Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. I wanted to talk in this episode about when children are telling us stories and accounts of things that happened and you've got an idea that something is a bit off about what they're saying. It generally comes in three sort of layers.
The first layer is that you've got a hunch that they're kind of exaggerating, right? So they're making something consciously bigger than what it is and that exaggeration is kind of has you a little bit doubting what it is they're saying. They're making it larger than life and sometimes you just got a feeling of this isn't true but what they're doing is exaggerating, right? That's the first piece and most of us can tell when that's happening but it isn't that they're actually lying. The second thing that happens when kids are giving us an account of what happened with a sibling or at school or what they did and didn't do and they figure they might be in a bit of trouble or whatever.
The second layer to it is a confluence. It's not an exaggeration, it's a confluence and what they're doing is bringing one situation together with another and maybe even a third. They're bringing three things that happened together with a younger sibling which are sort of unrelated but loosely related and they're using that as an example of why they kicked their brother, right? So they're putting together a number of unrelated or semi-related things and they're building it together to make a story or there's a situation that's come up in their lives and you're challenging them about it.
Something's happened at school, teachers called and they're protesting their innocence by bringing together this and that and when you listen to it you've got a hunch there are a couple of different stories happening here and my child is justifying their actions by bringing these things together and you know what they're sort of real for the child as they're doing this. And then there's the third which is not exaggeration or a confluence. It's kind of like an amplification.
Now with amplification the difference here is that it's unconscious. It's not an exaggeration as a very conscious thing. A child's exaggerating an amplification is just making something bigger.
Making it bigger than what and often that is the lived experience of your child. They really did feel it on that level. It seems like they're making more of it than what it was but for them that's the way it struck them.
That's the way it affected them. So again what they're saying is not a lie. It's an amplification.
Now in all these three situations it's important to remember as I mentioned that that's not often directly lying. Even an exaggeration is not directly lying because we have to remember with kids even teenagers but particularly little kids they don't really have much in the way yet of of real activity in their executive brain. They don't hold the whole picture.
That's something that will come actually in the early to mid-twenties. That's a long way off for most kids. So when they for example have a confluence and they're bringing together two or three different stories to make one whether it's a justification for what they did or a denial of what they did.
It's often our role in this is to actually hold the bigger picture without doubting and blaming and accusations of lying. I think it's important that we're inquisitive and not accusative and we lean into what they're saying because if they're amplifying it could be actually their lived experience and it's real. And the only way to get that back into whack you know back into shape is to be able to be curious about it and help them.
The only way to get a situation where there's a conflict where someone is conflating and bringing something together that those two things don't really relate is to be again inquisitive and curious about it and help them see that whilst those two things really did happen that's not really justification that they're separate. They're separate things. And if it's an exaggeration same deal.
They're consciously making something bigger and it's kind of our job to get it back in proportion and to help them get it into proportion without doubting what it is they're saying because the moment we start doubting them and start cross-examining them they will go deeper into amplification, conflating or exaggeration. They'll go deeper into it right. So when kids do this it's important to not call them out for lying.
It's to call them in. Call them in. Get them closer.
Work through the story a little bit so that they can get it back in proportion because the other thing that happens when kids exaggerate, amplify or conflate is that they sometimes are doing it to get you on their side against the teacher at school. She's so mean and that's why I didn't get my homework done or what she does. She explains stuff and she's just really really dumb you know.
I don't get it and they're like you know yesterday when she told George off in class it's like she told George off in class and it's got nothing to do with homework. It's got to do with telling George off and now that's why he doesn't like and do you see that's conflating but they're often doing it to get you who you're a powerful figure in their lives on their side right. They do it with siblings.
They'll conflate things that happen. They'll exaggerate, amplify whether it's conscious, exaggeration, unconscious, amplification but it's to get you on their side and there is another podcast about this. Those of you who listen to this regularly might recognize this but it's important to understand at that moment that it's not that you're going to disbelieve them.
In fact you're going to call them in not call them out right and you call them in and you listen to their story a little bit. You're inquisitive about it and then you basically slowly start to either disentangle it or get it back into proportion and in that way you're not taking anyone's side. You're just sitting with them and this is not a particularly difficult thing to do if a child's saying that teacher was really mean to George and but the issue is homework and that teacher didn't let us out in time for recess and when she did she said we had to wear like stupid coats and stuff and it wasn't even cold and you can listen to the story about coats a little bit.
You can listen to story about being you know so-called mean to George a little bit and then you know what the child's saying and trying to justify is why they didn't do their homework and you can listen to those two things and say gosh that's really hard that that happened to your best friend that is and yeah it was kind of warm and kind of cold today it was right on the edge a little bit of rain must have been hard for you to have to have a coat on must be hard for the teacher you know to make that call and you know let's let's zoom in on the homework a little bit more how can we make a plan around that right so so it's not saying George and coats have got nothing to do with homework come on come on don't no no no no let's just focus on the homework it's good because that's going to send a child into more and more pushback because they don't sense we're with them when we when we do that so conscious exaggeration conflating and amplification unconscious bit more unconscious all of these things can significantly be helped by bringing them back into proportion but recognizing that a lot of that what we're doing is using our executive brain which is functioning well on a good day we're using we're almost like scaffolding buffering their growing ability but very small but they're growing slowly growing ability to get the big picture you know they don't have it yet not really not much and so rather than presuming they do understand and they're just telling lies it's kind of easier to understand that there actually might not be and this is not letting them get off light because now you're getting to the homework that needs to be done or now you're getting to the issue of kicking uh you know kicking her brother right so or their brother so now we're getting to the issue this is not all nice and gentle and such it enables us to to to to disentangle bring it back right size it as the saying goes and then working it out so please don't think this is letting kids get away with stuff in fact it's actually the opposite because then we can get to to the core of it and and work through it in which very often a child is held accountable but it doesn't have to be done in a harsh or mean way okay i hope that wasn't conflating or exaggerating or amplifying and and i hope that's helpful okay bye-bye for now
