Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode, self-esteem and lying, I want to dig a little deeper into one of the reasons why children lie and that's to bolster their self-esteem. Now, I have a previous episode where I cover lying more broadly, so the reasons why children lie and how we can encourage children to tell the truth. So, what we're talking about in this episode is a bit more nuanced because it's a different take on lying as it's, okay, it's still an untruth or an exaggeration. However, I would suggest that it's just handled differently because what underlies the lie, what's behind it is an unmet need and that's what's driving it. And if we don't address the underlying unmet need and we go in quite hard or around the lying or the exaggeration, there is a potential danger there that we might actually end up amplifying the issue around self-esteem and or we might create shame, which is a whole other level of self-loathing that we really don't want to kind of go to. Self-confidence can tend to, we've seen it, we see it often with our really young children, is that they can tell these, you know, these huge grandiose lies about themselves, things, you know, I went and I drove a car and I, you know, I built this huge tower. And often, fundamentally, the reason behind that is that they want to make themselves seem a bit more impressive, a bit special or talented in lots of ways, because by doing so, they're kind of building up their self-esteem. And so, I think it's a really important thing to do. They want to build up their own self-esteem. There's an element of, I don't believe that I'm good enough as I am. And therefore, if I can take something that I've done and just amplify it, or sometimes take a whole untruth, create a whole narrative that isn't, it isn't there, you know, they make themselves look better, potentially, or more popular or more interesting in the eyes of others. Now, some children do it every now and again. Some will do it all the time. And they're often retelling stories and events, which when we think about it, and particularly for us as adults, they're just not plausible to have ever really happened. When children are much younger, and they're not plausible, the other children don't really, can't really tell that they're not plausible. The issue can often be as our children get older, and they're continuing using these exaggerations and these grandiose stories, is that it can actually backfire because the child is using it from a perspective of, I'm bolstering my self-confidence, and I'm wanting to make myself look more interesting to my peers, but it actually backfires because it's so implausible that their peers then, it creates a whole different dynamic. It actually does the exact opposite of the desired effect. You know, sometimes children lie because they lack confidence, and they're trying to find ways to feel better about themselves, and seem potentially more impressive to the people that are around them. And in lots of ways, if people around them show any interest, and we can see this sometimes when we've got young children or even, you know, teen, sort of slightly exaggerating something to an adult. And then the adult, because we scaffold things naturally, oh, that's so interesting. Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. Tell me a bit more. And so if there's an engagement with that, then it generally kind of draws it out even more. And because they get more of that as a result, because they see that. And this can then fuel the lie and the exaggeration. And then what starts off potentially as something quite small, a little exaggeration, then becomes much more amplified. And they're generally then poorly equipped to manage or to deal with it as their kind of general day-to-day progresses as normal and normal life. And then the other thing that can sometimes happen that just want to consider here is that for some children and teens, the lies that they tell are in fact a coping mechanism in situations that they feel totally overwhelmed or out of their depth. And in lots of ways, it's almost as if they step into another character, another role, another version of themselves. And in these scenarios, and they're subtly nuanced, but in this particular scenario, where it's really used as a coping mechanism, what happens is the teen or the young person, is genuinely in belief of the lie that they're telling. They really, because it's almost, as I said, it's like they step into a whole different character. They become this other person. They genuinely believe at some level that what they're saying is totally true. So I guess I'm going to go through some of the things that we ought to avoid, just two things, and then I'll talk you through the five things that we ought to be looking at doing. So I would ask you, if you're in a situation where you've got a child who seems to be regularly exaggerating, may not be as bold as an outright, complete and utter lie. But if you've got a child or a teen that is currently exaggerating quite regularly, and it's frustrating, and you're getting frustrated because it feels like they're never really telling the truth, I think I want you just to sort of sit with it as to actually, how confident is my child generally? Am I noticing some trends in terms of the situations that they do, this in? And often you'll see it amongst their peers or in that sort of situation. So that's going to be one side of it. The other side is where it may not be quite so obvious. Maybe you believe actually, well, I think my child is very confident. They've got lots of self-esteem, but they just keep lying. Then again, I would just encourage you just to observe a little bit. What are the common patterns that are happening here in terms of the exaggeration and the lies? Are there particular situations that they're doing this in? So that might actually give you a bit of idea as to what the underlying self-confidence and self-esteem is. Because quite often, a child on the outside, in the same way