Liar liar pants are on fire

One of my favorite photos, not by me, but from a newspaper, was of italians out demonstrating about Berlusconi in his first time in office, years ago now. They all massed in a piazza fronting whatever building, Parliament?, wearing Pinocchio noses. Tooooooo funny.

<snork>

They should do that for the Bush inaguration!

boomerang--

Thanks for the kind words.

Remember, roundabout the age of four, kids are starting to sort out matters of power. For many, a divorce or a death in the family comes because of the child's wicked thoughts.

Hiding the green beans under the lettuce is almost the same as eating the green bean, isn't it? If the mound of mashed potatoes is squashed flat, this means there are a lot fewer potatoes, doesn't it?

Mo's noticed that words from adults can make him very happy--or very sad. He's starting to experiement with the evocative power of words--and trying to find just how mutable reality is.

You have interesting times ahead.

I'm with Piffka. Great idea!

But, I've never been one to tolerate lies. Even little ones.

I see the sandwich scenario as you having set him up for the lie. If you can see that the dog is eating it, why ask him? He knows he wasn't supposed to feed it to the dog, so he has to lie.

That was one of those early childhood / psych class lessons. Don't ask a child if you know the answer and know they can't answer truthfully.

Anyways, my sister didn't stop this with my nephew. Kept saying he was just trying to build his self esteem cause the lies were things like "And then, this great big guy came in and I pelted him so hard he..." Well, at 4-5 years of age (this must be a 4-5 yo boy thing!) you know he isn't telling the truth. Sounds like a harmless little pretend game he's playing, but now he's 22 and still has trouble telling the truth.

Again, I'd like the Piffka approach. If nothing else, just don't ask questions he can't answer truthfully. Instead, you could have just said "Feeding your sandwich to the dog is not good because..." And, if you have to ask a question to which you know you may not get the truth, preface it with "you won't be in trouble as long as you tell me the truth."

(Sorry, I think I just gave you 3 cents more than the 2 you asked for.)

Right on, Squinney.

Noddy, yes! I can tell that Mo is beginning to understand the power of his words.

He can be a sly little fellow.

A bit manipulative.

Yes.

Interesting times?

Oh boy!

Mo has a lot of different influences that might help to make him a bit more..... ummmm..... diplomatic.

I need to police my own behavior and make sure that "other mommy" does too.

Squinney, your three cents is always welcomed by me!

You make a very good point about not asking questions that can't be truthfully answered.

I have really tried to instill decision making in Mo: You can either blah blah blah (what I need to have him do) or you can go to your corner (time out) -- that sort of thing. In most instances this works well. Mo can be a bit prone to hitting and I have managed to nip this by consistently offering the either/or scenario. You can really see his little gears working when deciding if hitting is worth it. Thankfully, he now cautions himself so that I don't have to.

In this case I might need to really change tactics.

Boomer--

You don't have a wise rat--you've got a charming child. Just never box him in an inescapable corner.

Gently, gently remind him that reality is reality, not a whim or a fashion or a heartfeld desire.

Great advice from Noddy.

I do think it has a lot to do with imagination, and the fluid lines between fantasy and reality. Fairly often sozlet will be talking about something fantastical in very matter-of-fact way, and if it veers a little too close to reality, I'll clarify -- "You didn't really go out in the yard without asking first, did you?" -- and she'll roll her eyes and say, "noooooo" in a "could anything be more obvious??" kind of way. But when she's telling the story, it's completely straight, as if it actually happened.

When she does the lying thing (and she does), I usually just call her on it matter-of-factly ("Sweetheart, I SEE the dog eating your sandwich. Do you want something else to eat?") and if I feel like there's something underlying that needs to be addressed, I address it. (Like fear of reprisal if she tells on a friend, etc.) But I don't see it as being too big of a deal, just call her on it and move on.

Thinking about the hair one -- I'd probably add a consequence to that, because it's both lying and doing something that's not supposed to be done. "We already talked about not using your scissors for anything but paper, but you used them to cut your hair. You know that is not OK, so I'm going to take away your scissors for a while."

