Parenting: Why do children lie?
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2020
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Young children may know they can deceive others but their first lies are often more humorous than effective. Imagine the child who claims not to have eaten any cake while her mouth is still full, or who blames the family dog for drawing on the wall. But is lying actually an important sign other cognitive skills are also developing? As a child matures how does the nature and motivation behind lying change? And is it ever a cause for concern? In this week's Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast, Jenni Murray speaks to consultant child and educational psychologist, Laverne Antrobus.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Fladiated. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:25.0 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds. |
| 0:29.0 | Hello this is Jenny Murray welcoming you to this week's Podcast for Parents. |
| 0:35.0 | Now we put a picture on Twitter recently which made this laugh and I'm sure it amused you too. |
| 0:42.0 | It was sent to us by Crystal and it shows her son then |
| 0:46.3 | age two and a half wearing a red sweater looking absolutely angelic with something |
| 0:52.0 | bright red all over his face. |
| 0:54.4 | She asks, have you been playing with my lipstick, Ralph? |
| 0:58.4 | He replies, no. |
| 1:00.3 | The evidence of the untruth is clear. Why do children tell lies? What do we learn about |
| 1:07.4 | the development of their cognitive skills from their ability to tell fibs? And if it continues as they get older, how worried should a parent be? |
| 1:15.4 | Well, Levern, Antrebus is a consultant child and educational psychologist. Levern, |
| 1:20.8 | why would a child lie in the face of obvious evidence of a misdemeanor? |
| 1:26.7 | He had been playing with the lipstick. |
| 1:28.9 | He absolutely had been playing with the lipstick, but what's so delightful is that in his mind he thought he could |
| 1:34.6 | carry through an idea that you know what's his own but the evidence was there and I |
... |
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