as an adult on the outside, can appear as if they're coping, can appear as if they're confident, and lots of self-esteem. But when you dig deeper, when you scratch the surface, you actually discover there's an awful lot underneath there that is quite wobbly, and that that may well be fueling it. So those are the kind of the broad things. What I will say is, I would advocate for an approach which remembers the vulnerability of the child or the teen behind the deceit. Remember, we are always, where possible, trying to respond to the emotion behind the behavior. So adopting a compassionate, you know, my child is in some sort of pain approach in our head, in our mindset, in how we frame the frustration and the situation that we find, that we're repeatedly having to have conversations with our children about, is likely to yield the best results. And if this pattern of behavior is super ingrained in how your child or teen deals with life, it's a reminder that the changes are not going to be overnight, and that's all right. It's a slow process. Because what can sometimes happen is it starts off really cute when our children are younger. Like, a whole pizza, and it was this big, or I caught a fish, and it was. You know how it happens, and it's like really cute, and we kind of go with it. Now, obviously, that's a natural part, lying. If you go to the website, drmaryhand.com, you will find you can search, and you can look specifically at the broad episode on lying. But lying in itself is a natural part of development. Children are testing boundaries. They're testing what is permissible and what isn't permissible. And when they're doing the whole, I caught a fish, and it was this big, or I ate a pizza, and it was that big, or I got 100% on a test, they're waiting to see how we respond in it. And so what can sometimes happen is we would expect to see that with our children when they're younger. But for some, it becomes so ingrained as a way of coping, and we've not realized that it's been happening for so long. And so it's about being compassionate to yourself in terms of managing those expectations. So, you know, and if this helps you at all, and it always helps me, when I get data and statistics that remind me I'm not alone. But data shows that some children and teens will lie up to 80% of the time. So I say that to remind you that you're not alone, that your child won't always be like this, and focusing on the lie and the lack of self-esteem will be the most effective way to support your child. So it's that the reasons underlying where the lie is coming from will be super helpful. So I wanted to start very briefly by just going through two things that I feel are probably the things that we should avoid before I go into the things that we can really do. So the first thing is, and it sounds obvious, but remember that our children create a narrative in between the things that we say. So it's avoiding labeling our child as a liar. And I think a lot of us just, it just wouldn't enter our mind. But remember that your child is going to fill in the blanks. In terms of what you say. And so it's being mindful that they don't fill in the blanks that suggests that they are this bad person. So we want to avoid making our children child feel cornered in any particular way because what tends to happen is when they feel cornered they're going to lie much more so it's about creating the space and the opportunity to tell the truth maybe let's say we ask them a question and then they don't tell us the truth what we can say and i'm going to talk about how this relates to the second typically try to avoid but we can say things like thank you jack i'm going to ask you that question again in 10 minutes so you've got some time to think about your response so that is a really lovely way of like i'm not saying that what you've told me is inaccurate i'm not calling you a liar i'm not saying that that's an untruth i'm just going to give you a bit of time and i'm going to come back and ask you again so that's one way that we can approach and avoid the liar sort of bit the other thing that we want to avoid is sort of almost setting them up unintentionally this is it's not about deliberately doing it in other words when we know the full story and it needs to be addressed directly so maybe let's say our child has told a lie very specifically that has hurt another child for example with that one we're not really going to ask them and then wait for them to respond because we're setting them up in lots of ways that's a real setup what we're much better off in that particular situation where we've got to deal with it directly is to simply address it and just set them up and say look i'm not going to talk about this i'm aware of this particular situation let's talk about it so it's a very different kind of scenario so where it's a little kind of there there's an opportunity for them to save face then let's absolutely ask them and and if they give us the untruth we can then have that conversation again ask them the same question in 10 minutes and tell them we're going to ask i'm going to ask you again in 10 minutes where we it's a real thing that we have to deal with immediately we've got all of the facts per se and we've got all of the facts that we've got to deal with immediately there might be some subtle things that we haven't got from our child yet then don't set them up and it's much better to deal with that one head-on so those are the kind of two things i would say just generally to avoid so let's talk about the five things that i think that we can do that are really helpful this is much more of an empowering approach rather than a issue approach so the first one is just simple truth checks yeah so this is you we can just have real simple lines such as is is this what happened or a story you'd like to tell me is this what really happened or are you telling me what how you wish that it happened so what we're trying to do we're not cornering them we're not calling them a liar we're not setting them