Anyway, one thing that made a huge impression on me and I try to remember often is an experience I had when I was right out of grad school, with all the early childhood developmental stuff fresh in my mind. I did a lot of counseling for young mothers who wanted to re-enter the workforce, and I was amazed at how often they ascribed nefarious adult motivations to typical and completely non-nefarious child behaviors. Kids are not just small adults, their brains are wired completely differently. Giving the message that lying is not OK can exist alongside the realization that it's just a developmental stage and not anything too major, IMO.

A story here from personal experience.

My younger son was between three and four. Since he had an older brother and I abhor sibling rivalry, I wrote their name in all story books. Older brother's name was written in green, his favorite color.

Younger son, for complicated reasons, was known as Dos, and his name was written in red.

Dos and I were reading. Then he closed the book opened the front cover and spelled, right to left: S-O-D--that's my name. I said, no, we spell the othe way D-O-S. D-O-S is "Dos. S-O-D would spell "sod".

Dos replied, "That's my name when I'm bad."

He knew he was dealing with conflicts--and that there was a "right" side and a "pleasurable" side and that those two sides were not necessarily the same.

Little Mo is trying to master reality. Good for him.

It is also very important (everybody knows this, but it has to be constantly repeated... ) to pick your battles. You don't need to get a straight answer to every question. Best way, don't ask the questions.

If you can see that the dogs are eating the sandwich, instead of asking whether he gave the dogs the sandwich (It depends on your definition of "gave," right?), say, "I told you not to feed the dogs human food. I'm going to have a fit all over you if you feed them again. <pause> Do you want me to have a fit all over you?" (Nobody ever does.)

And really, who cares if he cuts his hair? Every little kid is going to cut their hair and it's always pretty darn obvious. Who else would cut it like that? There was a little girl I knew, now quite a beauty, who cut her hair regularly for about a year -- she looked god-awful... heeheee... cut her bangs right to the scalp. But she didn't see it that way. Anyway, things that are obvious shouldn't even be discussed except from the vein of the all-seeing mother who already recognizes the truth. Boomerang... you've GOT to keep up the tradition!

I was thinking of my son and one of his biggest whoppers. We were cross-country skiing, he must have been about three. We ran into a park ranger, totally decked out in his uniform and looking more than a little scary. My son, who stood about up to his knee, came up to him, practically belly-butted him, cocked his arm like he was going to deck him and said, "Humph. Well. I know karate." This was a total fabrication and it was all we could do to keep from falling down laughing, though we tried to keep it in check. The Ranger looked way down to the the young whippersnapper and said in a deep timberland-type voice, "Oh, you do, do you?"

Son... "Yes, I do!" and then he put his lower lip out. We dragged him off before he started pelting the guy's knee. A small kid, small even for his age, but a huge liar.

ahhh, 3.5s are notorious for seeing truth as they wish it to be. It'll be better once he's 4.

I'm glad you showed up, Soz. I know that Mo lags a bit behind the Sozlet and you have usually very recently dealt with whatever is bugging me.

You really nailed it with that last paragraph about ascribing adult motives. I really try not to do that - I know that the reason he lies is not for the same reason that an adult would lie. That's really been where I'm teeter-tottering on this.

I guess it is normal to worry that your kid is being weird. It is good for me to hear that many others have had this same problem and aren't currently visiting thier little psychopaths in reform school.

That is a very interesting story, Noddy.

Even at my advanced age I still grapple with what is right and what is pleasurable (as many of my posts probably indicate).

When you think about it, learning right from wrong and good from bad is tricky. Some people never master it. Some people never even bother to think about it. Following that train, I suppose I should be glad that Mo tries to hide what he knows is "bad" - at least he recognizes that it is "bad" behavior.

Or, that when he does something that is truly bad he gives me that "Mom. Come here. You need to see this." bit. He knows this is bad and that he will get in trouble but he fess' up.

I swear, if they could just figure out a way to show young women how terribly complicated kids are and how much time you spend fretting over such things there would been no more teen pregnancy and probably not a whole lot of grown up pregnancy!

We used the Dos/Sod distinction for years. Sod was the kid who overrode Dos's common sense.

Having his naughty side personified seemed to be a comfort to him.