As long as there is no trigger, there is no need for a child to embarrass himself or herself with lying; children are not born to lie.
Children are not born to lie.
When Yuan Yuan was four years old, her father and I had been drifting around Beijing for nearly two years with her. There was no account and no house, so our family shared a small courtyard with another friend named Gao, who was called Uncle Gao by Yuan Yuan Yuan. Uncle Gao likes Yuan Yuan a lot and often talks to her. At that time, we wanted to find a place to settle down to solve the household registration and housing, it so happened that two design institutes in Yantai wanted my husband to go to interview, so we took Yuan Yuan to Yantai together. Before we left, because it was still an open question whether we could negotiate or not, there was no need to disclose it to others; so when Mr. Xiao Gao met us the day before we left, he said we were going to go back home to Inner Mongolia.
After arriving in Yantai, and a recruiter initially negotiated the terms, decided to come here, but Mr. need to stay for a week trial. So I took Yuan Yuan back to Beijing first. Because I think things still have to wait until Mr. work there for a week to finalize, to be on the safe side, in the train back to Beijing said to Yuan Yuan: you go back to see Uncle Gao do not tell him that we came to Yantai.
Yuan Yuan nodded understandingly.
As a result, when she and I returned to that small courtyard, Yuan Yuan quickly announced as soon as she saw Xiao Gao, "Uncle Gao, I can't tell you where I've been." Xiao Gao said, "Didn't you go back to Inner Mongolia?" Yuan Yuan said, "No, my mother won't let me tell you where I've been." So I had to tell the truth.
After we arrived in Yantai, the unit quickly to do the household registration, and also gave us a three-room house. After a few years of wandering, we came to such a beautiful seaside city and had such a stable life, which made us feel very happy and grateful to the dean who recruited us.
Mr. and I have never given any gift to any leader, this time to send this small craft, although only out of gratitude, but really took the "gift" with Yuan Yuan to go to the dean's home, the heart is still a little embarrassed, seems to be very afraid of others know. Yuan Yuan did not understand our feelings, she came and went with great joy, very happy that she had given something to others. So when we came back and walked downstairs and saw her dad's colleague from his unit living in the same building as us, she said to that person with gusto, "Uncle Xiong, we just went to the dean's grandfather's house and gave him a gift!" Her father was only embarrassed to hem and haw.
These things now seem to be just jokes, very funny, but at that time made us very uncomfortable, some under the table. But we did not blame the child a word, and did not try to say any more to cover up to round the scene. If we had told some lies in front of our children to save face, we might not have been embarrassed ourselves, but we would have taught our children to tell lies. Such a thing does not pay off.
We have always been careful to develop Yuan Yuan's honest character and never teach her to tell lies unless it is very occasionally necessary out of good intentions; we also try to set an example by being honest ourselves.
"A person who tells a lot of lies, even if he is "successful" by worldly standards, is not a happy person in essence, because his morals are always hanging by a thread.
Children are very smart and can understand adults' reactions very carefully. Maybe it was the "gift to the dean's grandfather" that made our faces show too much embarrassment for a moment, and Yuan Yuan seemed a little upset when she came home, thinking she had done something wrong. We immediately reassured her that it was okay, she just didn't feel the need to say anything, and it's okay if you do. Her father hugged her as if to praise her and said, "Daddy is such a little secret, and you let it all out! It was as if she had done a meritorious job.
We all laughed and Yuan Yuan was relieved.
The first thing you need to do is to be more aware of what's going on, and she won't always be able to "reveal dad's secrets" because we're so open about it. There are some things that you can understand as you grow older, what to say and what not to say, she will definitely grasp the proportion as long as she has a healthy mind.
If a child has a bad habit of lying, it must be something wrong with his upbringing.
There are only two reasons why children lie, one is to imitate adults, one is under pressure. This is where every child's first lies come from.
