Toddlers and preschoolers live in an interesting world of fantasy and pretend to be a cartoon themselves; they play Santa Clause, wicked witches, make-believe on demand, and so on. Their storytelling often reveals hidden fears. Toddlers and preschoolers can be convinced of almost anything. If they want to believe something, they can convince themselves of the truth even in the form of biggest lie. Lying signals is the step towards freedom or independence, they want to stretch their wings and push their way from parental control. Here the problem starts, as a parent’s job, is to understand the flavor of the lie and tell your child of the benefits of telling the truth. Knowing that the truth is important to you will make being honest more important to your child.
 
To prevent this problem:
Offer praise when you know you’re hearing the truth, whether it’s truth about something bad that happened or something good. This helps to understand the difference between what’s true and what’s not. E.g. when your child wants something like sweets from you, by lying to him, you’re telling him that it’s okay to lie when he wants to get out of doing something unpleasant. Learn the flavors of lying and lying comes in a variety of flavors. A more pungent flavor is lying to get out of doing something unpleasant. And then there’s the ever popular, extra smooth lying that gets whipped up when children try to impress others with comments like, “I have three horses that I get to ride every day. So there.” Be empathetic with them. Understand the flavor of lying your child is using and respond accordingly. For example, when your child tells you that he didn’t mark his bedroom wall with crayons even though you know he did, tell him, “I understand that you don’t want to be punished, but I am more disappointed that you choose to lie rather than tell the truth. You can always tell me the truth so we can fix the problem together.” Your child will feel more comfortable facing the music and telling the truth when he knows you’ll be sensitive to his feelings. Look for people and events that demonstrate honesty and truth. Point these out to your preschooler to reinforce your message that being honest is important.
How to solve this problem?
When your child is caught in a lie, explain to him how it hurts him as well as you. It makes you feel sad that you can’t trust what he says. Preschoolers don’t always know that what they are saying is a lie because it might seem like –the truth to them. Help your child understand the difference between reality and fantasy. When you send your son to do a chore such as putting the toys away in his room, he might lie to get out of doing the job by telling you that he already did it. You can be reasonably sure he’s avoided his responsibility. Check it out! If you discover that he lied, say, “I am sorry you choose to lie about doing what I asked. I know you didn’t want me to be disappointed, but doing what I ask to tell the truth is important.” When your child lies to you, he’s letting you know he needs practice telling the truth. To help your child understand the difference between truth and fiction, set aside time for him to make up stories. Then contrast this make-believe time with true time in which he’s asked to tell the truth about what happened.
Just keep in your mind, when you catch your child telling a lie, in order to stay out of trouble, don’t punish him for doing so. Instead, teach him how to accept responsibility for making a mistake and to fix the problem is caused. Avoid exaggerating or making up stories to impress people, avoid consequences, or get out of doing what you don’t what to do. Even if you’ve said a hundred times that you can’t stand a liar, going ballistic when your child lies only forces him to avoid telling the truth in order to keep you from being mad. Don’t make lying a self fulfilling prophecy. Your child isn’t what he does. You might not love his behavior, but you’ll always love him unconditionally. Because children are very sensitive, and he or she is like the most precious gift you got from God.