Last night my family and I watched Brain Games on the National Geographic Channel. It’s one of our favorite shows. In it they walk the viewers through all kinds of mental experiments demonstrating the odd ways in which our brains function and process. Last night’s episode was all about lying.
At first we worried about allowing our kids to watch a show that seemed to glorify lying. They gave statistics on how many adults lie, and it is even greater than children. WHAT? Kids, don’t listen to that! It’s not true. We adults always tell the truth. But then they started showing how easy it is to tell if someone IS lying. First and most importantly, lack of eye contact is not a giveaway, as much as we all think it is. However, some sort of unintentional physical movement can give you away. The piercing of the lips, the extra use of hands, the nodding of the head can all be involuntary reflexes when you’re lying.
So now I want to figure out what physical reaction, or “tell” as they call it on the show, my kids have when they lie. The way to do it? Ask your kids to intentionally answer a few questions wrong. They can be anything, the color of their shirt, their favorite game, their name. You don’t have to tell them you’re trying to see if they’re lying. It can just be a game. Now, watch to see if they do some sort of repetitive physical thing each time. If you can hone in on something, you may have your secret weapon.
My youngest can’t help but raise his shoulders and smirk slightly when he lies. My other two, however, are a little harder to read. They two of them work very hard NOT to look like they’re lying. That sort of makes them look as if their gestures are forced thereby giving them away.
But try the lying experiment at home and see if you can figure out your child’s “tell”. We apparently all have them because of the way our brain works. When we have to tell a lie our brain kicks into overdrive because we have to not only avoid saying the truth, we also have to think of a lie. This more complex thinking causes us to alter our physical reflexes.
The scary thing is that my kids ARE really good liars. Either that, or I’m too gullible. Regardless, Brain Games did give me some solace. They claim that children who lie a lot are actually showing signs of a type of cognitive development. They are learning how to manipulate the world around them to attain a desired effect. This is not necessarily a bad thing. They said the children who lie a lot don’t necessarily turn into dishonest people. Phew! We can all exhale now. It also said the best person to lie to sometimes is yourself because it often means we have an inflated view of ourselves and hence have a greater expectation for outcome. So kids, lie to yourself all you want. Just don’t lie to MOM!
You know I love feedback, so try it at home and let me know if you figure out your kids’ “tells”.
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