The first is to imitate adults. While no parent intentionally tries to teach their child to tell lies, even parents who lie often don't like their children to lie. However, if a parent often lies to a child with falsehoods in order to coax him to listen; or if a parent often tells falsehoods to others, which are heard and witnessed by the child from time to time, the child will slowly learn to tell falsehoods. Another situation is that parents often say some false words out of some kind of cover-up needs in adult society, although there is no moral impropriety, just a social interaction skills, but if the young children notice, will also give children the impression of telling lies, and teach them to tell lies.
Mozi compared the educational impact of dyeing silk, "Dyeing in the pale is pale, dyeing in the yellow is yellow, and the one into which it enters changes, its color also changes. Therefore, dyeing cannot be ignored." So if a child has a problem with lying, parents must first do some self-reflection.
Another reason for children to lie is "pressure", that is, parents are harsh, for each kind of fault of the child are not easily spared, have to criticize and blame, and even scold; or parents are too strong, say one thing or another, do not respect the child's ideas, do not appreciate some of the child's wishes. These can cause regular emotional tension and imbalance in the child, and they go on to tell lies in order to avoid punishment, reach their wishes or achieve balance.
A mother came to me for advice about her child's lying problem. She and her beloved were both PhDs, and I could see from her the good cultivation of intellectuals, and I thought her child's lying should not be imitated from her parents.
Her child was a girl who was in her second year of junior high school. The mother and I talked about specific things.
Take the most recent one, she said. I spent more than 1,000 yuan to buy my daughter a color screen electronic dictionary, repeatedly told her not to lose, because I often lose things as a child, she grew up with the problem of losing things, said how many times she could not change, her father because of this once punished her for standing still in the room for two hours. She got this color screen dictionary and liked it very much, promising us that she would take care of it and would not lose it. As a result, such an expensive dictionary was lost after a month or so, and she didn't tell me when it was lost. I found that her dictionary was gone and asked what happened, she said she lent it to a classmate. I asked her to ask for it back quickly, but she couldn't get it back for several days. At first she said that the classmate forgot to bring it to her, but after a few days of questioning, she said she got it back, but then lent it to another classmate. I was a little suspicious and asked her to bring it back in two days. Two days later she told me that she had it back, but that she had left it in the classroom. I didn't believe her and said I had to follow her to the classroom the next day to see for myself, but she was still acting calm up to this point. It was only when I really had to follow her to school the next morning that she cried, saying that the dictionary was lost and admitting that she had been lying to me all these days.
The mother said that her child used to be a little uncomfortable lying, but now she makes up lies for so many days to deceive parents and actually says it like it's true, like it's nothing. She couldn't understand how her child could learn to lie when she was so intent on educating him. She said she could forgive her child for losing something, but she could not forgive her for lying and cheating.
I can understand the mother's anger, but this incident makes me feel pain inside. The mother only saw her child's fault for losing things and lying, but she did not appreciate what the child was going through in those days.
I said to the mother: The child's behavior in this case should not be called lying, she was just trying to hide something. The child lost something, it is not as if you think that nothing is wrong, she is actually very painful inside. Under normal circumstances, a child should seek help from her parents to solve the problem, but why doesn't your child seek your help, rather than delay and lie to cope? It's because she doesn't see her parents as sharing their misfortune. I can guess that in your previous life, your child must have been criticized for doing something wrong, right?
The mother thought for a moment, nodded and said, "We were pretty strict with her.
I said, "You think it's good for your child to be strict, but your child doesn't think it's good. She knew that if she told her parents, not only would she not get her dictionary back, but she would be criticized - why would she want to turn one bad thing into two? So she would rather choose to hide it.
The mother was a little surprised and said, "There is some truth in this analysis, but we never hit or scold our children, and when she does something wrong, we only criticize her a few times, or at most punish her for a while. What's wrong with that? What child doesn't get criticized by their parents? Besides, paper can't cover fire, so is it necessary to delay for so many days by telling lies?
This mother doesn't know that children are very proud of themselves, and that what adults think is fine is often taken very seriously by children. We should never measure our children's stress by how we feel. Adults often criticize children casually, as if they were saying the usual things, but they leave children with a very negative emotional experience. Even though the child knows that the paper will not cover the fire and that things will eventually come out in a few days, she can put it off for a few days to avoid reprimands from adults, which is consistent with the way children think.
