In which I make up another crackpot theory

I was listening to a Hidden Brain episode one day last week about how our brains become easily accustomed to something. It's why the fifth bite of chocolate cake is just a tiny bit less amazing than the first, why we become sensitized to smells, and why things that feel scary at first become less and less so the more we do them. 

One of the really interesting bits of information was that the more a person lies, the easier lying becomes. (Don't worry, I'm not heading into political, let's rehash the debate territory. I just don't have the bandwidth. It's safe to keep reading if you feel the same.) I heard this on the heels of yet another discussion with a parent over their child's lying. 

I've mentioned before that lying as a behavior related to past trauma is one of the very last behaviors to be mitigated by connective parenting. I knew that often lying was very much a trust and safety issue; children lie because it is a way to keep themselves safe in situations where they feel otherwise. But this has never quite explained to me why it is such a long process to come to an end. 

When we were figuring out to help our children who were prone to raging, it seemed to me that moving into rage was hair trigger and almost habitual. I decided that circumventing the cycle, doing everything we could to avoid any triggers that would result in rage would help to reset that reaction. This was certainly not all we did, but I think I was definitely on the right track.

What if lying falls into the same category? If brains become habituated to telling lies, what if opportunities to lie were removed, thus ending the habituation cycle. After some time, the hesitancy to tell a lie (along with a good bit of felt safety) would be put back into place. The brain science I was hearing about would support this. 

Actually our own experience supports this. We stopped asking questions that would cause a fearful child to tell a lie. I'll admit it was hard at first, because that desire to ferret out the truth, of hearing the child admit to something runs strong. But by doing so, I'm pretty convinced that the season of lying as a defense mechanism will be prolonged. 

I know many parents worry about lying. It is easy to fall into the thinking that if a child tells a lie there is some moral failing within them to be addressed. But what if a child is lying because they feel they will be in peril if they tell the truth? Is that a moral failing? I think not. It actually is saying far more about the relationship between parent and child than anything else. 

If you want to stop lying from a child I see three important things that need to happen. 1. Address the underlying need. How often do you fly off the handle if the truth is told? Can your child trust you to remain calm and sane? Children need adults to not get scary in response to their own fear. 2. Don't habituate lying. This means you don't back a child into a corner with questions they feel afraid to answer. There are many other ways of working through a situation rather than demanding a full confession. 3. Model honesty. Tell the truth even when it's hard. And certainly do not hold up public figures as role models who are so habituated in their own lying that they have become incapable of actually telling the truth. Role models do matter.