Does your teen ever lie to you?

Research shows that at least 98% of teens sometimes lie to their parents. They lie about the things you’d expect;  where they’re going, who they’re with, whether they did their homework or their chores, their alcohol and drug use.

But the general consensus among researchers and mental health professionals is that teens who lie are not only normal, but it’s more worrisome when they don’t. Teens who do not fib at least a little bit, are usually too dependent on their parents – to an unhealthy degree.

So, yay, your teen’s normal, right?

And luckily, as with most everything else, this “symptom” of adolescence, dissipates by adulthood. Most of us are honest, most of the time, actually.

But what sort of lying do teens do and why do they do it? Why is lying such a staple of adolescence?  And what the heck can you possibly do about it? Stick around and find out.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that that teaches you the science of parenting adolescents so you can be less stressed and more excited about having a teenager. I’m Ann Coleman, I’m an attorney turned parent educator and I’ve spent years studying the science of teen behavior and I want to help you learn how to parent your teens for the best possible outcome.

What makes a lie, a lie? Just like with most crimes, it’s the intent. The intent your teen has to make you believe something that they know isn’t true – to keep you from having the information you want. There are three different ways they do it.

They may lie by avoidance – which is a real skill. If they’re good at it, they can  manipulate a conversation to keep you from even asking them the question they don’t want to answer! The intent is to keep you in the dark and they do it by steering you off course, avoiding the topic.

Lying by omission is more often their favorite way of keeping info from you. They can be very adept at selectively omitting the very facts they know you would be most likely interested in knowing. They’ll tell you the truth, but they’ll intentionally leave out those really meaty morsels.

They’re able to get away with much more this way because they will claim they “didn’t realize”, or that they “didn’t really lie because they didn’t blatantly say anything that wasn’t true”.

It’s just like something an attorney would argue. “Well, my client didn’t technically lie. You asked if the parents were going to be at the party and they said yes. You didn’t ask if they were going to be at the party all night.”

Teens also, of course, lie by commission. This is when they tell you something that is just completely false. They tell you it’s not their vape pen when it is, or they tell you they’re going one place and instead go somewhere else.

And actually, teens don’t do this nearly as much as the other two, but when they do and you find out, it makes it even harder for you to trust them again.

Now, let’s talk about a few reasons you think teens lie…but that scientific research shows is simply not the case at all.

For example:

• They don’t lie simply to be rebellious – not in the true sense of the word - not out of ill will or maliciousness towards you or just to prove they don’t have to obey your rules.
• They don’t lie out of spite or to get back at you for something
• They don’t lie to “see if they can get away with it”
• They generally don’t lie just because their friends do (in middle school, maybe, but not by high school.)
• They don’t lie to “test your boundaries” – they are not looking at it that way.

Teens lie more than any other reason, because they’re trying to protect their own rights and freedoms. Their right to live their life the way they see fit, to make their own decisions and do what they know is right. They lie to assert their autonomy.

So, stop looking at it from your point of view. You need to be able to see this is not them doing something to you. This is about protecting and asserting their own autonomy. Remember this is the biggest goal of adolescence – become their own person, establish their own identity, make their own decisions.

So, they lie when they feel you’re moving too far over into their domain. I’ll talk about this in a minute.

Another reason teens lie is to avoid consequences or punishment. This could happen any time a kid breaks an established rule. And often they break the rule because they don’t see it as fair in the first place (so you could still say this is just another effort to establish their autonomy after the fact).

Teens also often lie to avoid feeling they’ve disappointed you. They don’t want the “I’m so disappointed in you” speech so they lie to avoid seeing you disappointed and having to feel the shame of it.

So, those are the main 3 reasons researchers have found for teens lying to parents. Asserting their autonomy, avoiding consequences, and avoiding disappointing parents.

If we’d thought hard about it, we could have probably figured that out. Yet, we don’t usually see past the single lie in front of us at the moment. We may, in fact, read much more into it than we should.

 How can you do your best to assure that your teen doesn’t lie to you?

The most basic answer is to be an authoritative parent.

Years of scientific research throughout the world, involving teens from very different cultures, proves that teens are more likely to accept your parental authority and feel they should do what you want them to do, if you are more authoritative: kind but firm.

If you’ve listened to the podcast a while you’ve heard me talk about this. Authoritarian parents, those with the “my way or the highway” attitude – the “obey me or else” parents – they’re the ones who are going to have more trouble than they can handle with their teens.

You want to adopt the authoritative skills the techniques I talk about on this podcast and teach in Parent Camp, if you want to avoid as many struggles as possible during adolescence, including lying. Teens who are parented by authoritative parents are more likely to want to please them and much less likely to have a reason to lie. So, if your teen is lying, it just means you need to work on your authoritative parenting skills a bit more.

