Like adults, children also want to avoid painful experiences. Often their fantasy and imaginative worlds offer more pleasure than reality does. They like to bend the truth to make it fit with the way they want things to be. In their pretend play children do this all the time. Two-year-old Jane becomes the bossy Mummy who leaves her dolly to go out shopping - it is much more fun that way round than to be left by Mummy when she goes out. Robbie, the same age, flies high in a 'real' space ship up over his house, able to see and control what the grown-ups are doing - much more fun for him too, than to be the smallest and youngest in a large and bewildering family.
FACT AND FICTION
Young children often find it hard to tell the difference between what is real and what is pretend. They insist it really is Daddy speaking on the toy telephone; they firmly believe that if you tap on the bottom of the ice cream carton, more will come. Their view is that if you want something enough, then it will happen. The truth about the real world is inconvenient and is dismissed. They will tell others about their wishes with complete conviction, as if they were real. In their minds, reality and wishes are the same thing.
As adults and educators, we encourage the development of such imaginative beliefs in children. We see it as an essential part of growing up. It is a first step towards learning to enjoy fiction and 'untruths' in many forms: novels, films, TV, jokes. We actively mislead children at this stage. We encourage them in their beliefs about Father Christmas and tooth fairies.
Gradually, as children get older, they become much more able to distinguish between fact and fantasy. This is one of the tasks of becoming an adult, although all of us, whatever our age, have moments when it is hard to make the distinction very well! Children at nursery and infant schools, in particular, struggle to differentiate, though. It is hard for them to work out the difference between what is real and what is pretend. It is common for these children to relapse into the 'wishful thinking' of their toddlerhood and simultaneously dismiss the real evidence around them.
ESCAPING PAIN
This is not to say they knowingly and intentionally distort their perceptions of the world. They are unaware of what they are doing, but they do it as a way of avoiding pain. At stressful times, when they would rather not acknowledge a painful situation, it is normal for older children to revert to ways of coping that served them well in the past. To avoid the pain, they will return to their familiar world of make-believe. They do not want to see the truth and so they use fantasy to make it disappear.
Four-year-old Johnny, perfectly capable of knowing when he or his friends are playing 'let's pretend', is jealous when his friend comes to school in a Batman outfit, and asserts that he has one at home. Mary proudly announces to her teacher she is flying in an aeroplane to New York to visit her father, when in reality her father has gone there on a business trip.
Children often respond to potentially humiliating situations with such massaging of the truth. And what more potentially humiliating situation is there than the prospect of getting into trouble? They will sometimes respond to a fear of punishment by denying the truth and bending it in a way that is more favourable to them.
This leads to, for example, Michael declaring, 'It wasn't me who kicked Fred, it was Tracy.' Such declarations are particularly common in children who for their own reasons are easily made to feel guilty or in children who may have experienced severe punishment in the past.
Just like adults who end up choosing to lie, these children find themselves forced into awkward corners from which lying becomes the only means of escape without having to experience what they fear will be painful humiliation and punishment. But when should we be worried by a tendency in a young child to revert to such distortions of the truth, and what should we do about it?
It is difficult to say categorically at what stage a child is capable of wilfully and deliberately telling lies. Most under-fives could not be said to be intentionally misleading, but there is a risk that children who are not helped to learn alternative ways to deal with painful situations could develop into more habitual deliberate liars. If their attempts to distort the truth pay off there will be little incentive for them to find other, better-adapted ways of coping with hard reality.
AVOID ACCUSATIONS
This does not mean you should confront the child with accusations of telling lies, though. This is only likely to humiliate him further, pushing him deeper into a corner where he will feel under greater pressure to tell more lies in an attempt to dig himself out. It could easily escalate into an exciting and dramatic battle of wills. A better tactic is to try to understand what is making it necessary for the child to escape from reality, and to gently help them understand the need for honesty and trust in relationships.
What is important is to try to understand why the child feels the need to insist that his dreams are true. Why is Johnnie feeling so humiliated by Tommy having a Batman outfit that he needs to say he has one too, even though he does not? Is it that if Johnnie felt better about himself, less easily humiliated, he would have less need to resort to make-believe?
When a child lies as a way to avoid punishment, it's helpful if they are told the feared consequence will not occur and that, instead, the adult or carer involved will try to understand what prompted the incident. If, for example, Michael is less frightened of vindictive punishment and is helped to understand that the adults around him know everyone has angry feelings sometimes, then he will feel less need to disguise his sense of responsibility for kicking Fred. He can then be encouraged to think about other more appropriate ways of dealing with his anger, rather than being sidetracked into whether or not he is lying. Above all, it is important to acknowledge the child's wish for things to be different and their struggle with such intense wishes.
FURTHER INFORMATION
* The Anna Freud Centre in north London is a registered charity, offering treatment, training and research into emotional development in childhood. Website: http://www.annafreudcentre.org
