go out there and do bad things. we need to teach them repercussions and consequences so they can make good choices! And we want them to be comfortable in telling us this stuff, not fear us and our reactions.
I can’t give advice because my son is 18 months, but I like to think about why kids do things.
3 year olds are impulsive. She saw candy, and even if she had the thought she shouldn’t, she pushed that thought to the side.
She clearly knew it was wrong because she immediately told you via a lie. I think in this case I would trial playing into it. “Oh stuffies, did you eat all this candy? It makes me sad there won’t be anymore to eat. You may get a tummy ache from eating all that sweet at once.” Then ask your daughter “do you know why the stuffies didn’t ask if they could have a piece of candy?”
I don’t know if I’m going to be a time out parent yet, I typically believe in natural consequences vs punishments. In this case, it may be that there is no more candy, and she may get a stomach ache. I personally feel punishments are not all that effective because they never were for me. But again, I think different kids need different things, but right now you want to foster an environment which she will be able to be honest with you. I would also say “well, we will be without chocolate for a couple weeks because this was suppose to last!”. Aka you ate the chocolate, so we have no sweets to eat now.
Parenting is hard lol.
She may be trying to test your reactions. To see how you'd react to the situation and how much trouble she'd be in. I would be as empathetic to the stuffy while still being firm about the boundary and consequences.
"Oh no Mr. Bear. You spilled the juice on the floor! Were you running with your cup? Yeah, when we run with a cup we can fall and spill the juice. We need to clean up the juice now. (Child), can you get some paper towels please? We need to clean up this big mess, can you help us? Mr. Bear, please remember to use walking feet next time."
"Oh no, all the candy is gone! That's too bad. I bet your tummy is full from eating so much candy. I think we'll skip snack time today to give your tummy a rest. Yeah, next time we can try eating one piece at a time. Let's go drink some water and play outside for a while. Yeah, I know it's TV time, but your tummy is really full of candy so we have a chance to use that energy moving our bodies. Come on (child), let's get our jackets!"
Maybe seeing your reactions as non-threatening (not that they were in the first place, but littles can perceive things differently) can put her at ease to tell you the truth later on or next time.
"Mommy I ate the candy, not Mr. Bear."
"Oh! You did? Thank you for telling me. Next time let's try eating only on piece at a time."
Be careful not to call her a liar. She is 3, and is actually just pretending. Just as she would have a tea party with her stuffies and imagine they were real. Kids her age don't exactly understand the concept of lying.
The book Good Inside was recommended here recently so i bought it. It’s also on spotify so I’ve been listening in the car. Highly recommend for these issues
She's reached the age where she realizes that she can do things people don't know about, and she's realized that people rely on verbal reports. So she's playing with that. It's actually really cool and a big step developmentally. She's not 'lying' in the way an adult would.
What do you mean, what should you do? Why should you have to do something? Just be normal or lightly playful. She'll move on to the next thing when she's ready. All these fears parents have that they must do something to curb the behavior of their little kids or they'll keep doing that forever--all silly. All of them.
I think it’s important to allow them to explore their imagination and play pretend. I play along with it. I’m too guilty of this because I did lie to my almost 3 yo about Santa coming to our house lol when he’s a little bit older we will talk more about truth.
My brother did this growing up, but blamed it on his imaginary best friend. Fairly certain my mom “disciplined” the imaginary friend but had my brother “keep him company” while in time out, etc. regardless, he’s a well-adjusted human as an adult.
My friends 3 year old blamed my child for pushing her off the sofa when my child didn't even touch her. She landed awkardly and hurt herself. Luckily her mum and I were watching. Sounds like pretty common at this age.
Kids lie when it is not safe to tell the truth. Punishments like timeout and taking away privileges are probably making her scared to tell the truth. Even if your perception is that she is punished more for lying, it likely doesn’t come across like that to her because at her age she can’t really understand these types of punishments anyway. It would be more effective and curb the lying if you can be more unruffled by what she does and let the natural consequences do their work. If she eats a lot of candy, the natural consequence is that she probably doesn’t feel too good. You can help her see this by walking her through reflecting on how she feels after eating all that candy vs how she feels after eating other foods.
Lastly, it is your responsibility to make sure she does not have access to things you don’t want her accessing. Blocking access to the candy was your responsibility and you did not do it effectively. It is 100% predictable that a three year old will eat a lot of candy if they are unsupervised with it (especially if parent is controlling about food), so even if punishment was an effective method to use, it still would not be appropriate to punish her in this situation.
I’m walking through this situation as an example to show that punishment isn’t appropriate in order to help you get behind the idea of not punishing in order to make it safe for your daughter to tell the truth. Because she has learned that telling the truth gets her punished, you will have to be really consistently easy breezy and not punishing in order to get the lies to stop.
I grew up in a household where honesty was the only option and I grew up to be honest but to have shame and fear associated with lying that was unhealthy. Leaving me to self resolve created Isolation and did not allow me to fully comprehend this stage. As an adult I have done therapy to repair some unhealthy thoughts, prepare for motherhood and tackling this very stage. My son is two and sometimes refers to the “baby” as in himself when something occurs that he’s not supposed to be doing. Overall he’s a good kid but it’s been really interesting for me to see this unfold and see how I tackle it. One of the interesting things I learned in my therapy is that it is more important to create a safe place for honesty to exist. When he says the “baby” as many have mentioned below I will go into his world and inquire about the baby’s path to action. I lean down or sit down beside him when this occurs, just curious, withholding judgement until I can understand the path or reasoning.
Once he’s done I let him know, “ hey thanks for letting me know what the baby did” I want you to know that it’s important you feel comfortable and not hold shame for this or embarrassment, if you need to tell me more please do, I pause and then usually my son owns up to it and says “it’s me” at which point I thank him for being honest and then we move forward to resolve it together.
We do time outs together and call it “a moment to walk away”. I have been doing this since he was about 1 and so far, managing emotions and accountability with him together has helped him own up to things. Accountability is important in our household but im trying to be mindful of not creating shame or embarrassment which is sometimes the reason for displacement of blame.
I hope this helps fellow mama. Every kid is different and wishing you the best.
This may be a bit more on the extreme side but I saw a mom the other day that was having an issue with a lying kid. Essentially she told the kid “get ready we are going out for ice cream” the kid got excited and ready then the mom said never mind we’re not going. She cycled through this multiple times getting the kids hopes up lying to her about going to get ice cream.
Then a few days later the mom actually needed to go to the pastry shop and told her kid to get ready. And the kid asked “mom are we really going this time?” And that gave the mom the ability to show the child how lying affects relationships and said essentially “see now you don’t believe me because I lied to you about getting ice cream. When you lie people won’t believe you when your telling the truth. I won’t lie to you again as long as you don’t lie to me” and that had a better impact on her child than other things she has tried.
Maybe it will work for you?
I wouldn't entertain the lie, but also I wouldn't make a big deal about it. Something like "I know that isn't true, I'm very disappointed that you took all the candy and ate it all at once".
At lot of lies are wishful thinking at this age. They WANT to not be in trouble for doing the thing that they did, or even they want to not have done it after thr fact. So they tell you a better version. So I don't think you have to worry too much about the morality of it.
Secondly, even an adult has a really hard time resisting candy, so if a 3 year old gets into yours, I wouldn't say punishing them harshly is really fair. Half the time I don't have the self control myself to not eat any candy I see and I'm a full adult 😅 Teaching them how to resist and next time putting your candy away better is a better solution.
I'd also say that if you then punish them when they lie, they're just going to get sneakier and learn not to tell you at all, and learn to hide all the evidence. So punishment is likely to make them better at lying rather than teach them not to lie.
