SKIRMISHER

Ever used the line, “You have to sleep now, Tom, or the horrible booger monster will come out of your rectum, eat your shit, slice your testicles to paper-thin shreds, then make you smell its hairy nuts” to your beloved kid who just wouldn’t take a nap? It’s a terrible “lie,” of course, but it’s actually an effective, although double-edged, parenting trick, say some scientists who swear they’re not actually lying:

From claiming the existence of magical creatures to odd consequences of kids’ actions, parents often come up with creative tales to shape a child’s behaviors and emotions.

“We are surprised by how often parenting by lying takes place,” said study researcher Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, Canada. “Our findings showed that even the parents who most strongly promoted the importance of honesty with their children engaged in parenting by lying.”

Lee and colleagues acknowledge that their work is preliminary, bringing to the forefront an issue that is rarely studied. They are not sure the implications of parental lying, but suggest such tall tales could give kids mixed messages at a time when they are trying to figure out how to navigate the social world.

Lies could also harm parent-child bonds, said study researcher Gail Heyman of the University of California, San Diego.

It could even keep children from learning certain rules. “If I am always lying to the child in order to get the child to do X, Y, or Z, then they have never learned why they should do X, Y, or Z,” said Victoria Talwar of McGill University in Montreal, who was not involved in the current study. “If it’s constantly being used, [lying] may be preventing learning opportunities for the child.”

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