How do you know when someone is lying?

[Kathryn]

Hi all

 

This was the question my 16 year old posed last night. For days she has been very edgy and anxious: finally we found out why. She read something on a website accompanied by a threat to the effect that "if you read these words you'll die." She took it seriously and worried about it.

 

It's not the first time something like this has happened. She really has no understanding of the reasons why people lie or fabricate, it is a genuine mystery to her. How do we help her figure out what is just an empty threat or a joke in bad taste, and deal with it accordingly? She is unlikeliy to be able to generalise from this experience. Although she is often sceptical of what people say, she tends to believe that everything written down in black and white must be true (unless she knows she is reading fiction). Given that she is an avid reader of everything this makes her extremely vulnerable.

 

Has anyone else experienced similar? How do you help your child learn to separate truth from fiction?

 

K

[bid]

Can't offer any advice, but what a horrible thing to post on a website!

 

I do hope you can set her mind at rest <'>

 

It's like a modern update on chain letters, but even nastier

 

Bid <'>

[Kathryn]

Hi Bid,

 

We at least got her to agree to check things out with one of us in future if she is doubtful, rather than stew over it on her own, I hope she does. I talked to her about chain letters and told her how many dire warnings I've ignored over the years - and I'm still here..

 

She does seem to take this kind of thing to heart, I think it taps into her fears about dying.

 

K

[Gordie]

Well if you think about it, the "threat" is actually true - there isn't any timescale attached to the statement. If you read those words, you will indeed die. But it doesn't say when, so you may well die in, say, 50 years' time or whenever! And of course if you don't read those words, you'll still die, and that could also be in 50 years or whatever.

 

If you think about it logically like that, that may be helpful. Perhaps you could take that angle of explanation with your daughter - that the statement really doesn't mean anything, and all of us are going to die one day.

 

Couldn't offer you any general advice though, on how to separate truth from fiction.

 

James