It is not that the child is not nervous during this process, but she actually lives in tension every day during those days. It is painful to keep lying to hide something, whether it is an adult or a child, and in fact no one likes to lie. The child would rather suffer the pain of procrastination than tell the parent - this is actually a sign that something is wrong with the parent and child, that the child has subconsciously distrusted and rejected the parent. As the active and strong parent, the parent has to reflect and change himself or else there may be a series of troubles in the future as a result.
I told the parent these thoughts, and she nodded her head uncontrollably. I could feel that she was sincerely reflecting on herself. She asked me with some difficulty, "What do you think I should do in the future, if my child makes a mistake, should we pretend not to see it and just not say anything?
I said, this is not a question of pretending or not, but how you understand your child. Your previous mistake was that you could not allow your child to make any mistakes, so criticism was always present in your life, as if the child did not know how to change if the parents did not say anything, and did not do their parental responsibility if they did not say anything. In fact, making mistakes is a mandatory part of a child's growth, and parents should learn to accept their children's mistakes without having to criticize and educate them as soon as they find out what they have done wrong. In the process of letting children recognize mistakes and correct them, "don't say" is often the best "say". The child has made a mistake in his heart is already very sad, parents to give understanding, but often more than giving criticism to let the child remember the lesson. Even if you do, you have to use the words that don't make the child lose face.
The doctor nodded her head. I saw that she was willing to listen, so I continued: on the child often lose things this bad habit, since it has been said many times, and punished, that these methods are useless. If we continue to use them, not only will the problem of losing things not be solved, but the child will also have the problem of lying. In the future, we should use "methods" to help her rather than "criticism" to educate her on this issue.
I gave her my own example. For example, my daughter Yuan Yuan once took a cab and put her sun hat on the seat next to her, and forgot to take it when she got off. We will conclude that in the future by cab, never put things on the seat with your hands, must take in your hands, do not mind the trouble. If you carry a few bags, leave them at the door of the car so you don't leave anything behind.
Helping your child think of some preventive solutions is much more effective than criticism. If your child has a problem that can't be changed, let him go as long as it's not too big. A problem that can't be solved with "understanding" and "solutions" generally can't be solved with "criticism" either. Love for a person does not also include the acceptance of his shortcomings?
This doctoral mother is a very good learner, and she is the most sincere parent I have ever met in terms of discussing and reflecting on the situation. After our conversation, she spoke with me on the phone several times. She had a very good understanding of "not letting the child lose face", and the couple had come up with a lot of ways to deal with the situation without conflict with the child at all. She said that not only had the child stopped "lying", but her temperament had also smoothed out and her academic performance had improved significantly. I could hear her family's relief at the change in her tone of voice alone.
Many people are used to blaming children for their own behavior problems, so they are used to blaming children; however, I have seen from my own experience and others that children's behavior and habits are so dependent on the way parents teach them. So when parents are thinking about changing their children, the starting point should always be how to change their own education style. Even if you think your child's problems come from your child, it is your responsibility to evoke change in your child by changing yourself. If you don't think this way, you will never find the path to change your child.
On July 30, 2007, I saw a program called "Homework/Lies" on Beijing TV. A girl did not like to do her homework and often lied about her homework, and her parents beat and scolded her, but it did not work. Through their narrative, it was clear that the core of the problem was that the parents' inappropriate education methods caused the child to be bored with school and to lie out of fear of punishment. The root of the problem lies in the change of parenting attitude.
But the invited "psychologist" focused on the education of the child, and talked a lot about the arguments of "intelligence and wisdom" to the child, and finally only said lightly to the parents that "you also have some faults ", without seriously reminding parents to reflect on themselves.
The expert's words sound like nothing wrong, but it is the same as not saying anything. Anyone can tell the big truth, but how can a small child get motivated to do her homework by thinking about "wisdom and intelligence" when she faces the homework that troubles her every day?
