A book can help with
For the little lies, the tall tales, and the terrible business of owning up.
Every child lies at some point, and mostly for very understandable reasons: to stay out of trouble, to look better than they feel, or because the made-up version is simply more interesting. It isn’t a sign of a bad character, it’s a stage, and how it’s handled matters more than the lie itself.
Books do the teaching without the telling-off. A story shows a small fib snowballing, or a character weighed down by a secret and then hugely relieved to have owned up, and a child feels the shape of it for themselves. That works far better than a lecture, which tends to make owning up harder rather than easier.
Here’s what I’d reach for. Find your child’s age and start there.
Little fibs
At this age the lies are small and usually about avoiding trouble. These show how a fib grows, and how much better it feels to come clean.
A boy lies about eating the cookies, and his lie takes the shape of a monster that grows bigger and follows him about until he finally tells the truth and it vanishes. Making the lie visible is brilliant for this age, because a child can see exactly how a fib weighs on you. Short, vivid and very effective.
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Finn breaks something and tells a small fib to cover it, then another to cover that, until the fibs are following him everywhere. From the same warm Big Bright Feelings series as Ruby’s Worry, it’s kind rather than moralising, and it makes owning up feel like a relief. Good for the child who lies to stay out of trouble.
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Truth, tact and trust
Older children can handle the subtler side: that trust is hard to rebuild, and that honesty and kindness sometimes need balancing.
Libby decides to tell nothing but the truth from now on, and discovers that blurting out every honest thing can hurt people badly. It introduces the more grown-up idea that honesty needs kindness alongside it. A thoughtful one for the child who’s very literal about telling the truth.
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Francisco lies about his grandfather’s experience to get him a day’s work, and his grandfather insists on putting it right, even at real cost. It’s a quietly powerful story about integrity mattering more than getting away with something. A wonderful read-aloud with plenty to talk about afterwards.
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When the truth costs something
By this age a child understands perfectly well what a lie is for, which turns honesty into a decision rather than a rule. Each of these has somebody choosing badly for a long while first.
A bag of money lands in Damian’s den and the brothers agree to say nothing, which turns out to be a great deal harder to keep up than either of them expected. The lying is not wicked, it is just easier at every single step, and that is what makes it recognisable. Funny, odd, and a Carnegie Medal winner.
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Chase falls off a roof, loses his memory, and has to learn from other people who he used to be. Facing that honestly is the whole book, and nobody lets him settle for a quick apology. Told from several points of view, including those of the children he hurt.
or on Bookshop.org
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Something to do together
A gentle page about what makes owning up hard, and a family promise that telling the truth always makes things smaller rather than bigger. I’m making it now, and it will live here soon.
Most children lie because the truth feels too dangerous to tell. The quickest way to raise an honest child is to make owning up survivable, so the truth stops costing more than the lie.
So try to react calmly when they confess, thank them for telling you before dealing with the thing itself, and let them see you own your own mistakes. A child who isn’t terrified of your reaction has far less reason to fib.
For you, the grown-up
There’s a companion page for grown-ups over on the main Book Quote Therapy library, with books for adults on truth and self-honesty.
Read the grown-up version →These pages are written for the grown-ups looking after a child: parents, teachers and carers. A good book can sit beside a worried child, though it never stands in for a real conversation, or for proper support when something feels too big to carry alone.