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How to know when your child is lying to you

Lying is something that is often used as a defense by children. It is also done for fun and playing pranks. Though it can be tolerated and sometimes celebrated also, it is definitely not a quality that a parent would want a child to imbibe. Lying may develop into a serious problem if not detected and corrected at the young age. In extreme cases, it could provide the seed bed for criminal minds to develop. The parents can be the best polygraphs where a child is concerned and they should take steps to ensure that the child does not go on that path. Here are 8 ways you can spot that your kid is lying:

1. Eye expressions

When caught in a lie, the child will not able to see you in the eye. Avoiding eye contact is a tell-tale sign that the kid is telling tales! It will try to gaze at a distance. Also try to observe the blink rate. If the eyes are blinking too rapidly, it means that the kid is nervous. At the same time, no blinking at all indicates that it is concentrating hard, maybe on telling the lie.

2. Biting Lips

The child is trying to restrain from telling something to you. This will show as the smacking or biting of lips. There are variants of this suppression too. The child may plaster his/her hand across the mouth to avoid the beans from spilling out.

3. Excessive talk

This is another giveaway that may be a little difficult to catch. This is because, children are usually very energetic and by nature, they speak a lot. But when they are lying, this increases manifold. They will seem to be hyper excited and will speak a lot. This points to an effort to come up with a reasonably, believable story. And thus, you will see the kid mess up facts and give many far-fetched details.

Another distinct trait in this kind of story telling is the repetition. To reinforce the lie on itself and the listener, the child will repeat the same sentence many times. The repetition may almost tend to pleas of acceptance. Not only will the child repeat itself, it will also repeat whatever you say and even mimic you at times. This is a ploy to buy time and add fresh details into the ‘story’ being concocted! It should be easy to catch the lie and stop the kid in its tracks.

4. Change in voice tone

All said and done, a child is bound to be nervous while lying. This shows in the the tone change. The lie will be uttered in a lower voice and even a lower pitch maybe. When the point of lying comes, even the speed and tempo of thee speech will change. Lying makes the kids speak slowly. They will lower their volume and most probably speak between their teeth.

5. Wringing their hands

The excessive guilt of lying and concern at being caught expresses itself in the act of wringing hands. When lying, the hands of the child will usually become very fidgety and restless. A lot of wringing takes place. In order to hide that, the child may put the hands behind the back or even sit on them. These are attempts to look as innocent as possible.

6. Touching the head

Nervousness results in many involuntary actions. And scratching the head, rubbing the head or messing with the hair on the head are some such actions that can give the child away when it is lying. Though this is a voluntary action in most cases, sometimes the child does it purposely to get a cute, confused and innocent look. Be on the lookout for it!

7. Scratching the ear

It has been observed that whenever a kid lies, the ear lobes turn red! This may also trigger the child to play with the ear lobes or scratch behind the ears. And this scratching gets introduced very suddenly! However, you will have to discount this sign if the child is already suffering an itchy ear condition. Otherwise, this is a very good lie indicator.

8.The body language changes

Apart from the very significant acts of nervousness, there will be many indicators of the guilt and nervousness in the body language of the child also. The body positioning can be a very good indicator, If seated, the kid will suddenly sit up when the point of lying comes. There will a switch in the gestures. A sudden crossing of arms or shifting of the feet may indicate lying. If standing, the kid will have the tendency to shift their body weight between their legs.

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