Let'southward cut to the chase.

Information technology's well-nigh one hundred percent sure your teenager has lied or will prevarication to y'all about something at some point during their teen years. A prerequisite for learning anything of value from this article is admitting that fact to yourself. And yes: it's non without a sense of irony that the first of import bespeak we offer nearly teen lying is that you should non lie to yourself well-nigh it.

Considering teen lying happens.

Think back to your teen years. Office of being a teen was creating an unabridged life of your own, split up and distinct from your parents. It was an heady and exhilarating time. You formed personal opinions on social problems, political issues, what kind of music you lot liked, what kind of people you liked, what kind of person you lot wanted to be, and the kind of people y'all wanted to hang out with.

You may not take lied to your parents at all while you were a teenager, but you should know that if you never lied to your parents, yous were in the minority.

What Teens Lie About and Why

Teens might lie about: who they're hanging out with, what they were doing and where they were when they were hanging out with whomever they were hanging out with, how they feel, whether or not they accept a dearest interest, studying for tests, finishing homework, things their friends practise, how they spend their assart, whether or not they've tried or regularly utilise alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes, whether they've ever been in a car driven by a friend who'd been drinking – you go the idea. If it happens in their life, there's a chance they might lie to yous nigh information technology. That's not to say they will, but inquiry shows there's a run a risk they'll fudge the truth about all of the higher up.

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Adolescent lying is unlike than lying during the toddler and preschool years.

Toddler/preschool lying is a positive milestone: information technology shows (1) they're aware of what's happening in someone else's listen, (2) they take the cognitive capacity to inhibit themselves from stating the truth, and (3) they take the capacity to contrive a plausible (to them) culling to the truth. Positive as it may be, toddlers and preschoolers almost ever lie to avoid getting in trouble. Boyish lying, however, is not a positive milestone. Information technology may be an indicator that they're meeting other positive developmental milestones, such every bit emotional and psychological differentiation from parents, independence, loyalty to friends, and moral/ethical reasoning, simply the lying itself is not a positive characteristic. It's something parents demand to address, resolve, and move past in order to aid their teens grow into responsible, accountable adults.

The first step in working through the teen lying stage – if information technology'southward happening – is to understand why teenagers lie. Nosotros identified half dozen master reasons teens lie to their parents. They prevarication to:

  1. Avoid Getting in Trouble. It's just like when they were toddlers or preschoolers. Teens may lie just to avoid the consequences of breaking rules.
  2. Avoid Embarrassment. Teens may brand upward stories when they've done something they think makes them look foolish, uncool, or impaired.
  3. Protect or Defend Friends. If a friend is in serious trouble with their parents, the schoolhouse, or government, teenagers may come to their defence with alibis, stories, versions of what happened, or outright denials to help their friend become out of a jam.
  4. Encompass Up Emotions. A teen may not exist totally forthcoming about how they experience about things. They may be uncomfortable with their emotions, embarrassed by them, or afraid feeling a certain way may make them look immature or uncool.
  5. Make Themselves Look Meliorate. Teenagers may embellish or exaggerate things they've done or things they're capable of doing to gain social capital. This is more complex than information technology appears: the majuscule they seek may be from a positive crowd – i.east. "I aced that test without studying" – or from a less-than-positive-crowd – i.e. "I smoked then much weed last dark I saw my lava lamp levitate."
  6. Establish Autonomy. In that location are times teens may prevarication for no good reason other than to keep role of their lives to themselves, unencumbered and uninfluenced by the input of parents or teachers. This is circuitous, too: developing autonomy is a practiced thing, only lying to reinforce the autonomy is not the most productive approach.

Now that we've reminded you what teens might lie virtually and why they might do it, it's time to empathize what steps y'all need to take, how to take them, and how seriously y'all need to accept the very existent miracle of teen lying.

How to Handle Teen Lying

We need to get this out of the way before offering our practical suggestions: resist the urge to trap your teen in a lie. You're not law enforcement. You're a parent. Sure, you're the enforcer of your family rules, but catching someone in a lie inherently involves some level of dishonesty on the role of the person doing the communicable. You have to feign ignorance, elicit a false answer from your teen, then admit you knew the truth all along.

That'southward dishonest, no matter your intentions.

And dishonesty is the thing you're trying to prevent, and then engaging in quack beliefs to discourage dishonest behavior is – pulling no punches – hypocritical. Teens can odor hypocrisy a mile away. And if they find out they're the target of an elaborate sting performance on your office, the likelihood of them wanting to be honest in the future will dwindle to a number close to, just not duplicate from, zero.

