Author’s practical guidance
Handling tall tales and early "lying"
"A tiger came in the garden." "I didn't touch it" — with chocolate on their face.
Say this now
“That's a great story. Did it really happen, or is it a story?”
Two categories offered as equals. Most children pick the right one when neither is punished.
“I can see the chocolate. Let's clean it up together.”
Skip the interrogation, name the fact, move to the fix.
Do this
- Stop asking questions you know the answer to. Say what you saw instead.
- Separate the two kinds: stories get enjoyed, cover-ups get handled without drama.
- Make telling the truth cheap. A confession that costs them everything will not happen twice.
- Never label them a liar, especially in front of other people.
- Notice the truth out loud when it was hard to tell.
Avoid this
- "Don't lie to me!" — a large word for a small event, and it teaches concealment rather than honesty.
- Asking a question you already know the answer to. It requires a lie in order to be answered.
- Correcting the tiger. Nothing is being claimed; it is a story.
If it repeats
Tall tales peak between three and five and fade as the categories separate. Cover-up lies appear around four, get more convincing at five, and are a normal sign of development rather than of character — what shapes the habit is what happens next.
Why the book suggests this
"A tiger came in the garden." "I didn't touch it" — with chocolate on their face. These look like the same behavior and they are two completely different things, and the difference decides what you do.
The tiger is imagination doing its job; at three the line between what happened and what was vividly pictured is genuinely thin. The chocolate is something else and it is a milestone: to lie you have to work out that what is in your head is not in mine. That arrives around four, and it arrives in every child.
From this collection
Same Words: Big Skills
45 prepared situations in this family area.