up to have egg on their face we're simply kind of making that nuanced difference between and identifying that there is a difference between what actually happened and what we would like to have happened now what i would interject at this point that's kind of it's pertinent to this is that fundamentally as human beings we never remember things as they truly are it's not like our experiences of a particular situation are like a video of a particular situation if we replayed it back it would be 100 accurate as human beings the way we interpret everything that happens in our life whether that's a situation with a friend whether that's a story that's being told to us whether that's a riding a bicycle whatever it might be we never remember it as it is we always bring with it all of our life's experiences and that impacts the way that we interpret it so as human beings we can never be truly objective it's the same as decision making we do this whole let's write the reasons why i should do it let's write the reasons why i shouldn't do it and then i'll be able to come up with an objective answer it's rubbish what tends to happen is we make a decision and then we post rationalize so your child is never going to give you 100 accurate picture of it but what we can encourage them to begin in terms of the subtleties and the language we use is that there is a a closer to the truth with your own personal experience embellishment on it and there are things that have been just embellished beyond what actually happened and we can do that through truth checks just general truth checks and actually it's quite a nice way to go through it regularly in scenarios that you've observed because then that can be a really great way particularly with younger children to go through it and then you can do that through your own personal experience and then you can do that through your own personal experience and then being able to help them we're scaffolding them in their learning to be able to understand the difference between this is objectively what happened and this is the the bit that i've added on so we can do these truth checks things like maybe that sounds like a great story why don't you try again and tell me what really happened yep again it's a really lovely way we're not saying you've lied but we're just simply oh oh my goodness me that's a really great story i love that could you try and tell me what really happened so truth checks are a great way of fostering a more empowering positive moving forward approach rather than that sort of looking behind at mistakes that have been made the second one is that what i would say is about laying the foundation so it's about having conversations around why it's important that when we sort of reflect on situations that have happened or we tell people about situations that happen that we we're aware of the things that have happened and we're aware of the things that have happened and we're aware of the um like the human condition and and the things that we're likely to do now a really lovely thing that i've done and i've done this before on a previous episode which is a really great way of explaining is the so it basically looks at these two arrows so you basically have two lines and you'll find this resource in the free resource library so www.drmaryhan.com forward slash library and in essence what you have is you if you then get a lined piece of paper draw draw two lines right next to each other exactly the same length doesn't matter how long you make them maybe four or five lines deep so you get two lines and what you're asking your child is in this way about laying the foundations is asking them it's really clear that those two lines are exactly the same length because you've got these lovely extra lines that give us that clear marker and we can explain that that that's our eyes looking at a piece of information and being able to see objectively that they're exactly the same because it's simply processing a stimulates processing lines okay what we can then do is on one of the lines what we're going to do is we're going to add like chevrons so that they're going down on one way and then up on the other and with the other one we're doing the chevrons in the opposite way what happens now and it's much clearer if you go into the resource library i'm not making a particularly good job at explaining it to you visually here but if you look in the resource library you'll see it but in essence what then happens is your brain is having to get involved and interpret what's happened to those lines and the perception is the line with the chevrons going outwards now looks longer than the other line and the reality is the lines are exactly the same they're just different because our brain and i really won't bore you with the details as to why one looks longer than the other is to do with inside and outside buildings but your brain isn't actually going to be able to see the lines that are trying to make sense of it and saying well that should be longer because it's further away and that one should be shorter because it's closer to me so it's a good way of being able to begin to lay those foundations around how as human beings we're flawed we don't objectively retell and recall situations as they truly are we will always put our slant on it and that is normal and typical however when it goes beyond that and we tell something that is fundamentally changes the story either relating to an individual person or what is the outcome then that is an untruth and i typically use the word truths and untruths rather than using or stories or embellishments depending on how old your child is and the language that they're already using rather than lying in this particular scenario because this is around self-esteem so that's the particular bit okay so that's about laying the foundation so we've got truth checks laying the foundations the third one is about we've talked about descriptive praise before and so in essence what we praise we get more of so remember the