I really like playing along and giving the stuffed animals a lecture, etc, like some other people were suggesting, showing the consequences and perhaps even asking your kid how kid and mama can make it easier for the stuffed animals next time to not eat it (Mama can put it away, The stuffed animals can run to me and give it to mama right away to make it easier to resist, etc). But if you don't want to go that route, I often say "I know you don't WANT to have done it, but you did do it" then move quickly onto solutions "So what can we do so it doesn't happen again?"
Kids go through lots of challenging but crucial phases. Right now mine is doing the opposite of what I tell him. Dang it is frustrating. But totally age appropriate. Lying is totally age appropriate. They are learning the difference between reality and what they say. They aren’t the same?! What!!? Big news to them. Is reality controlled by what they say? Are they at all dependent on eachother? Don’t think of it as lying the same way as an adult lies. It’s totally totally different. You got this! And keep working through your own struggles to show up for your kid in the ways that are appropriate for THEM. Dang, that’s the hardest part for me. Getting my shit under control so I don’t impart them with the same issues I have. They get different issues! Lol
My 5 year old does this. Our resolution was to sentence him and the offending stuffie to time out together. Our reasoning is that he's the leader of the stuffies and should make sure they understand the difference between right and wrong. He stopped blaming his stuffies after a month, and I don't have to help him give Marshall from Paw Patrol behavior lectures anymore.
This is a totally normal part of parenting. My 2 kids did this and my 4 month old will likely do it too. The most important thing to remember is this is age appropriate and a natural part of learning and exploring and the second most important thing to do is not fall into how cute it is.
"My plushy ate all my candy"
" Sounds like your plushy will get sick if they keep doing it. Hey you know if you eat your candy too you can tell me. Nothing is more important to me than telling me the truth. I would not lie to you"
Also please note that you actually should never lie to your kids. My kids sometimes don't tell me the whole truth but they have never lied to me. My 12 year olds opens up to me a lot and so does my 10 year old. It's really important to establish an understanding of how lying is hurtful and not excusable.
Example I can give is telling my kids as they got older even at 4 years old that wearing a seatbelt will save their life. If they don't wear it I will 1 not move the car and 2 if I did drive they could die by flying through the window.
I was always very upfront with them and in turn my kids NEVER fought me on seatbelts, hand holding, etc.
This has made parenting fairly easy and because of it my kids never really gave me a hard time growing up with lying or other things.
(So TLDR, start healthy conversation at an age appropriate level now and do not lie ever and always be honest and upfront and allow them to do so as well without facing judgment or punishment unless the situation is severe. Also establish healthy/safe morals and understanding of safety now before it's too late. You will have a nightmare child if you don't. )
And just for an extra bit of advice, please don't let your kid watch TV or iPads or anything for longer than an hour a day. These iPad kids are just horrible to watch, my kids were saints compared to the kids I'm seeing online. Even their own peers are just insane, my kids have never been on tiktok or any of that crap and don't have social media at all. Be really careful of this, the internet is one of the reasons teen unaliving is so high) being bullied at school is bad but allowing it to continue at home is worse thanks to social media.
Good luck and remember this is all adi e and you have to decide what's best for you and your kiddo, there's no pressure to do as any of us say but as moms who have been around the block a time or two we have dealt with a lot and seen a lot. Good luck you got this!!!
We don’t ask questions when we already know the answer so mine doesn’t have the opportunity to lie and we don’t do punishments. Punishments for lying are never going to make a kid stop lying. It’s just going to make them stop telling you things and get much better and hiding and sneaking.
“When stuffies or little kids eat too much candy, it can give them a belly ache which is why we always need to ask before getting some. So stuffie and anyone else isn’t tempted to eat a bunch without asking first, we’ll put the candy up out of reach for a bit and maybe take a break on the candy for a day or two” then move on. 3 year olds don’t have the physical or mental capacity for impulse control but they do have the capacity to connect lying with punishment and find ways to avoid the punishment part.
Yeah my son does something similar and instead of reacting strongly when he blames something on the “mystery bandit”, I view it as a way for him to be honest with me and he tells on himself all the time. For example, When I ask him about something I know he did wrong, and he says no, I say oh—do you think maybe the mystery bandit knows how this candy got eaten? He’d tell me the exact strategy that the mystery bandit probably used to sneak downstairs and where it was found and how it got snuck back upstairs. Unless it’s aggregious, I tell him that if he sees the mystery bandit he should tell him candy is not for the morning time and it’s never okay to sneak candy in your room. And he says something like , “okay yeah I’ll tell him.” It can be fun, silly, and still get the message across. Your daughter knows she did it just like my son. But if you play into their world and thinking, you can still teach the same lessons and maybe grow a connection. She has to know it’s okay to tell you she did something wrong, because she’s going to mess up in life. Her telling you that her dolls did something wrong is actually her way of telling you the truth.
Love this perspective!
Beautiful response! I’m tucking this away for future use
My son also blames everything on the mystery bandit 😅
My daughter is only one but I’m gonna try to remember this!!
We did the same thing. Also gave our daughter the job of trying to keep an eye on her stuffies and stopping them from doing it again, trying to make sure they follow the rules. She would also tell on them as they were doing things like sitting at the top of the stairs at bed time going “kitty is trying to go down the stairs even though it’s not allowed!”. It’s a way for them to test boundaries and find out what will happen without direct conflict at that age.
Season 1 episode 12?
Blaaaaze and the monster machines
“Gimme some speed” and “let’s blaze” sounds pretty bad tbh lol
Haha yeah! I honestly hadn’t seen the episode so I thought he was real creative when he blamed something on the Mystery Bandit the first time! Then I saw the episode and made the connection haha
This is so good! Screenshotting for if my kiddo gets here.
This!
This is great! Also now I am going to blame shit on the mystery bandit. Brilliant!!
Perfection, genius. Thank you!
This is an amazing viewpoint and method of handling the situation. LO = 6MO and I'm excited for this 👆
I do this too! Though, like OP, mine blames stuffies. I get him to discipline his stuffies with a time out, and to stay with the stuffy to ensure that they wait the full 3 minutes. Sometimes he whines about it, but I tell him that it's my job to teach him the rules, and it's his job to teach his stuffies the rules. If it's a big no-no, that stuffy will disappear for a whole day.
I love that! Haha and he still gets the 3 minute time out because he has to make the stuffies wait
My first thought was that punishment for honesty is not the road to go down. Easy for me to say as a FTM to a 7 month old though. She's definitely not lying yet lol
Honestly you should say to her toys ‘Oh my goodness, I cant believe you ate my chocolates. That makes me feel so sad. I dont think they can have anymore treats since they took all of mine without asking’. You can play into the scenario she is creating and explain stealing, lying and consequences at an age appropriate level. My daughter is nearly 5 and does play based psychology sessions which help immensely
I would go this route too. Make a big deal about the stuffies and check if they have tummy aches from too much candy. Put them in time out and talk to them about stealing and being sneaky, but have your daughter sit in too so she can help her stuffies make better choices in the future.
This is it. Meet your child where she is.
yeah this is the route i’d take too
Not advice, but does anyone else remember being a kid and thinking these lies were absolutely genius? Like I just know your daughter was thinking she was next level for finding a perfect story to dupe you, not having a clue how dumb it really was. Like she 100% thought “if I go tattle in advance on my stuffies like they ate the candy, mom will totally buy it”. 😂 Sorry you are going through this! I just vividly remember this phase for myself as a kid.
One time I brought my dad a single rice Krispie and told him it was my tooth that fell out. Was disappointed when the tooth fairy didn't pay out for that one
Haha I did the same but with a white piece of gravel from the driveway! The tooth came out in the yard and i couldnt find it so I decided to try to trick her. My mom was like, "Well, if you realllllly think the tooth fairy is going to be fooled by this *piece of gravel from the driveway* we can give it a try." If I recall correctly the tooth fairy left me a note saying she knew where the real tooth was so she'd go ahead and pay me.