That said, hither are five tips to help you lot handle teen lying:

  1. Stay At-home. Flying off the handle, raising your voice, angry lecturing, and freaking out volition non help. Having a word in a reasonable tone will help. You lot want your teen to trust you. Creating a highly-charged emotional atmosphere is probable to backlash. Your teen will want to retreat and do anything they can to end the chat as quickly as possible.
  2. Keep Perspective. Whatever you do, don't take it personally. When your teen lies, it'due south not an set on on you. When (if y'all did) you lied to your parents during adolescence, you were probably not doing it to injure them. Teen lying is, in well-nigh cases, more virtually them than it is near you.
  3. Re-emphasize the Importance of Honesty. We bet you already had the honesty chat a hundred times when your teen was a toddler or at preschool age. That's one reason it's then frustrating now: you thought y'all had it handled. This time, though, the conversation is different. You can accept the fourth dimension to emphasize the post-obit facts about lying:
    • It tin can hurt other people. Ask them to meet things from your side for a moment. Or from the side of someone else they've lied to. It feels similar a betrayal, and it makes the person lied to less likely to trust the person lying.
    • It puts them in double-jeopardy. Explicate that when they lie, they're doubling their exposure to consequences. They can get in trouble twice. One time for the matter they did they're trying to cover up, and in one case for the lies they tell in roofing it up.
    • Information technology complicates things. Explain that when they prevarication, they have to keep rail of the lies in gild to keep from getting caught. Just i lie tin can lead to many more than lies. Not but do they get hard to continue upward with, but they also can cause anxiety. A person who lies a lot lives in constant fear of being exposed, and that just tin't be fun.
    • Remind them, especially early in the teen years, that lies atomic number 82 to a lack of trust on your part. If they're lying near pocket-sized things when they're thirteen, they reduce their chances of existence trusted with large things – similar driving the car, going to parties, etc. – when they're sixteen or seventeen.
  4. Model Honesty. Your teenager sees and hears way more than yous think they exercise. If they meet and hear yous telling white lies all the time, so that increases the chances they'll tell them all the fourth dimension, also. Lying tin snowball: being comfortable with the little lies may – only not always – lead to being comfortable telling big lies. Adjacent time you're on the phone about to tell someone, "Pitiful, I'd love to help, only I can't, I'yard busy right now," when your child is right there on the couch side by side to you lot and can see you are not busy, do the right thing: exist honest. Your kid will accept detect.
  5. Empathize Information technology's a Process. If your teen has gotten into the addiction of lying, it may accept some time to become them back on the honesty track. Be patient, be loving, and be calm. It may not happen overnight, because the beliefs probably didn't bound from whole textile overnight. Institute reasonable outcomes for lying, proportional to the lies. Have abroad screen time, motion up curfew, or restrict the use of your car. Whatever yous do, let your teen time to adjust.

An Atmosphere of Trust and Communication

The foundation of an open and honest relationship with your teen starts in the early years. Teens who empathise the reasons behind the rules in their household are less likely to break them. Parents who take an administrative, rather than authoritarian, approach to bailiwick create a family where teenagers are not afraid to speak the truth, fifty-fifty when it's uncomfortable. They empathise there are outcomes to unwanted behaviors, but they also understand those outcomes are matched to the behavior. They're based on logic, and come from your want to teach and guide, rather than punish and blame. Your teen will talk to you. They may admit they've lied, especially if they feel like you'll listen, hear, and respond with love and understanding. Even if they know at the end of the conversation, they're going to be grounded for a calendar month.

Final Thoughts: What to Practice When Lying is Serious

Nosotros'd be remiss if we didn't mention 1 final point. Almost ofttimes teen lying is harmless, but there are times when teen lying is not harmless. If a teen is lying to cover up behavior that'southward unsafe or illegal, that's an entirely different story. It's time to take it seriously. Information technology's still not time to freak out. We never recommend that. Simply it is time to allow your teen know you absolutely will not let information technology slide.

An atmosphere of trust and advice is all the same crucial. But lying to comprehend up drinking, using drugs, or illegal activity may exist an indicator of an underlying trouble. If y'all call up your teen is lying for those reasons – or if your teen repeatedly makes up untruths or wildly embellishes facts with no apparent guilt, remorse, or indication they know it'southward wrong – and so it's fourth dimension to consider enlisting professional help in the form of a fully licensed and credentialed psychiatrist or therapist.

If your teen is lying to encompass up risky or other red-flag behavior, yous can apply this helpful Psychiatrist Finder maintained by the American Academy of Child and Boyish Psychiatry.