​NTU study finds that the more you lie to your child, the more they will lie to you as an adult

In a recent study led by NTU, and done in collaboration with the University of Toronto, the University of California, San Diego, and Zhejiang Normal University, adults who reported being lied to more as children, were more likely to report lying to their parents in their adulthood. They also said they faced greater difficulty in meeting psychological and social challenges. Adjustment difficulties include disruptiveness, conduct problems, experience of guilt and shame, as well as selfish and manipulative character. While lying can be seen as a time saver to deal with a child insisting on asking “why” to every sentence you tell them, lead author Asst Prof Setoh Peipei from NTU Singapore’s School of Social Sciences says: “When parents tell children that ‘honesty is the best policy’, but display dishonesty by lying, such behaviour can send conflicting messages to their children. Parents’ dishonesty may eventually erode trust and promote dishonesty in children.”