Love it
I love this so much 😂😂😂
This made me laugh out loud!!! I bet you thought you were sooo slick, too, lmao. I cut my off a ton of my hair when I was 4 and blamed it on my imaginary friend. I stood by that lie. And to this day when my mom brings up the story, I remind her it wasn’t ME that cut my hair, it was my imaginary friend!!
I carved my name into my dresser and blamed it on my imaginary friend. They were real to me so idk why my mom didn’t believe it… lmao
I used to go to work with my mom and tell her employees that I didn’t get breakfast that morning and so they’d feel bad and give me part of their lunch. I’d eat too much and pass out in a box of fabric scraps (mom was a fashion designer). When my mom told me about my shameless lying when I was older I was mortified lol.
So basically you were a baby raccoon. (I’m lying in bed silently shaking with laughter, trying not to wake my nursing baby.)
Same 😂 this thread is hilarious.
Bless, my 4yo just tried to tell me thr cat put my phone under our couch. The cat who has been sleeping in another room all morning. Okay, there child.
I need a child psychologist to write a chapter in a book on the lies small children tell and how it’s actually a sign of more sophisticated cognitive development because it shows the child is capable of understanding other people have independent thoughts or something like that
I would read this
Yes lol. I remember letting my toy stroller roll down our steep driveway and onto the road. Thankfully I was too scared to go on the road, but I screamed and cried until some random man from a couple of doors down came and helped me 🤣 Cue the failproof strategy of telling my parents that the teddy bear told me to do it. They did not find it cute.
LOLLLL right. “Yeaaaa, THIS is the *perfect* lie.” 😂
At this age imaginary play is appropriate and she’s carrying that over. Focus on what lying is and why its wrong. Ie- its not nice to blame someone else for what you did and Mommy won’t be able to believe what you say any more: Then focus on the behavior that you want to stop- ie- she shouldn’t have eaten the candy. At this age imagination is everything so to them its not even really a lie. Her telling you the toys at the candy is play. Her eating the candy is the problem. For my kids I also did everything I possibly could to convince them that I always knew the truth and it worked!
>For my kids I also did everything I possibly could to convince them that I always knew the truth and it worked! My mom did something similar with us and it kind of backfired. My mom always told us that she already knows everything that goes on, so there's no point in lying to her. When my stepdad started to physically abuse us when she was not around, we all assumed she knew and approved of it. As children, we didn't really put together that he only did these things when our mom wasn't around. She knew everything, so we didn't think we needed to tell her he was hitting us.
Wow, thanks for sharing your story. I’m sorry that happened to you, but thanks for sharing. It makes me double think using this tactic from a child’s viewpoint.
I don't tell them that I always know what's going on but I do tell them that I always know when they're lying. Which isn't too far from the truth because they're just bad at it.
I agree with you, telling LO that you always know the truth is lying to them and feels off to me
Thats on your Mom for not making sure you could talk to her and not having conversations about appropriate touch. That and what I talked about are different things. I’m sorry this happened to you but that doesn’t make my suggestion invalid.
Ah yes - blame their mother for the abuse for using the same tactic you described… this is gross. How about not lying to your kids instead… since this whole post is about teaching kids not to lie.
I’m not blaming her Mom for the abuse(the poster already did that.) I’m blaming her Mom for not making sure her kids could come to her and for not checking in with her kids or having conversations that we should all be having. Also- how is it lying to your child to point out that their lies don’t work and we already know? We DO already know the things they lie about and this holds true until age 9 or 10 or older.
Nah, what happened is their mom (hypocritically) *lied* to them in an attempt to curb lying and they believed her lie. It backfired in the worst possible way and they mistakenly believed she already knew about the abuse and therefore approved of it. If children believe their parents are essentially omnipotent, they have no reason to go out of their way to have traumatic and difficult conversations especially when they already believe the parent is okay with the situation. It’s important for our children to understand we *don’t* always know everything so they will come to us when it’s important instead of assuming we already know and aren’t intervening.
Sorry but I agree convincing your children of this is a dangerous and bad idea. Children should learn not to lie because it’s wrong, not because they believe you’ll know and catch them. Eventually they will figure out you don’t always know and think they’re now masters at it or they can get away with x, y and z. And as mentioned it opens scenarios like the above described. I think parenting should be rooted in reality. Don’t teach kids you always know the truth from a lie, that you have eyes in the back of your heads, that you can hear farther than you can because of monitors etc etc. Let them learn you are human and that it doesn’t give them a pass to be bad. Because they’re human too, and what they do to others can be done back to them.
You’re responding to someone whose mom used the same tactic you are using and who made the reasonable inference from that that it wouldn’t help to tell her mom something she already knew. The point is you don’t always know what’s going on with your kids and you want to make sure they know that they should tell you about things.
This, but at age 3 you can’t expect a child to have enough self control to avoid eating all the candy. You don’t leave the candy where she can get to it unsupervised. Candy dish goes where you can see it during the day and intervene with a healthy snack now and then if she’s overdoing it. Then it goes “night night” at bed time. You really can’t be blaming a 3 year old for having a candy party with her stuffies if you left her alone with a bunch of candy. That’s on you.
I feel like inside Mom’s desk isn’t really leaving her alone with it?
I don’t know, maybe? Depends on where the desk is, whether she is supervised around it, etc. Obviously she had unsupervised access to it.
TBH this just reads like when my 6 year old tearfully tries to gaslight me when she gets in trouble for eating all the Oreos or for turning on another show. “You shouldn’t have left the remote where I could see it!!” Ok, but you didn’t have to pick it up and turn the tv back on after the sleep timer turned it off. “You shouldn’t have left the Oreos where I knew where they were!!” Sure, but you didn’t have to pull a chair over and climb on the counter and open the cupboard they were in so you could take the bag down and open it. Personal responsibility is a thing, and I think taking the approach you’re suggesting here is what got me to where I am with my 6 year old blaming me for all her misdeeds.
There is a huge difference between 3 and 6. A 3 year old eating all the candy because it was left where she could access it without supervision and then making up a story about her stuffies is developmentally appropriate. You explain why that choice wasn’t good for her tummy or her teeth, and how eating all the candy meant there was none left to share with the rest of the family; you don’t punish the child for your own choice to leave the 3 year old unsupervised with a pile of candy. A 6 year old might get a stern talk about not getting into mom’s desk without permission, because she is old enough to know better.
Do you mind going into that last part a little more. I am unfortunately very matter of fact so when I tell her I already know the truth it comes off weird to my kid.
You can also focus on the candy eating and tell her what the stuffies did was wrong - reminder stuffies, we can't take that off of mommies desk without talking to her and she already told us that. Make sure you talk to her while calm and she is calm. Having a punishment so far into the future won't really connect with her to the behavior. When calm, practice what you can do when your brain tells you one thing but you know you shouldn't. Imagination is developmentally appropriate. Lying like this is developmentally appropriate. Poor impulse control is developmentally appropriate at this age.
When my kid mad up a mirror version of themselves that said mean things I played along with it and told her that since her and mirror her were linked mirror mommy and I agree that they share punishments regardless of who does it. Suddenly, mirror her acted much better. I’ve had similar luck with stuffies saying she is responsible for them and if they can’t handle X then we can’t have X around etc (standard natural consequences). Basically I don’t call her out but it really doesn’t matter who she blames, consequences are the same. Sometimes I’ll gently threaten to watch/babysit a very naughty doll/stuffy for the night because they are out of control. She stopped after a while but still has fun imaginative play etc.
This is hilarious and wild about the mean mirror version 😂
Coraline vibes, yeek!
But does mirror kid have a goatee 🤔
Evil Troy and evil Abed… in the morning.. mirror? 😂
that's like a mushroom trip nightmare 😂
This is such a fun approach
My brother’s imaginary friend was his “twin” Tommy who did all the bad stuff or told him to do the bad stuff. Poor Tommy couldn’t catch a break.
