Why Kids Lie, and why it’s difficult to detect their lies
By Ahmad Amirali
‘Sir, I will not come to school because I am not feeling well’, ‘Sir, my monthly evaluations are going to start so I will not come in today’s class’, ‘Sir, my aunt, passed away, I will not come today’. These are the messages which I normally received by an absentee. Although, I eventually find out that all these were excuses (lies) when the absent students’ deceased aunt called me to inform about her nephew’s (my student) cello classes. The cello sessions were the reason behind his skipping my classes but why he lied about it? Instead, he can share the real reason and we might sort out the middle way. What makes him think that I would rather lie to my sir instead of being truthful.
However, my concerns are slightly more severe when I realise and ask myself why I was unable to detect my students lies? Is lie at an early age diminishes the capability of learning and comprehending in children? Should we punish children for being a liar? Developmental researcher Kang Lee studies what happens physiologically to children when they lie. They do it a lot, starting as young as two years old, and they’re good at it. Lee explains why we should celebrate when kids start to lie and present new lie-detection technology that could someday reveal our hidden emotions.
Let’s watch a TED talk in which Kang Lee share his 20 years of research on student behaviour and social cognition and answer some of the above-listed questions about student untruthful-behaviour.