Parental lying may have long-term effects on children’s wellbeing, new OISE co-study finds

Parents may think that telling their kids a white lie here and there doesn’t hurt, but recent research has found that children exposed to parental lying may experience negative impacts in the future. 

An international team comprising researchers from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Singapore Nanyang Technological University, and the University of California, San Diego has been investigating “parenting by lying,” which refers to how parents use lies to influence their children’s emotions or behaviours. 

The researchers asked young adults from different countries to report their parents’ use of parental lies when growing up. They also assessed whether they had mental health issues in adulthood. They also asked parents about their current use of parenting by lying and assessed their children’s tendency to lie, attachment, and mental health issues.

Their findings, published recently in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, show parental lying to be very common around the world. More than 80 per cent of parents admitted to having lied to their children, and over 90 per cent of adults reported their parents having lied to them at some point in childhood. 

The research also reveals that greater exposure to these parenting lies is correlated with increased lying to parents, anxiety, depression, and poor attachment in adolescence and adulthood. 

“While an occasional white lie may seem harmless, our work indicates everyday deceptions parents use could backfire in unintended ways," says Professor Kang Lee, the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Moral Development and Developmental Neuroscience and a lead author of the study.

Dr. Peipei Setoh, another lead author from Singapore Nanyang Technological University, suggests, “Parents should think carefully about the message repeated lies may convey and whether there are more constructive ways to handle situations without resorting to lies”.  

The study provides a foundation for continued research to unpack the complex dynamics around this understudied but universal parenting practice of lying to children. Their findings could help guide parental education on using honesty constructively in child-rearing.