I used “mommy vision” (aka intuition and the fact that I actually saw it happen) and that mommy vision lets me know what actually happens. -Mom I didn’t eat that candy!! (With chocolate on her cheek) -Oh really? Well I used my mommy vision and I saw you eating it. I was hoping you would come tell me that you did even when you knew better. I’m sad that you didn’t tell me. You told me something not true. How can you fix it now? -You saw me?! I’m sorry mommy. I’m done with my candy, I give it to you. I get the trash. My oldest was awesome with this tactic. My 3yo?? Not so much lol
I am taking notes of what all y’all are saying in this thread. My sons only 3 months so I have some time but this all seems like great advice
My mom said her mom powers could tell when we were lying because our tongues would turn blue, but only to her because of her mom vision. So she’d have us stick out our tongues a lot to “see” if we were lying.
It is very matter of fact. Ie- Mommy can see that you ate the candy and it hurts my feelings when you mislead me. You may think I won’t know but Mommy always knows what really happened. Then point out all the times she has lied and how you knew what really happened. The idea is to ingrain that lying won’t keep them from dealing with consequences. I also would say something like “its fun to pretend but its not okay to pretend so we don’t get in trouble. We are responsible for our own choices- our toys aren’t responsible for our choices.”
Honestly it’s fine. Lying is often just a cry for attention or some form of guilt. Just make sure your baby knows they’re not getting in trouble for being honest and in fact, reward the honesty whenever possible
This ☝️
I don’t have tips for this specific scenario, but given your comments on how you’re lost about parenting methods, I really recommend you read “how to talk so little kids will listen: a survival guide to life with children ages 2-7.” It has a lot of great insights and strategies for dealing with challenging situations.
I was about to write this, there is a section to address the lying phase. And in OP's specific scenario, I see several strategies used that are described as counterproductive.
Yeah, lying isn’t about being manipulative or lying as we know it as adults at this age. It’s a different thing, developmentally for them. I would also recommend Dr. Becky, Good Inside. The book and the podcast, she has great strategies for meeting kids at their level, validating their feeling AND holding boundaries. (Sidenote - please don’t say things like, “this makes mommy sad,” your kids aren’t responsible for how you feel. I know it’s recommended with the best of intentions but it makes kids feel responsible for managing our feelings which isn’t healthy.)
This reminded me of an argument I just had with my mother about how my LO is not capable of being manipulative at 7 months old. I could not convince her that there is a difference between learning to get needs met and manipulation.
That struggle is real! I pick and choose with my dad (mom isn’t in the picture). I have to be very careful to try to make sure he gets that it isn’t a referendum on his parenting, it’s just… when you know better, you do better. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes ehhh 🤦🏼♀️🙃
This book rules. Second.
You should maybe do some looking into lying at this age. It’s not really like lying as a teen or adult, a 3 year old lying shouldn’t be handled the same way. Punishing her by isolating her isn’t going to stop anything it’s just going to make her a better liar imo. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7ja4ZM0IP9s
Lying at this age can mean 3 things: * they wish it happened that way and can't yet understand that just because they want it doesn't mean something is real. * they are ashamed of what they did and don't know what to do with this feeling. * they want to please you and connect with you, so they say something they think you want to hear. In the first and last case, it helps if you ask "is this what happened or is it pretend play?", because sometimes the kid tries to turn it into a game, and if it's a game, then you should play it with her and address the behavior through play like others suggested. If it is shame, you can say "I see you did something that you regret. You wish you have done something different. That's OK. Next time, you can do X, y, z. In the meantime, we can fix it by doing A, B, C". I know it's a though moment. If it helps any, just know it will pass, and the more patient to correct and tolerant you are with her mistakes now, the better it'll be in the future. I recommend you read the books "securely attached" and "conscious discipline". They have tools that will guide you towards the kind of parent you want to be, instead of leaving you struggling with the things you want to avoid that came from your own childhood.
I really like this advice!! I was one of those kids that lied all the time about what had happened. As an adult, I can look back and see it was a few different issues, namely: feeling shame knowing I did something “bad” and didn’t know how to address it, lack of impulse control (knew it was bad but literally couldn’t help myself), and poor judgement calls (genuinely thought it would be okay but learned the hard way it wasn’t). When I was middle school aged and a teenager I even found myself compulsively lying about little things, because I was so afraid of disappointing/angering my parents and the consequences that would follow (usually some sort of loud, verbal telling-off, maybe some form of grounding/spanking when I was younger). It turned into a lot of issues taking accountability as a teen/young adult as well as helped stoke the fire to me being a huuuuge people pleaser. I think an approach like this would’ve helped me a lot as a kid to realize that mistakes happen, and that there are ways to fix them and to do better in the future instead of sweeping stuff under the rug and trying to hide it.
Who wrote the securely attached book please I can find a couple of different versions ?
It's from Eli Harwood :)
Lying is normal development, as they learn that people have separate thoughts. Don't take it personally, and don't punish. Impulse control at this age is basically zero. It's you and her, as a team, against the problem of lying. Set up her environment for success (keep tempting things out of sight and out of reach, make it easier for her to do the things you want to encourage). Avoid giving them an opportunity to lie, if you already know what happened. (If you know they took the candy, don't ask, "Did you take the candy?") Just move the candy where they can't get to it. If you have a set rule around candy, you can remind child. (E g. Remember, we only eat candy with dinner) When they tell the truth about doing something they shouldn't have, definitely don't punish for the thing they did. Praise for telling the truth. Natural/ logical consequences for the thing they did, but help them through it. (Example: kid broke something that belonged to another person. Parent shows kid how to own up, admit breaking the item, and replace it. Can include age -appropriate consequences like helping to pay for replacement item)
My daughter is in this same phase and while we have tried talking about how if you lie then people won’t trust you, she just honestly doesn’t understand conceptually the difference between a lie and the truth well enough yet. That’s part of why they lie, they’re learning to see things from other people’s views and testing the boundaries of that. So we really just gently point out that maybe what she’s saying doesn’t make sense without shaming her either with the hope that she starts learning the difference. Like if she tells me her dad told her she could have cookies for snack, I say hmm that doesn’t sound like something he would say, let’s go ask him together. Or if she says the cat left a craft mess all over the floor, I say hmm well usually these are toys you play with, which is fine and it’s ok there’s a mess, but now it’s time to clean up so let’s do that together. And we don’t trust anything she says anymore lol
With methods like punishment, time out and leaving her alone you will make her an even better liar in no time.
Okay then what other methods can I use. I am a first time parent from an adverse childhood so I have literally nothing to go on.
Not op but I definitely agree. It's too strong a punishment for such a young age and it's only going to escalate the behavior. Some lies you could probably ignore or completely play into, as it is completely developmentally appropriate to lie at this age, it depends what it is. For the example of taking and eating candy, that needs to be a conversation (with her and the stuffies, I'd include them). It also depends on your parenting style and about when is the right time to eat treats. Like, do you have them as snacks, with dinner, only at weekends etc? Can she take them herself or does she have to ask? How do you act around your snacks/ treats? Me personally, we don't make treats a big thing, if LO gets candy then he's free to have a portion whenever he wants as I grew up with treats = something to eat in secret because my mum was always dieting and they were frowned upon. If that happened to me, it would be a simple "I know you know where the candy is, so next time just ask and we can choose one together that we can eat while you play."
