 Dr. John Lutz
has been enjoying his work with children, adolescents, and
their families for the past twenty years. He employs
solution-focused and cognitive-behavioral therapies to help clients
achieve their goals over a brief period of time. His
experience in school settings, hospitals, and outpatient
clinics has provided opportunities to help children and
adolescents with a variety of issues. Dr. Lutz
helps children with school and behavioral issues, including
ADHD evaluations and treatment. He provides services for
children and teens dealing with divorce, grief, or
trauma. He works with clients who seek help
with anxiety, as well. His approach to working with
families emphasizes collaboration with parents to identify and enhance
the strengths of their child as well as those of their family.
Dr. Lutz earned his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at the
Illinois School of Professional Psychology in Chicago. He is
a licensed Health Service Provider in Clinical Psychology in
Massachusetts and a member of the American Psychological Association. |
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Like adults,
children lie for a variety of reasons. For example, a child
receives
poor grades on a report card and is afraid to show it to her parents
and hear their reaction. So instead of having to deal with
those
consequences, she might lie-- claiming that the report cards haven't
been issued yet. Or a youngster may lie after a misdirected
pitch
shatters the kitchen window, afraid of the consequences and the
punishment. Children may also lie to protect their privacy,
avoid
embarrassment, cover up for low self-esteem, and to gain the respect of
peers.
Even
a very young child will lie to avoid blame. In the
black-and-white
world of the preschooler, one is either all good or all bad and good
people don't do bad things. Since the youngster wants to be
thought of
as good, the child may deny responsibility for a "bad" act.
By the
time a child is seven or eight, she has the intellectual capability to
understand that a lie is an intentional act of deception.
Your
elementary school child understands the principles of cause and effect
and can map out a logical route in her mind of the steps she must go
through to get what she wants. A lie, in a sense, is a
shortcut.
However, as the child gets older, she becomes more capable of
understanding the negative consequences of lying. She may see
that she
can deceive her parents sometimes but the result is that they don't
trust her, and this causes her more problems than facing the short-term
consequences of not getting what she wants.
How
concerned should a parent be about lying? In most cases,
lying is not
a major problem unless it becomes a habit and you see your child lying
in many contexts (school, home, with friends). Habitual lying
in a
child who understands what it means to lie may later be associated with
more serious antisocial behavior such as stealing, drug or alcohol
abuse, and other forms of delinquent behavior.
This
is not to imply that you should ignore lying. Remember,
though, that
you want your child to feel that he can always come to you, no matter
what he's done. Your goal should be to help him learn from
his
mistake. Here are some guidelines that you may find useful in
dealing
with lying:
- Remain calm. If you yell
or berate your child, it will be more difficult for him to tell the
truth and admit his mistake next time.
- Convey the message that it is the behavior not the
child that is bad.
- Try to help the child understand why he lied, and
what he could have done instead in the situation.
- Always
praise your child for telling you and admitting his mistake.
Children
who grow up in homes where they feel safe in admitting their mistakes
are more likely to become honest, moral adults.
- Be mindful
of your own behavior. A child who hears her parent refuse an
invitation to a party with the lie that she will be out of town can
only be confused when the parent admonishes her for lying.
Discuss the
dilemma that can occur in social situations: to tell the truth and risk
someone's feelings or lie. Help the child develop her ethical
thinking
by discussing the pros and cons of such complex situations.
- Don't lie yourself--you must set an example.
- When in doubt, believe that your child is telling the
truth.
- If
your child is caught telling a lie, help her learn that there are
consequences by asking what she thinks you should do about the
issue.
If the child is harder on herself than the parent would be and suggests
a worse punishment than you would have given, then the child is
revealing that she is developing a conscience and has feelings of
guilt. Talk over those feelings with your child and the
importance of
telling the truth.
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