whole growth mindset and fixed mindset if we praise outcome oh my goodness me you've got 100 on the test you've got 60 on the test you've got 50 on the test we get more of that as in as an ex it builds my expectation that what you're interested in is a result if we praise the process if we praise patterns of behavior even if it isn't at the absolute desirable but it's a step towards it then we are much more likely to get more of that so praising the truth and particularly and this is a really crucial one and particularly when there are consequences to their choices so if a child is honest enough to say i hit my brother i hit my sister i took the last cookie i broke that jar then we really want to really praise that because that had a huge consequence as a result of that there was a real danger to them that by telling the truth some consequence would occur and if i if it was down to me i would i tend to adopt that the truth always reduces the consequences so actually the classic from a parent's perspective of i know you broke that jar and if a child doesn't admit it then in lots of ways the consequence needs to be administered in the way that we know because we know that that's the case but if a child admits admits that they've actually broken the jar then that in my view is that we should then reduce the consequences as a result of that so I think really praising the truth when our children do that and then really you know amplifying it and then some when they when there's a real consequence that could be around because of that now we've been talking specifically in this episode around children who don't tell the truth or exaggerate because of their self-esteem so of course we've got to deal with the untruth and the storytelling and the grandiose and the exaggeration in that compassionate way because we're approaching it from the perspective of there's a pain behind that and that's why our child's doing it so that's what we're going to do in regard to the actual deceit and the lie itself but we have to deal with the root cause of it we have to start addressing the issue of self-esteem alongside that we can't just sort of just you know we're going to deal with it in the in the situations where you exaggerate or you lie we have to really focus in on that self-esteem and so one of the really kind of you know by all means go to a previous episode looking at self-esteem and confidence but let me just talk you through a couple of things that you could be looking at doing who we are and how what we believe about ourselves comes from the narrative comes from the conversations that we have and that's what we're going to be talking about in this episode of self-esteem in our head and how we interpret ourselves in those sort of situations so having some form of regular practice for our children to reflect on who they are is a really good way of building self-esteem now if you've got a child whose self-esteem is pretty low maybe even rock bottom it's going to be really difficult for them to write 10 things that they like about themselves so instead it's about having conversations initially coming from us around that descriptive praise i really love the way that you laugh it's really hard to write 10 things that you like about a wholehearted and it makes you know it just it's infectious and it makes me want to laugh i really love the way that you smile when you come back from school when you see the dog and it really shows how much you care about them you know i love the way that you skip down the stairs whatever it might be it's really beginning just to affirm a part of your child part of their character not the way that they look but a character trait that they have and that they that they probably don't even necessarily identify in themselves but go beyond the simple i love the way that you laugh really kind of going to elaborate and go into some real depth about what it is about that that makes it that you particularly enjoy because what will typically happen and and i know this because parents come up to me all of the time after talks or even ask questions within talks is that you know i'm constantly praising my child and their confidence is rock bottom and they just don't don't value themselves confidence and self-esteem is an inside job we can't praise it but if we've got a child whose confidence is absolutely rock bottom or they're not yet ready to begin to affirm themselves through some form of regular practice then we can begin that because in lots of ways we're beginning to model how we might do that so we are just giving giving them some identifiers around particular character traits that they possess that make them an incredible person to spend time with an incredible person to be around and what i would also encourage you to do is do the same so when you then say i really love the way that you smile or the energy that you go about approaching things or the determination that you have every single time you get on a trampoline that you're determined you're going to be able to do this you know somersault or whatever it might be is that you then reflect on some of the things that you're doing that you're doing that you're something about yourself i on the other hand really love that i'm this way because i know how that people have told me how great that makes them feel when i'm around them because i have this lovely energy whatever it might be because what you're doing is you're then you're giving them some real detail and embellishment and elaborating on what the character traits and the qualities that you really like about them but what you're then also doing is in some ways you're quickly diffusing the inevitable well of course you're going to say that because you're my parent into and i really like this about myself so there's you diffuse that awkwardness that children and teens whose self-esteem is really low typically feel it's like who am i to be and why are you saying that because you're my parent so that can be a really good good starting point what