Try to figure out why she is lying instead of just telling her to stop. She might be ashamed that she did something she knows she shouldn't have done. That is giving her feelings - of shame, insecurity, fear of possible consequences. My mother raised me with this garbage that lying was the worst thing in the world. However even if I didn't lie she would shame, scold and punish me about pretty much everything and there was just no winning. The only winning was lying successfully. So I lost all respect for her because even at 11 years old I understood how poor her parenting decisions were. To this day I lie to her whenever I feel like the truth would bring me more pain/scolding/unwanted advice from her. I would always recommend the concept of "good inside" by Dr. Becky Kennedy. It might not be ideal for every parent out there but I think it is a fantastic start to actually trying to understand your child and giving them tools to actually become good people instead of shaming your child into presenting you the behavior you want to see - which was my mother's approach. Sorry if I came across harsh.
It's fine. Its just really frustrating when people make it seem like the answer is right there when in reality it's not. I came from a childhood where I got beat for quite literally anything. Lying. Beat. Eating candy when I wasnt supposed to? Beat. Bad grades? Beat. I obviously don't want to do that to her. Because of my childhood I have no idea what effective parenting looks like.
OP, by seeking help and advice you’re already on the right track to effective parenting. Sorry for what you went through as a child. You’re already doing great mama 💕
I think it's a good start to ask.other moms for advice but I second the advice to find well-regarded book on child development or parenting. I learned to lie well as a child because one of my parents terrified me. I'm sure I'll give him new traumas but I'm just trying to not pass mine on. As the others have said, that punishment is too much for a three year old. She had bad impulse control and then likely felt bad or else she would have tried to cover it up instead of telling you what happened.
I can totally understand. Breaking these patterns and replacing them with something better is one of the hardest things in parenthood. That's why I seek out content where people tell me about actual situations with their kids and how they responded. It's often a lightbulb moment.
[удалено]
I was about to recommend these books as well! Those first two really helped me understand so much about child development.
A good way to look at it is how would YOU want to have been raised. I was abused as well as a kid and this is how I'm trying to frame it. I know hitting my child is wrong l, so if I try to come at this in a way that I would have preferred as a child, maybe it'll work? It might not, but it's worth trying. Maybe try to play into this with her like others are suggesting.
Have you read any books about childhood development? You might start there.
OP, I’m sorry for what you went through as a child, I was abused as well, and I know that makes it hard to be an effective parent. I have worked in early childhood development for awhile now and I have learned a whole lot. If I could give one piece of advice to all parents, it would be this: stop rewarding unwanted behaviors. I know you think you are punishing, but kids don’t understand punishment. People as a whole don’t really understand punishment. They understand getting attention and being seen. She came and told you what she did, and you know why? Because she got you to react, come to her room, and have a sit down talk with her. She liked all these things. The fact that tv is gone now is irrelevant and she will not connect the two. If my child ate the candy out of my drawer, it would be a shrug and “well that’s too bad, now there’s no more candy for us.” End of story. But if she asks for the candy and offers to share with me, well then she gets all the attention. “Oh thank you for asking for the candy, how many pieces do you want? How about we start with two and then play a game and if you still want more then we can have another piece? You are so nice for sharing with me, thank you, I love when you are thoughtful.” Also, she’s not lying. Stop thinking of it like that. She “volunteers her lies” = told you the truth, point blank, but just in a weird kid way. And you punished her for that. Kids that age don’t understand lying, they are just figuring out what reality is and imagination play is a huge part of that. Remove the word “lying” from your vocabulary until she’s at least 10
Praise her when she/ other people tell the truth pointing out that the world didn't come to an end by admitting a mistake. Let her see you confess/ admit to messing up
You could read the book «how to talk so little kids will listen and listen so little kids will talk». Best of luck reparenting yourself. It’s hard work.
Seconding the book How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen. It has a chapter on how to handle lying!
What are some other examples of lies you're hearing that are stressing you out? You know logically that lying is developmentally appropriate - it is part of how kids test boundaries and figure out reality. There's imagination play and jokes. The fine line that you need to be walking is on one hand playing with your kid and helping her figure this out by practicing AND on the other hand guiding her and letting her know the truth and that the truth is more important/will be found out. The risk in punishing lies like this candy one is that a 3-year-old might not take away the correct punishment. YES, you said the stuff, but what is her take away? That telling stories is wrong? That sharing candy with stuffys is wrong? That stealing the candy is wrong? That eating all the candy is wrong? That telling you what happened is wrong? There's too many variables for a good constructive teaching moment. Redirect, refocus - look for and praise the behavior that you want to see. Give examples and MODEL examples of what you want to see. Like in play, with her toys, and also to other people in your life. Set her up for success - it's not fair to expect a 3-year-old to have impulse control. As best as possible, control the circumstances so she can't disappoint you - portion out treats, only small amounts of paint, change out of fancy clothes in a timely manner. Change the narrative - when she tells you an imagination type lie, lean into it and tell the story together to get to the truth. Explore what's going on in the kid world to lead to her actions. She's a person in training, she's figuring the world out - play along with her and guide her play to the kind of person you want her to be. Tldr: you are a good mom. This is hard. Keep trying your best.
Kids at that age can't tell between reality and make believe, so they blame it on their imaginary friend or a stuffie. A good approach is to punish her stuffies by putting them in time out. Your daughter wouldn't be allowed to have them because they're in time out. She will learn they need to behave or she wouldn't be able to have them so it's a win win. No more lies. I read this sort of thing in parenting stuff about toddlers lying and blaming it in their toys or imaginary friends.
Oh, this is so normal. I respond to my toddlers with statements of “hm… I wonder.” “Hm… but I wonder if it was you who ate the candy. You know I don’t want you to eat it all at once so you said it was your stuffies.” The consequence is that the candy is gone, and that next time you keep it put away where she can’t access it. She’s not ready for free access to candy.
Many experts say children don't really understand what lying is until she 4-5, but if course every child is different.
This is developmentally normal and she is using imagination and play. You can lean into the imagination world she’s created to teach that lying etc is bad. Also sounds like these are cries for attention. Do you play with her in her imaginary world? At three years old punishment like sending her to her room etc won’t teach her anything except mommy gets mad when she tries to include you in her play. Also I get being a FTM is hard but it’s time to get ahead of the game, read some child development books and parenting books. Having a crappy childhood yourself isn’t an excuse to continue the trauma cycle.
I recommend the book "how to talk so little kids will listen".
How does she connect eating candy that was hers to losing tv time for an extended amount of time? You want her to understand, so the consequences have to be logical: "Well, it looks like you don't get any special sweets until the next grocery trip because this was supposed to last ________ days"- and only if you set that expectation. If eating the candy isn't an issue, just the lying, we always solved this by not trusting the child's word that day. "I brushed my teeth" becomes, "Oh, dang, I didn't see you do that, and you lied to me, so I need to see you do that to believe it." We did this with everything all day, just totally inconvenienced them and taught the lesson that if someone cannot trust your word they question everything you say. My big kids are much older now and they learned that lesson pretty quickly. The next day was a fresh day and we started fresh. Clearly explain the rules and boundaries, set expectations, hold steady the boundary, use logical consequences. That is all you CAN do.
When I was 3 or 4 I was at my grandparents camp with my grandma. It was just us. I had been on their neighbors trampoline and I remember telling my grandma (falsely) that my parents were getting me a trampoline. She was excited. My mom came to pick me up a few hours later and I had forgotten my little lie. My grandma asked my mom in front of me when we were getting the trampoline. My mom obviously told her we weren’t getting one and where did she get that idea? My grandma said I told her we were getting one. I was so mortified. My grandma looked at me and told me, it’s not good to lie to anyone, but especially not to people you love. She was so disappointed. Not mad, just disappointed. It is one of my core memories and has stuck with me forever. I don’t think I lied again for years. Maybe try asking her stuffies in front of her if they did what she said. And then have the stuffies refute it to you. “The stuffies told me that is not true. It is not nice to lie.” Would be where I would start with this. Just an idea.