 

 

You have to learn how to better support their autonomy – to be reasonable and flexible about distinguishing between your teen’s personal domain and yours - no unilateral, unreasonable, or overreaching rules. You can’t hold on to the same amount of parental control as you had when they were kids – accept that you’re their guide now – no longer a manager.

I’ve talked about this many times before – the issues you should exert control over, have rules for and which things are better left to them as they move into adolescence. If it’s dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or closes a door better left open, those are things in your domain – issues you should discuss with them and for which you should agree upon the rules in advance. Anything that does not fall into one of those categories should be in their own personal domain – they get to decide.

If you step over into their personal domain,– they’ll have no choice but to exert their own control any way they can.

If you attempt to control or pry into all aspects of your teen’s life – if you demand obedience above all else and show little in the way of listening, negotiating, warmth and emotional support, if it’s all about making them do what they’re told…you’ll not only create conflict, but you’ll create an environment where lying and disconnection are the norm – they’ll feel they have no choice but to lie to you.

 

One area where many of us trip up and cross the line is by invading their privacy. It’s so hard to know where our right and duty to monitor and supervise, veers into their domain – invades their privacy.

How do you walk this line?

Several years ago, there was a longitudinal study done over a period of 3 years on almost 500 families. Here’s what they found happens in this dance between parents and teens over the teens’ need for privacy and a parent’s need for control:

• Your teen has a innate need to keep some things private. And sometimes they keep secrets because they’ve either done something or are thinking about doing something that they think you may not approve of, and
• When you feel they’re keeping something from you, you go on red alert. You know something’s up, you just can’t put our finger on it, so
• You start snooping and digging around to figure it out (oh, I’ve been there), then
• Your teen finds out and gets pissed. They start pushing back and complain that you’re up in their business and feel like you have to know everything, and
• You find out nothing, because
• Your teen become more secretive – if they were talking to about anything, they stop talking now, which
• Makes you crazier with anxiety and wanting to snoop even more!

Now, that doesn’t sound very scientific, but that sums up exactly what the study found.

So, when your secret-radar goes off, you’d be much better off with an honest and open conversation with your teen.

But what’s the central issue here? Yes, there’s a conflict between the teen’s right of privacy and the parent’s right to control, but what’s the deeper issue?

It’s trust, isn’t it?

Parents smell secrecy and suddenly feel distrustful. And the minute you start distrusting your teen, they become incensed at your lack of trust (whether it was warranted or not).

Unfortunately, research tells us that mothers are much less trusting of their teens than they should be. And one very important marker of a good parent-child relationship is whether the kid feels their parent trusts them. And according to research, the more trusted a kid feels, the more likely they are to be trustworthy and to maintain that trust.

“But what if I trust them when I shouldn’t? What if I miss something? I can’t guide or parent them properly if I don’t know what they’re doing.”

So…you snoop, and you pry a bit, you fish around with lots of questions.

It’s a mad cycle – their fear of breaking a rule or of our disapproval (often because the rule is inching over into their domain) leads to their secrecy, which leads to your prying and spying and snooping, which leads to greater secrecy and even more intense snooping!

And what generally happens is they feel their privacy has been obliterated, you end up with less information than you may need to guide them, there’s tons of conflict and disconnection and your teen is more likely to get into some sort of trouble. Not good.

Here’s the crazy thing. You’d be better able to keep your teen safe, you’d know more about their life, what they’re doing, who they’re with, and you’d have more influence in their life, if you’d just back up a little bit.

You have to give them the benefit of the doubt. You’ve got to let go of some of the control you had that first 10 or 12 years of their life.

You have to envision these last few years you have with them under your roof, as a training ground for adulthood. You have to give them more control, start respecting their needs as a person growing into young adulthood; their need to make decisions, have control over their own space, have information that only they’re privy to, have secret opinions and ideas and desires for only them to know.

They’re your child but they’re also a growing individual – a person just like you. And you should afford them as much of this privacy and control as you can as long as it doesn’t put them in harms’ way, doesn’t breach your family’s values or ethics, isn’t against the law and doesn’t end up preventing them from the future they want.

Doing this – being this kind of parent will get you what you ultimately desire - a closer connection to your teen, which will lead to more information coming from your teen and ultimately more influence in their life.

This approach is really about the only way you’re going to get information about them that won’t lead to a breakdown of your relationship. And this kind of emotional connection means they will listen to you, ask for your advice, and do what you expect of them.

Because you’ve shown them through your actions and your words that you love them, you support them emotionally, and that you’re as fair as you are firm. Because they know you won’t freak out and punish them when they share something with you; when they need you to get them out of a bad spot at a party, or when they tell you they’re considering having sex for the first time, or they tell you their best friend did cocaine last night.

So, we’ve established that basically all teens lie to parents sometimes and that it’s pretty normal behavior.

We know they lie when they’re afraid they’ll get in trouble, when they’re afraid they’ll disappoint and when they’re asserting their autonomy.