you can then start looking at is you can then go beyond that with a just a general habit that we encourage them to have around then being able to maybe journal and write down one thing that they like about themselves one thing that they're really proud of that begins to build up that character 10 things that make them uniquely them so we're beginning to kind of foster that what is it about me that makes me great because what's typically happening with children that are struggling with their self-esteem is that they're identifying all these fabulous qualities that they're pinning on everyone else and they're identifying all these qualities that they're they then compare themselves to those qualities because they don't believe that they're good enough and actually what we want them to do is forget what anyone else is you are uniquely you what are the qualities that make you you and why might that be attractive to other people why might other people be drawn to you to want to spend time with you to be around you because of the qualities that you have so it's that really addressing that core thing because it's not because in lots of ways focusing in on the deceit and the exaggeration is a bit of a blind alley that's not going to take you down the right route where you're going to have the biggest impact is of course we've got to deal with things in the moment but if we really work on the self-esteem if we really build that bit up then of course everything else will naturally then we'll get less of that we'll diminish they'll see less reason and less need to do these exaggerations and these grandiose lies that are there so we've got truth checks we've got laying the foundations around the difference between what's real and what then gets exaggerated we can praise the truth when it happens we're going to address the issue directly around self-esteem and then the fifth one i say this with love is around white lies now we can have a whole conversation we can have a whole episode of you know should we have white lies or not but what i would say is is that reminder that children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say and so what are we doing around modeling white lies and those and often we're saying those to avoid hurting someone's feelings or we use them to avoid attending events situations and things that we feel uncomfortable remember that your child won't know that it's a white lie they won't understand that you're doing that as a way of dealing with something you're trying to soften the blow with someone and then they're not going to understand that you're doing that as a way of dealing with something they can't differentiate they are simply going to see that you are not being truthful i've had a classic ones of these where parents have sort of said that they've said that they can't go somewhere for a particular reason the children don't know and then they've bumped into the person and then the child has said something that's made it obvious that it was a lie so i just think i understand that as human beings the last thing we want to do is hurt people's feelings but i think we need to be mindful about the number of white lies and truths that we tell because our children cannot differentiate between it they won't be able to differentiate it's just to them it's it is a lie and certainly if you've got if you're listening to this episode and you have a neurodiverse child they 100 there is no differentiator that was not a truth and there's no scale or degree it is simply not telling the truth and so i think we need to consider and really think about why might i be saying this and and okay it might feel particularly uncomfortable for me to be honest but actually i don't feel like going to that particular event i've had a really busy week and i know i'm letting you down last minute but i really don't think that that is something that i can't do is really thinking about our relationship with the truth our relationship around the blurring of lines around the slight exaggerations because that's also a you know there's a crucial part of raising our children is modeling to them we don't have to be perfect nobody's perfect doesn't exist but it is around that you know what are some of the things that i might be doing that might be sending conflicting messages to my child now i hope that that was really helpful it's quite in depth there's a lot to it and i certainly would recommend if this is something that is that you're sort of listening to and thinking actually that's quite interesting this really resonates with my child you might find it helpful to re-listen you may even find it helpful to go to the website www.drmaryhand.com and actually look if you go into the podcast section of the website you can then search for the more broader episode that was around lying and that might give you some other sort of subtle sort of areas or even then go into some of the episodes around confidence and self-esteem for a few more really direct strategies around how you can bolster that now as ever and as you know my mission my goal my ambition for 2025 is to grow the podcast tenfold. That's to reach one over one million downloads at the end of the year. And I can do that with your help if you are willing. And it is simply a case of if you've enjoyed this podcast episode, if you found it helpful, if you find listening to the podcast really helpful, then tell two friends, tell them about this episode or another episode, share it with them. Because if we can all, if we can just do that, if we can all just share with two friends, colleagues, neighbours, grandparents, nannies, babysitters, then the growth will just happen. And that tenfold goal will happen. So thank you very much. As ever, if you've enjoyed this podcast, I would be very grateful if you could follow, rate and review so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. I hope you found it helpful. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye.
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