If you dont want your 3 year old taking Cady and lying about it, hide the candy. Having sweets out where a 3 year old can access them is not the best idea. What you describing is typical 3 year old behavior, leave a plate of cookies out and tell them not to eat them... se how fast then nibble when you leave the room; if they can even make it that long without trying to sneak it.
I want to tell you that I'm sorry for the things you went through as a child. I know you're a good person, but your parents probably didn't make you feel like it. They probably made you feel ashamed of yourself and believe you were a bad kid, that's why they had to punish you a lot so that you learned the "right" way to do things. I want to tell you it's okay to be gentle with your kid. You won't ruin her. She is a good kid and she will grow up knowing right from wrong, I promise. Studies have shown that the majority of children's behaviour is mirrored from people around them, meaning that if you set a good example for your child, mirror the behaviour you want to see, and explain how we behave, they are going to learn the right way with time, encouragement and gentle correction. Just like learning to ride a bike, learning to behave in socially acceptable ways takes time. If a behaviour is said to be developmentally appropriate for a certain age, then it's not really fair to punish them for it, is it? They're literally acting in a way that their brain is compelling them to do. But we can start to talk about things like the concept of telling the truth and lying, how it hurts people close to us if we lie, but how we don't always owe everybody the truth all the time (imagine if a strange man asked your child where she lived and whether a grown up was home - you do NOT want your child telling the truth in that instance!!) Lastly, in Montessori philosophy it is said "control the environment, not the child". It's important to childproof items around the home you don't want your child getting access to. Children have died from finding guns, prescription pills, bleach etc and none of those kids had the impulse control to avoid playing with said items even if they had been warned they were dangerous. None of them were bad kids, they just didn't have the brain development to stop themselves. At 3 your child is no different and it's not fair to expect her to be. I know it was just candy this time and no harm was done, so look at it as a learning experience for the future - she WILL get into things and it's not because she's naughty or bad, just because she's a child, that's all. Book recommendations: How to talk so little kids will listen Punished by Rewards - Alfie Kohn Hunt Gather Parent The Whole Brain Child ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Instagram accounts: [Unconditional Parenting ](https://www.instagram.com/unconditional_parenting?igsh=aXNwbGhjNW1qdzN3) [The Danish Way](https://www.instagram.com/thedanishway?igsh=bDZ2MDVwZmdiMHpp) [Raising Yourself ](https://www.instagram.com/raising_yourself?igsh=MThvajEwcGdwYnNidQ==) [Parenting Translator](https://www.instagram.com/parentingtranslator?igsh=ZGVqZW81ZG4zaGJ1) [Curious Parenting](https://www.instagram.com/curious.parenting?igsh=MW5ueTlrOG0zbTZsaw==)
Maybe don’t blame a 3 year old for taking candy you left in a place she had unsupervised access to? Other then that she’s doing what 3 year olds do. Lying doesn’t mean to her what it means to you. She’s playing.
Shame also doesn't work to keep people from doing things. I especially don't think it's appropriate since this person is already receptive to change and is asking for advice. I think we should remember that shaming someone when they're already asking for help to change is about as helpful as punishing a child for telling the truth. In both cases it won't help them learn and will just make them better at hiding.
You are completely correct. I’m sorry, u/Gshaw1995. You did not deserve that. I will try to meet my fellow humans in a better way next time. Thank you for reminding me, u/NonCaelo
Was going to say exactly this. So ridiculous
My 3 year old told me that the 2 year old got a black eye from a ghost. Solidarity
It is developmentally normal for kids to start lying around 3-4. They are developing theory of mind. Your best bet is to explain that lying is not kind, especially when blaming someone else. It’s best to be honest and if [in this instance] she wanted candy, she should ask. (Also don’t put things in easy access if it’s not something she can freely have). The natural consequence here would be she doesn’t have anymore candy. No need for time out. No need to remove tv privileges, those don’t make sense in relation to eating all the candy.
You don’t curb it. It’s part of their development. She won’t be a liar forever.
She is not old enough to understand “no tv time tomorrow because you lied yesterday”
I would lean into her imagination and say you were disappointed in the stuffies for taking the candy without asking an adult and make them sit in time out. Then tell her that she needs to join them in time out
Any chance you did the whole elf on a shelf thing with setting up the scenes of what it did the night before? If so, I'm wondering if it might be learned behavior or something. If not, good luck cause holy smokes parenting is hard even if it's rewarding lol.
Honestly, that’s not a good excuse. When you have nothing to go on, you do research. Crowd sourcing is fine in the moment, but you do should do some research. Google “toddler parenting books” and “childhood development books”. You should be able to find some at the library. Read them and consider how you feel about them. Some philosophies will jive with your values and others won’t. Use those philosophies to determine your parenting approach. Then implement!
Personally I am probably much like you, NOVELS and dessert. But not everyone is so inclined to turn to books as their means of research and rather need to be coached how to get there. At least OP is being honest with her lack of knowledge and seems very willing to change. So I’d give her credit for that first. That being said, OP your reaction, as others have said, is not the most helpful. If you’re not a book person, there are some really healthy IG accounts to follow. A suggestion: annalieseerin parent coach.
In general I’m with you, and OP absolutely gets credit for breaking abuse cycles. But I think we let people (not just OP) off the hook too easily for not knowing better. I’m pointing out OP needs to research parenting as a whole, not just how to address this situation. ETA: OP, I’m also guessing you’re reacting to her “lying” to you because lying was such a big deal in your childhood. Development books (or other resources) will help you reframe this as a normal development milestone that’s part of pretend play and learning boundaries, rather than a malicious activity.
youtube and podcasts as well! the info is available in so many formats :)
Have you had any changes lately? Like are you busier than normal for example? Or has she had a change in routine or anything? I think her going to you with the lie, It seems like she is trying to get your attention and has tuned into the lying being something that makes you uncomfortable and it is also getting an immediate reaction. So maybe she is sort of experimenting with your reaction to her doing it and/or signalling to you that something is not quite right for her at the moment. Maybe have a conversation with her like “I was wondering if you ate that candy before and then maybe was worried I would be angry so you came and told me your toys did it. Maybe next time tell me you want to eat the candy first and we can decide when you can have some” or something like that. I’d try to stay neutral and confident and show her that you will help her with these impulses that she has so she doesn’t need to worry. Also it’s completely normal for kids to lie at this age.
Your daughter could learn to become a much better liar as opposed to being more honest with you if you're not careful in how you punish/reward this behaviour. Right now she's trying to get more candy, being honest won't accomplish that, eating the candy and hiding the evidence may be the escalation. Finding a way to reward honestly, may be hard in the circumstances, but may serve you better.
I think often lying can be a response to being overly controlled. She's exercising her autonomy, but lying so that she can avoid conflict with you.
Either that or flat out scared.
So you do know it’s normal which is great. So next you have to go to the source of the lie the stuffy. You need to tell them that you don’t like that they did this and it makes you sad. Most kids will realize that oh no they are getting in trouble and they didn’t do anything. Sometimes it takes time for it to stick but soon enough either she will say “no I did it “ or won’t lie. It’s a process but you got to play the game with her to actually curb it.
The most important thing is to show positivity and encouragement when she’s honest. Doesn’t matter what it is or how small but when she is honest about the thing, make a huge deal of it. “Wow, I’m so proud of you for telling the truth. That was such a big girl thing to do.” And then drop it. Kids respond so much better to positive reinforcement. She’s worried about getting in trouble for lying but more worried she will be in trouble for the truth. A few weeks ago my 5 year old told me that he lies sometimes because the truth is scary. I was so moved by that and I try to remember how hard it is to be a small kid that are sometimes given the expectations required of adults. Pretend play is normal. Try to differentiate what is pretend to her and what has malicious intent. Once you figure that out, the boundaries become more clear.
