How to handle a child's excessive lying when family normalizes it
When a child lies constantly and their own parent normalizes the behavior, family members are left trying to protect younger children from believing the falsehoods or copying the habits without causing major conflict. This dynamic creates severe trust issues and leaves household members feeling powerless as the lying escalates from small fibs to major deceptive actions.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Telling the younger child to ask parents to confirm if something is true or not
- 2Hiding or confiscating the purchased items
- 3Changing phone locks and account passwords
- 4Requiring the child to do chores to pay back the money
- 5Making the child return the items to the store
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“So, my almost 12 YO so took my phone today, while I was taking a quick nap & he placed a delivery order from Walmart for a bunch of candy...”source ↗
“He then told my mom (his only Grandma, that we live with) that I got him some candy... yeah, I would've with an order I would've placed soon... BUT NOT a $40 order of ONLY candy!!!”source ↗
“In the last 6 months G has started lying excessively. It started with small fibs, but has since progressed to the point where everything she says is untrue.”source ↗
“My oldest knows, but is getting to the point she no longer wants to be around her because of it. But my youngest believes everything she says.”source ↗
“I don’t particularly want to call L out and start drama, but I also don’t want my children to see this behaviour and think it’s okay.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4Should I tell other parents if their kids broke rules at our house?
- 4Why do I lecture my child instead of comforting them?
- 15How to protect yourself against false accusations from students and parents
- 10Why does my child say they hate everything they love?
- 9How to handle high-pressure roofing salespeople
- 3How to talk to kids about trusting the police