How to deal with a child who has started lying

There is a reason for all behaviors.
We act in any particular way, because stand to gain some thing.
Lying is an automatic response of most of us when we are in situations which we find difficult to handle or want to avoid.

When your child lies ,there is a good reason behind it. Either he wants to be exempted from doing something or he has done something knowingly or unknowingly, for which he will be punished or reprimanded.

Confronting the child is one way of handling but it usually backfires becoz when the person consistently denies, you are stuck. Even if you have evidence for your accusation, being caught and cornered may lower the self esteem of the child and/or arouse anger in the child.

One of the ways to handle lying and for that matter any negative situation is, focus on what you expect from the child, what should have been done- get it done eg. You want child to complete his school work and report whatever is done in class, check the almanac/ diary every day and keep a vigil on the child's activities.

Lying or any other undesirable behaviour is only an indication that you are not attending to your child enough.

Kindly don't panic- your child will not become anti social if lies or steals as a child. That could happen only if we don't do anything about it- he will learn it okay to trespass the boundaries.

Be very careful with the kind of words you use for and with your child- never ever use words with negative connotations.
Remember your child is just a child, learning the ways of the world and in the process is bound to make mistakes.
Help him learn from them.