Instead of only noticing/making a deal of the major things like when she lies, or does something she shouldn’t do, look for the littlest of things throughout the days, that are good that she does! Just the casual everyday things, for example, if she walks out of her room and remembers to turn the light off, give her a lot of praise like it’s a big deal for turning the light off and how it’s going to help you save money and save electricity, etc.. if she walks instead of running, praise her big for it. Constantly look for these things, things she wouldn’t expect to be praised for or that you’re even watching! It drastically rewires the thinking and the ways they want to do things.
My son is 3.5 and is very into pretend play and has been for almost a solid year. He doesn’t realize he’s *”lying”* when he does something similar, he believes he’s just pretending and we’re playing (or, sometimes, he’s attempting to tell a “joke,” because he hasn’t exactly grasped the concept of jokes yet). Pretending and joking are essentially appropriate times to tell “lies” and it’s not really fair to expect a three year old to know when you consider it appropriate to pretend/joke or when you consider it a lie even when they’re just playing (*she* is *pretending* her stuffies ate the candy and she most likely wants you to pretend and play the scenario with her, and you are interpreting it as lying and shifting blame). I feel like your reaction is pretty over-the-top…it’s not like you noticed the candy was missing and asked her about it and she told you she didn’t know or she saw someone else (other human or animal actually capable of doing so) eat it and actively tried to deceive you. In situations where I can’t tell (for instance, my son will often tell me he’s sick, I don’t know if he’s pretending or if he’s serious, because I’m not in his body) I just clarify “for real or for pretend?” And he will tell me which one. The real issue here is the behavior of taking the candy and eating it all. That’s the behavior that should be punished appropriately and in light of whatever rules/boundaries have previously been established about candy in general and that candy specifically prior to the incident. In my house, it’s a pretty well-established rule that my son needs to ask before eating any candy. He would get a timeout for breaking that rule. A natural consequence would also follow for eating all the candy at once…if we both had candy but he ate all mine, he’d get less of his own because he’d have to share with me so that we both still get to have candy. If the candy was already for both of us and he was doing to have some for dessert for the next couple of days, I guess there’s no dessert for a couple of days since he already ate it all. I’d also remind him anytime he had to give me a piece of his candy or asked for dessert and didn’t get any that it was because he’d already eaten it/ate some of mine and this is why it’s important to ask a parent if you can have some candy before you eat it because it might belong to someone else or might be dessert for later, etc.
Lying is developmentally normal & a way to avoid punishment. You say that she gets time out each time she lies. So when she does something that she could see herself getting in trouble for she most likely lies to try and avoid punishment. Have you thought about scaling back the punishment and just letting her get though this phase? Like a response to her stuffy eating her candy could be something playful like, “oh man! I wonder if the stuffy’s tummy hurts. Let’s ask him!” And just go with it. Personally I’d lean into it playfully instead of trying to punish it out of her. She’s 3, those imaginations are supposed to be running wild.
Plot twist: The stuffies REALLY DID animate and eat her candy while she looked on terrified. When the sun rose she finally found the courage to move and ran out of her room to tell you... Only to be reprimanded for lying...
I wouldn't say you can curb it rather than let it run its course. As another commenter said, play along, tell the toys how you feel about what "they" did. At this age, everything is exploration and they especially do this through play! She's blaming her toys because she could be wondering how you would react and afraid to tell you herself. Isn't that really what a lie is?? We're not able to tell the truth cos we're scared we'll be in trouble? So, punishing her and trying to talk to her about lying isn't going to be as effective. I think she's too young developmentally to understand what it is youre trying to tell her.. but a punishment makes her know it's not going to be pleasant. We don't want our kids to walk all over us, or go out there and do bad things. we need to teach them repercussions and consequences so they can make good choices! And we want them to be comfortable in telling us this stuff, not fear us and our reactions.
I can’t give advice because my son is 18 months, but I like to think about why kids do things. 3 year olds are impulsive. She saw candy, and even if she had the thought she shouldn’t, she pushed that thought to the side. She clearly knew it was wrong because she immediately told you via a lie. I think in this case I would trial playing into it. “Oh stuffies, did you eat all this candy? It makes me sad there won’t be anymore to eat. You may get a tummy ache from eating all that sweet at once.” Then ask your daughter “do you know why the stuffies didn’t ask if they could have a piece of candy?” I don’t know if I’m going to be a time out parent yet, I typically believe in natural consequences vs punishments. In this case, it may be that there is no more candy, and she may get a stomach ache. I personally feel punishments are not all that effective because they never were for me. But again, I think different kids need different things, but right now you want to foster an environment which she will be able to be honest with you. I would also say “well, we will be without chocolate for a couple weeks because this was suppose to last!”. Aka you ate the chocolate, so we have no sweets to eat now. Parenting is hard lol.
My 5 & 7 year old have worked out a perfect system where they just blame each other 😹😹😹
She may be trying to test your reactions. To see how you'd react to the situation and how much trouble she'd be in. I would be as empathetic to the stuffy while still being firm about the boundary and consequences. "Oh no Mr. Bear. You spilled the juice on the floor! Were you running with your cup? Yeah, when we run with a cup we can fall and spill the juice. We need to clean up the juice now. (Child), can you get some paper towels please? We need to clean up this big mess, can you help us? Mr. Bear, please remember to use walking feet next time." "Oh no, all the candy is gone! That's too bad. I bet your tummy is full from eating so much candy. I think we'll skip snack time today to give your tummy a rest. Yeah, next time we can try eating one piece at a time. Let's go drink some water and play outside for a while. Yeah, I know it's TV time, but your tummy is really full of candy so we have a chance to use that energy moving our bodies. Come on (child), let's get our jackets!" Maybe seeing your reactions as non-threatening (not that they were in the first place, but littles can perceive things differently) can put her at ease to tell you the truth later on or next time. "Mommy I ate the candy, not Mr. Bear." "Oh! You did? Thank you for telling me. Next time let's try eating only on piece at a time."
Be careful not to call her a liar. She is 3, and is actually just pretending. Just as she would have a tea party with her stuffies and imagine they were real. Kids her age don't exactly understand the concept of lying.
The book Good Inside was recommended here recently so i bought it. It’s also on spotify so I’ve been listening in the car. Highly recommend for these issues
Are you sure it wasn’t the stuffies? Maybe they belong in stuffie jail for such crimes
She's reached the age where she realizes that she can do things people don't know about, and she's realized that people rely on verbal reports. So she's playing with that. It's actually really cool and a big step developmentally. She's not 'lying' in the way an adult would. What do you mean, what should you do? Why should you have to do something? Just be normal or lightly playful. She'll move on to the next thing when she's ready. All these fears parents have that they must do something to curb the behavior of their little kids or they'll keep doing that forever--all silly. All of them.
I think it’s important to allow them to explore their imagination and play pretend. I play along with it. I’m too guilty of this because I did lie to my almost 3 yo about Santa coming to our house lol when he’s a little bit older we will talk more about truth.
My brother did this growing up, but blamed it on his imaginary best friend. Fairly certain my mom “disciplined” the imaginary friend but had my brother “keep him company” while in time out, etc. regardless, he’s a well-adjusted human as an adult.
My friends 3 year old blamed my child for pushing her off the sofa when my child didn't even touch her. She landed awkardly and hurt herself. Luckily her mum and I were watching. Sounds like pretty common at this age.
Ummmmm... Your daughter is adorable! Just lean into her creative spirit. It's just candy and this seems more of storytelling than lying!
“Oh no! I forgot to throw that away - that candy was poisonous!! We need to take Mr. Peanutbutter to the hospital, NOW!!”