Of course, none of that means you should just accept it and move on. On the other hand, you know if you come right out and challenge their lie in anger, it’s not going to end well. So, as with any potentially emotional encounter with your teen, you’re going to need to pause and take a deep breath and make sure you’re calm before saying anything.

And, depending on the lie, you might approach it one of 3 different ways.

If it’s just a tiny little lie and you know that they know that you will know it’s a lie – “I couldn’t answer your text because my phone died, and my backup battery was dead, and I didn’t have my charger with me in the car.” You might just give them a cross-eyed glance and remind them that you know everything and that they might want to think about that a minute and try again.

If it’s a bit more serious than that, and your teen is totally invested in convincing you they’re telling the truth (but you know it absolutely is not)

Again, you don’t want to just come out and challenge our kid and accuse them of lying. The minute you do that, you’ll trigger their amygdala, they’ll go into fight or flight mode and will just dig their heels in, keep lying and get angry that you don’t believe them. They’ll defend their lie as if they had told the absolute truth. So, no challenging.

You want to simply listen carefully and respectfully to what they’re telling you (no eye rolls, arms crossed or sarcasm) and then as with any potentially emotional conversation, summarize what they said (again, without a hint of sarcasm or disbelief in your voice:

“Holy cow, 5 guys jumped you after school in the parking lot and threw your ipad to the ground – that’s why it's broken to pieces. Wow, I’m surprised you weren’t hurt anywhere, are you okay?”

Now what happens, when they hear the story they’ve just told you, coming out of your mouth, they may think better of it and might just do a little self-correction.

You know they’re telling the lie because they don’t want to get in trouble for breaking the iPad. Maybe they took the case off (as you’ve instructed them 1,000 times NOT to do) and they dropped it in the school parking lot.

It’s possible when they hear you repeat their lie they’ll come around to the truth. But maybe they don’t. What then?

If it becomes obvious, they’re not going to break from the lie even after they’ve heard you repeat it back to them, rather than approaching it head on, you could simply say something like, “I love you to pieces babe but I’m having trouble with this. I’m going to go get dinner ready and give you a little time to think about what happened. If you think of anything you want to add or change, just let me know.”

Now, the most important thing to remember here – if they do come back to you with the truth – do not gloat or throw it in their face (I knew it!) AND do not issue consequences for them having lied in the first place.

They should not be punished for now having told you the truth – even though they lied about it to begin with.

If you impose a consequence for the lying, once they’ve told you the truth, they won’t feel bad about the lie, they’ll feel stupid that they then told you the truth. Next time they’ll lie better!

What if your teen has been in the habit of lying and you’ve grown to distrust them. And you just never know whether you believe what they tell you or not.

That’s a horrible position to be in – for both a teen who’s now trying to earn your trust back and for you who really wants to believe your kid. First, you need to examine your parenting, and if you feel you’ve been over the line, have a discussion with your teen and vow to course correct and give them more autonomy.

But while you’re working on this, and your teen tells you something you don’t believe, again, always start by reflecting what they tell you in a non-sarcastic tone and stay calm. Then tell them you regret needing to check up on what they tell you and that you understand that it has to suck to feel doubted, but that until they’ve displayed a pattern of telling the truth more often that they don’t, that you’ll have no choice but to follow up and verify what they tell you.

Let them know that if they continue to lie about things that they shouldn’t be lying about, that it may be time for family counseling to see if there’s something else going on that you just don’t see.

And if other negative behaviors are accompanying the lies your teen is telling, it also may be time to see a therapist or counselor before it gets too bad. If they’re stealing, using drugs, having major outbursts, you may need professional help just to getting to the root of the problem once you’ve corrected for your own behavior.

So, let’s wrap it up by agreeing that at least occasional lying is par for the course for pretty much all teens. We know they do it because they’re pushing for autonomy, they don’t want to get in trouble, or they don’t want to disappoint you.

If you want them to be less likely to lie to you and to open up and tell you what you need to know without snooping and prying, you need to use an authoritative parenting style that provides warmth and support but also sets limits and boundaries and enforces them consistently while supporting their autonomy.

No, it’s not natural for many of us. As a matter of fact, it can feel like swimming upstream in combat boots. But I have to remind you, as I did myself just a few years ago that no one said this parenting thing was going to be easy…(although, they could have given us a bit more of a warning about the teen years).

Okay, that’s it for Speaking of Teens today, I really appreciate you spending this time with me and I hope you got something out of today’s episode. If you did, do me a favor and share it with a friend or two. It really helps us grow the show and continue to bring you 2 episodes a week.

And if you’d like support from other parents doing this teen parenting thing, come on in and join the Facebook Group – we have over 800 parents who are kind and helpful and supportive and I’m in there every day as well.

But if you need more and want to learn from me directly, check out Parent Camp. The link for both are at the very bottom of the episode description, right where you’re listening.

Alright, until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.