Before the end of the program, with the efforts of the host, the child promised on the spot that she would do her homework well and never lie again. It was clear that the child's "promise" was due to the coercive atmosphere of the show, her fear of adults, and her desire to be "better".
I believe the child was serious when she made the promise, but I also believe that as long as the "educational environment" that surrounds her on a daily basis does not change after the show - mainly the attitude of her parents - she will not change and will soon be back to her old self. -she will not change and will soon be back to her old self. The fact is that the poor child involuntarily told another big "lie" on the show.
It can be assumed that the cause of this girl's lie - initially, her parents criticized her for not doing her homework properly and asked her to make a promise, so the child made a promise to do her homework properly. But children often do not have an estimate of their ability to keep their promises, and they are only pressured by their parents to make promises, lacking both the rationality and the interest to keep them. If the parent lacks the right amount of thoughtfulness and motivation, the child will break her promise, because there are too many reasons why she may not be able to keep it.
Every time the child breaks a promise, the adult is displeased, criticizing her for not keeping her word, and expressing resentment, even contempt. The child herself will not think highly of herself as a result. She slowly loses her self-confidence and self-esteem, and becomes more and more indifferent to the demands of others and to what she has said, and can always come up with falsehoods to avoid punishment - not only is she not doing well in school, but she has also developed a bad habit of lying, and her skin is getting thicker.
Lying and cheekiness are often linked, as Sukhomlinsky said, "ignorance of shame arises from the refusal to fulfill one's promises". When a person lies more often than not, he can't tell which is true and which is not, and his morals begin to fall.
When a child develops the habit of lying, he will lie for a variety of reasons.
I once heard the parent of a high school student say that his child always lied, for example, he had enough pocket money, but in order to put up a show in front of his classmates or spend money recklessly, he often made up all kinds of lies to cheat his father's money or just stole money from the drawer. The father believes that this is the child's natural greed, and laments that his life is miserable to have such a son. I can understand this father's distress, but he is making a mess of attribution, taking the result as the cause. The reason his son sees lying and cheating as normal is that there must have been a series of events in his upbringing that damaged his morality, not the "need for money" itself.
Therefore, in solving the problem of children lying, parents must understand why their children lie, and not look at one incident in isolation, but see the context of the matter, and see the hidden crux behind it. The root of the problem can be solved by starting with the root cause. As long as there is no trigger, there is no need for the child to embarrass himself by lying, children are not born to lie.
Special Tips
Children lie for two reasons: to imitate adults and because they are under pressure. This is where every child's initial lie comes from.
● The child would rather suffer the pain of procrastination than tell the parent - this is actually a sign that something is wrong with the parent-child relationship and that the child has subconsciously distrusted and rejected the parent. As the active and strong parent, the parent must reflect and change himself or herself, otherwise a series of troubles may arise in the future as a result.
Many parents make the mistake of not allowing their children to make any mistakes, so criticism is always present in their lives, as if the child does not know how to change unless the parents say so, and that they are not doing their job as parents. In fact, making mistakes is a necessary part of a child's growth, and parents should learn to accept their children's mistakes without having to criticize and educate their children once they find out what they have done wrong. In the process of letting children recognize mistakes and correct them, "don't say" is often the best "say". The child has made a mistake in his heart is already very sad, parents to give understanding, but often more than giving criticism to let the child remember the lesson. Even if you do say something, you should say it in a way that does not make the child lose face.
If your child has a problem that can't be changed, let him go as long as the problem is not too big. If the problem cannot be solved by "understanding" and "solutions", it cannot be solved by "criticism" in general. Love for a person includes acceptance of his or her flaws.
The child's behavior and habits are so dependent on the parent's way of education. Therefore, when parents think about changing their children, the starting point should always be how to change their own parenting style; even if you think your child's problems come from your child, it is your responsibility to change your child by changing yourself. If you don't think this way, you will never find the path to change your child.
Children often do not have an estimate of their ability to keep their promises, and are only pressured by their parents to make promises; they lack both the rationality and the interest to keep their promises. If the parent lacks the right amount of thoughtfulness and motivation at this time, the child will only break her promise because there are too many reasons why she will not fulfill it.