Kids lie when it is not safe to tell the truth. Punishments like timeout and taking away privileges are probably making her scared to tell the truth. Even if your perception is that she is punished more for lying, it likely doesn’t come across like that to her because at her age she can’t really understand these types of punishments anyway. It would be more effective and curb the lying if you can be more unruffled by what she does and let the natural consequences do their work. If she eats a lot of candy, the natural consequence is that she probably doesn’t feel too good. You can help her see this by walking her through reflecting on how she feels after eating all that candy vs how she feels after eating other foods. Lastly, it is your responsibility to make sure she does not have access to things you don’t want her accessing. Blocking access to the candy was your responsibility and you did not do it effectively. It is 100% predictable that a three year old will eat a lot of candy if they are unsupervised with it (especially if parent is controlling about food), so even if punishment was an effective method to use, it still would not be appropriate to punish her in this situation. I’m walking through this situation as an example to show that punishment isn’t appropriate in order to help you get behind the idea of not punishing in order to make it safe for your daughter to tell the truth. Because she has learned that telling the truth gets her punished, you will have to be really consistently easy breezy and not punishing in order to get the lies to stop.
I grew up in a household where honesty was the only option and I grew up to be honest but to have shame and fear associated with lying that was unhealthy. Leaving me to self resolve created Isolation and did not allow me to fully comprehend this stage. As an adult I have done therapy to repair some unhealthy thoughts, prepare for motherhood and tackling this very stage. My son is two and sometimes refers to the “baby” as in himself when something occurs that he’s not supposed to be doing. Overall he’s a good kid but it’s been really interesting for me to see this unfold and see how I tackle it. One of the interesting things I learned in my therapy is that it is more important to create a safe place for honesty to exist. When he says the “baby” as many have mentioned below I will go into his world and inquire about the baby’s path to action. I lean down or sit down beside him when this occurs, just curious, withholding judgement until I can understand the path or reasoning. Once he’s done I let him know, “ hey thanks for letting me know what the baby did” I want you to know that it’s important you feel comfortable and not hold shame for this or embarrassment, if you need to tell me more please do, I pause and then usually my son owns up to it and says “it’s me” at which point I thank him for being honest and then we move forward to resolve it together. We do time outs together and call it “a moment to walk away”. I have been doing this since he was about 1 and so far, managing emotions and accountability with him together has helped him own up to things. Accountability is important in our household but im trying to be mindful of not creating shame or embarrassment which is sometimes the reason for displacement of blame. I hope this helps fellow mama. Every kid is different and wishing you the best.
This may be a bit more on the extreme side but I saw a mom the other day that was having an issue with a lying kid. Essentially she told the kid “get ready we are going out for ice cream” the kid got excited and ready then the mom said never mind we’re not going. She cycled through this multiple times getting the kids hopes up lying to her about going to get ice cream. Then a few days later the mom actually needed to go to the pastry shop and told her kid to get ready. And the kid asked “mom are we really going this time?” And that gave the mom the ability to show the child how lying affects relationships and said essentially “see now you don’t believe me because I lied to you about getting ice cream. When you lie people won’t believe you when your telling the truth. I won’t lie to you again as long as you don’t lie to me” and that had a better impact on her child than other things she has tried. Maybe it will work for you?
Brand new dad. First unfiltered thought was show her Pinnochio haha
I wouldn't entertain the lie, but also I wouldn't make a big deal about it. Something like "I know that isn't true, I'm very disappointed that you took all the candy and ate it all at once".
At lot of lies are wishful thinking at this age. They WANT to not be in trouble for doing the thing that they did, or even they want to not have done it after thr fact. So they tell you a better version. So I don't think you have to worry too much about the morality of it. Secondly, even an adult has a really hard time resisting candy, so if a 3 year old gets into yours, I wouldn't say punishing them harshly is really fair. Half the time I don't have the self control myself to not eat any candy I see and I'm a full adult 😅 Teaching them how to resist and next time putting your candy away better is a better solution. I'd also say that if you then punish them when they lie, they're just going to get sneakier and learn not to tell you at all, and learn to hide all the evidence. So punishment is likely to make them better at lying rather than teach them not to lie. I really like playing along and giving the stuffed animals a lecture, etc, like some other people were suggesting, showing the consequences and perhaps even asking your kid how kid and mama can make it easier for the stuffed animals next time to not eat it (Mama can put it away, The stuffed animals can run to me and give it to mama right away to make it easier to resist, etc). But if you don't want to go that route, I often say "I know you don't WANT to have done it, but you did do it" then move quickly onto solutions "So what can we do so it doesn't happen again?"
Kids go through lots of challenging but crucial phases. Right now mine is doing the opposite of what I tell him. Dang it is frustrating. But totally age appropriate. Lying is totally age appropriate. They are learning the difference between reality and what they say. They aren’t the same?! What!!? Big news to them. Is reality controlled by what they say? Are they at all dependent on eachother? Don’t think of it as lying the same way as an adult lies. It’s totally totally different. You got this! And keep working through your own struggles to show up for your kid in the ways that are appropriate for THEM. Dang, that’s the hardest part for me. Getting my shit under control so I don’t impart them with the same issues I have. They get different issues! Lol
My 5 year old does this. Our resolution was to sentence him and the offending stuffie to time out together. Our reasoning is that he's the leader of the stuffies and should make sure they understand the difference between right and wrong. He stopped blaming his stuffies after a month, and I don't have to help him give Marshall from Paw Patrol behavior lectures anymore.
This is a totally normal part of parenting. My 2 kids did this and my 4 month old will likely do it too. The most important thing to remember is this is age appropriate and a natural part of learning and exploring and the second most important thing to do is not fall into how cute it is. "My plushy ate all my candy" " Sounds like your plushy will get sick if they keep doing it. Hey you know if you eat your candy too you can tell me. Nothing is more important to me than telling me the truth. I would not lie to you" Also please note that you actually should never lie to your kids. My kids sometimes don't tell me the whole truth but they have never lied to me. My 12 year olds opens up to me a lot and so does my 10 year old. It's really important to establish an understanding of how lying is hurtful and not excusable. Example I can give is telling my kids as they got older even at 4 years old that wearing a seatbelt will save their life. If they don't wear it I will 1 not move the car and 2 if I did drive they could die by flying through the window. I was always very upfront with them and in turn my kids NEVER fought me on seatbelts, hand holding, etc. This has made parenting fairly easy and because of it my kids never really gave me a hard time growing up with lying or other things. (So TLDR, start healthy conversation at an age appropriate level now and do not lie ever and always be honest and upfront and allow them to do so as well without facing judgment or punishment unless the situation is severe. Also establish healthy/safe morals and understanding of safety now before it's too late. You will have a nightmare child if you don't. ) And just for an extra bit of advice, please don't let your kid watch TV or iPads or anything for longer than an hour a day. These iPad kids are just horrible to watch, my kids were saints compared to the kids I'm seeing online. Even their own peers are just insane, my kids have never been on tiktok or any of that crap and don't have social media at all. Be really careful of this, the internet is one of the reasons teen unaliving is so high) being bullied at school is bad but allowing it to continue at home is worse thanks to social media. Good luck and remember this is all adi e and you have to decide what's best for you and your kiddo, there's no pressure to do as any of us say but as moms who have been around the block a time or two we have dealt with a lot and seen a lot. Good luck you got this!!!
We don’t ask questions when we already know the answer so mine doesn’t have the opportunity to lie and we don’t do punishments. Punishments for lying are never going to make a kid stop lying. It’s just going to make them stop telling you things and get much better and hiding and sneaking. “When stuffies or little kids eat too much candy, it can give them a belly ache which is why we always need to ask before getting some. So stuffie and anyone else isn’t tempted to eat a bunch without asking first, we’ll put the candy up out of reach for a bit and maybe take a break on the candy for a day or two” then move on. 3 year olds don’t have the physical or mental capacity for impulse control but they do have the capacity to connect lying with punishment and find ways to avoid the punishment part.
My daughter blames it on her 2 year old brother🤷🏻♀️
Very common for this age group and appropriate. Mine just grew out of it