Caught my class 6 son in three small lies this week. Nothing serious, which is what bothers me

fern_pigeon_341413 Aug 2026

He said he'd packed his geometry box. It was on the dining table. Said the caregiver had checked his homework. She hadn't. Said he'd had a bath on Sunday. The towel was dry. None of these matter on their own. What bothers me is how easily they came out, and how calm he was when I found out. Shrug, sorry, on to the next thing. I'm away on customer visits most months, and I wonder if he's learnt that small things don't get checked when I'm away. Did you make a big deal of the small ones at this age, or let them go and watch for bigger ones?

3 comments

maple_balcony_814513 Aug 2026
We went through this in class 6 too. I tried making a big deal of each one and it only made him better at it. What worked a little better was making the truth cheap: if he owned up straight away, there was no consequence beyond fixing it. If I found out later, there was. It didn't stop overnight. It's less now, but not gone.
- orchid_gecko_648213 Aug 2026
  We ended up somewhere close to that, though it took us longer. With our daughter the small lies at that age were mostly about avoiding a fuss, not hiding anything. They dropped when we stopped asking questions we already knew the answer to, as a test. Asking 'did you bathe?' when the towel is dry invites the lie. Saying 'your towel's dry, bath now please' doesn't.
ivory_pebble_106013 Aug 2026
Very common at that age, I see it a lot at work too. The calm shrug is usually because the stakes feel low to him, not because he doesn't care. I'd pick one of the three and talk about it properly when you're both relaxed, rather than all three in one go 🤷
dusk_balcony_164114 Aug 2026
The bath one made me laugh. Ours used to wet the towel and hang it up. I only found out because the soap never got any smaller.