“The Lasting Effects of Lying in Parenting: How Childhood Deceit can Affect Adulthood”

When I was young, I remember being told many times, “If you don’t follow me, I’ll throw it away” or “You picked it up from under the bridge over there.” She once said that her mother was abandoning her stubborn little brother, so she dragged her sister away while I cried, she says.

In addition, caregivers use lies or tricks big and small to change children’s behavior and emotional state, such as “The police man is taking me away” (My brother was scared when he saw the police car for a while and hid) or “I can’t buy it because I don’t have money.”

These are usually actions to escape a temporary embarrassing situation, but studies have shown that these lies can affect children’s growth longer than expected.

University of Toronto psychologist Rachel Jackson surveyed college students about how often they were lied to by their caregivers as children, as well as about their current relationships, anxiety, depression, and antisocial tendencies.

As a result, it was found that those who heard relatively more lies from their caregivers also lied more to their caregivers than those who did not, and also had higher anxiety, depression, antisocial tendencies, and a tendency to manipulate and control people around them.

Another study found that people who were told a lot of lies by their caregivers as children grew up with higher levels of anxiety, depression, and stress than those who didn’t. They did not have a good relationship with their caregivers during the growth process, and these factors also contributed to their anxiety and depression.

Researchers say that the use of lies and deceit in children can, on the one hand, give them a sense that some degree of lying and deceit is justified in order to achieve an end.

Researchers also emphasize that parenting is a constant “communication” process. Even if it takes some time, it is more important than anything else for the caregiver and the child to talk openly and understand and persuade each other.

The teacher I personally respect said that he went through a lot of persuasion, understanding, and compromise in the process of raising him. It is said that when each other’s arguments collide, the child and the caregiver each give reasons for their arguments and promise to make a more reasonable decision.

For example, when he said he didn’t want to go to school, he said that instead of threatening to go to school quickly, he asked what the reason was and told him to persuade himself.

In the course of such discussions, it is said that if there is actually a proper reason, the child decides what he wants, and if not, the child withdraws his or her own argument. It seems there are no shortcuts to parenting.

Santos RM, Zanette S, Kwok SM, Heyman GD and Lee K (2017) Exposure to Parenting by Lying in Childhood: Associations with Negative Outcomes in Adulthood. Front. Psychol. 8:1240. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01240

※Introduction of the author

Park Jin-young. He wrote “I am an okay person as I am now” and “To me who does not love me”. We are constantly communicating with readers through books that are easy to understand and empathize with psychological research that is helpful in life. He is active online under the pen name ‘Ji Nyong Nyong’. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Psychology at Duke University.