Children lie. I know it comes as no surprise to parents, but, nonetheless, children lie. (In reality, so do adults, but that’s a different blog.) Even though children lie, parents list honesty as a top priority in building their children’s character, with responsibility and respect coming in second and third (see Parent Survey). This begs the question: How can we increase our children’s honesty? You’re in luck, because researchers from Hangzhou Normal University completed a study asking that very question. And their answer is very interesting.

In this study, children between the ages of 3-years-old and 6-years-old engaged in a task in which dishonesty (cheating) might improve performance at times. Specifically, a researcher placed a toy animal behind each child’s backs and asked to identify it based on the sound it made. For instance, if the animal made a barking sound, they would identify it as a dog, a meow would identify it as a cat, etc.

The children were randomly assigned to two different groups One group was told to “try to do well, but don’t peek unless given permission.”  The second group was also told to “try to do well, but don’t peek unless given permission.” However, they were also told that a particular adult (a parent, a teacher, a coach) “would be happy if they followed the rules” or “would be sad if they didn’t.” Then they engaged in the game of identifying the unseen animal based on the sound it made. The first couple of animal sounds were simple to identify. However, the researcher then played a non-animal sound (like a leaf blower). Before the child answered, the researcher made an excuse to leave the room.

The child was left alone in the room with the toy that made the mysterious sound resting behind them. There were no adults present, only camera’s recording their behavior. Not surprisingly, a high number of children cheated in this situation. The temptation was just too great. They peeked.

However, children in the second group, the group in which children were either told that “an adult would be unhappy if they cheated” or “an adult would be happy if they followed the rules,” peeked significantly less. They cheated less if they had been told that an adult would be unhappy if they peeked or happy if they followed the rules.

I need to mention a couple of caveats:

• One, if the adult reportedly sad in response to cheating or happy in response to rule-following was identified as a stranger, it had no impact on the child’s dishonest behavior. If the adult was the child’s mother, however, it had a greater impact. It seems the level of intimacy associated with the relationship impacted the level of cheating.
• Two, if the child was 5-to 6-years-old, telling them the adult would be happy with them had little effect on their behavior. However, informing 3-to 4-year-olds that their mother would be happy if they did not cheat did reduce the percentage of children who cheated.
• Three, all ages were impacted by being told their mother would be unhappy if they cheated. This likely has to do with the moral development of the children that occurs between these ages.

What does this suggest as a way to increase your children’s level of honesty? First of all, develop a positive, loving relationship with your children. All effective discipline flows from a positive, loving relationship. Second, be honest with them about how their dishonesty would make you feel. Let them know that lying and dishonesty make you sad and that honesty makes you happy. This does not mean inducing guilt. Simply tell them that honesty “makes you happy” and dishonesty “makes you sad.” Doing so informs your children that you value the virtue of honesty and increases the chances of them practicing honesty more often.