Parenting Tactics: Getting kids to tell the truth

As parents, there are many times we are faced with the challenge of trying to determine the guilty party among our children. Who did it this time? With three daughters ages 10, 7 and 5, it can be daunting task for me to even begin to narrow it down. It isn’t impossible though. Through ten years of training I have come up with some methods for determining guilt, and probably more importantly not giving your young child a chance to lie.

Narrowing down the suspects:

Most of the time, the kid crime (a crime committed by a child that is actually more of an annoyance than an actual crime) itself is what helps us eliminate some of the possible suspects.

For instance, any incident involving soap is most likely our middle child. Any incident involving nail polish is almost always our oldest, and whenever a magic marker is wielded against our walls it is almost always our youngest who did it.

Sometimes though there are the crossover crimes that could involve any number of our kids. These kid crimes include spills, unflushed toilets, leaving inside toys outside to be ruined by the elements, leaving lights turned on, towels on the floor, and last but not least—getting into mommy or daddy’s stuff.

The other day my wife bought some Visine and, after an initial use of the product, she left it on her dresser. Today, when she went to use the Visine this morning, she found the product empty of all liquid. Someone (some child) had deliberately emptied the Visine (most likely into the sink or toilet), and then returned the vessel back to my wife’s dresser.

In this situation we had a crossover crime. Only two of our children get a thrill watching various liquids go down the drain—our 7 and 5 year old. So enthralled by liquid are they that they have been banned from opening soaps, playing with shampoo and spending too long in the bathroom (they love using the soap and watching the faucet run).

We had a 50/50 shot of nailing the guilty party with an accusation—treacherous waters for a parent.

The Who Technique

We were faced with a dilemma. Do we ask the question, “Who did this?”

Which is like saying to a child, “Only say ‘it was me’ if you are a complete idiot.”

The Why Technique

Or do we take a different approach, albeit bold one, and assume the guilt of one of the children out of the gate. In this scenario, you don’t ask who, but why. “Why did you do this?”

It’s amazing how differently a child will act if they are guilty and they don’t have the option of lying. It’s almost a sigh of relief. There’s no going back. The only trick is to get it right the first time.

You can tell if you aren’t talking to the guilty party just as quickly as you can tell if you are talking to the innocent. The denial is genuine. The body language is sincere. The signs are all there.

If you have the resources available I suggest even the using the police interrogation method. Have each parent take a suspect into a sealed room. Ask each child, “Why did you do it?” Compare notes and see what the end result is.

Have you ever had a tough time trying to figure which one of your kids was guilty before? Have you ever tried the why technique? Has it been effective? What other ways have you used to try and smoke out the guilty party?