kids

The parenting style proven to make your kid a liar.

Strict parenting could be helping children to become “effective” liars, as they don’t feel comfortable telling the truth – academics claim.

Canadian psychologist Victoria Talwar conducted a “peeping game” experiment with two groups of three and four-year-old West African children.

The children – who were made-up of a strict school group and a relaxed school group – were told not to peek at a toy when left alone in a room.

When the researchers asked if they had looked, the majority of the children from the strict school lied about peeking at the toy.

However, “significantly fewer children” from the laid-back school lied.

“The children from the very punitive school were very quick to lie and they all lied really, really well,”  Ian Leslie – author of Born Liars: Why We Can’t Live Without Deceit – told the Daily Mail.

“So actually by cracking down really hard on lying, the school had become a machine for turning out very skilled and effective little liars.”

The good little liars were even able to “better maintain their deception” than the other children when answering follow-up questions.

“A punitive environment not only fosters increased dishonesty but also children’s abilities to lie to conceal their transgressions,” the study suggests.

Psychotherapist Philippa Perry told the Daily Mail:  “I found it interesting that there was all this research saying that if you take a draconian attitude towards lying you just makes people better at it.

“If a child lies to get out of trouble then that lie is not all down to the child, it’s a co-created situation.  The atmosphere has been produced whereby the child does not feel safe telling the truth. So you can’t condemn the child for lying.”

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