Andrea Stokes
May 14, 2025
How often do you find yourself in a tough parenting situation where your child has done something he/she knows is wrong and is digging his heels in and won’t give in to your instructions? That is frustrating and leads to parents saying “How many times have I told you…!” Then you discover in the midst of working things through with your child that he lied to you. You feel like throwing in the towel as now, with this new information, to get to the complete truth of the matter you have to start all over again.
How should you respond? What type of correction should be used? How do you work with your kids to tell the truth at all times? These are all questions I face as I work with our three kids. We know the desired outcomes we want from our parenting – kids who are honest, trustworthy, and personally convicted to tell the truth. But how do we practically get there?
The Mom’s Notes teaching session “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” has greatly helped my husband and I navigate the difficult topic of lying. With a biblical foundation from Proverbs, we learned how to identify the motive behind the lie, how to recognize and address lies, and how to teach our children to elevate truth. Here’s how it has helped us in a few specific situations.
For our 11-year-old daughter, lying has shown up most consistently as exaggeration. When dealing with a Sanguine temperament, we learned from this teaching session that her motive for lying is often to get attention or to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Those with this temperament don’t think they are lying. They explain things how they are re-living them in their minds as they describe the situation to someone and they enjoy the attention they get from people who listen to their stories. And that is what they are telling – a story, part fact and part fiction, and that is the part that is called exaggerating and since it is not based on truth it is a lie.
Joey and Carla explain it’s important to know the motive behind a child’s lie so you know what is going on in their heart. For our daughter, when we hear exaggeration, we call it out. “Is it really the millionth time you’ve had to do that today?” And then we get to the bottom of the exaggeration and land on the truth. “Ok, so it’s really the second time you’ve had to do that today and you just don’t want to do it again. Please be more honest in how you speak.” Then this child needs to work through repentance, forgiveness, and restoration before they can go back to playing. If a consequence is called for, we give it to this child as well.
When our now 6-year-old son was 4 yrs. old, he tended to overreact when a sibling touched him or looked at him in a way he didn’t like. He would dramatically stumble backwards or yell loudly. We learned in this Mom’s Notes session that he was trying to manipulate the situation to get attention and gain sympathy, or to get his sibling in trouble. We talked to him about how acting like someone did something hurtful to him when they really didn’t is not being honest. Even at 4, he understood he can have the self-control not to do that, and that trying to get a sibling in trouble is not ok.
Finally, I appreciate how Joey and Carla remind us to train children in what is right, not just in what is wrong. Since God values truthfulness, they share how it is more important to deal with their lying than it is to deal with the action of what they did wrong, like taking out the trash. You are frustrated they didn’t do it once again, but you should be more concerned that your child lied about it. All too often parents deal with the wrong action and throw in a lecture about the lying as an afterthought. They also explain how to deal with the wrong action and the lie they told because rarely should they be dealt with in the same way.
Our 6-year-old son came to us recently and said he needed to tell us something he had done. After he told me, I praised him for being honest and told him how proud I was that he told the truth. While I know we will have many more ups and downs with lying and honesty in our family, I feel much more equipped with tools and knowledge on this topic to be able to lead our family in God’s way, thanks to Joey and Carla Link and this Mom’s Notes teaching session.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
Exodus 20:16
You can explain this verse to your children/teen’s this way –
“You should always tell the truth when you are telling us what your sibling did or did not do.”
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