Liar, liar, pants on fire! We are all guilty of little white lies from time to time, however lying can be a serious behavior problem for many older adopted children, and traumatized children. Children become extremely charged after experiencing trauma; such as suffering from abuse, neglect, or being removed from the only family that they have ever known. Live in a constant aroused state of fear, and anxiety lying becomes part of how they protect themselves from the chaos going on around them. It is in their eyes, the only way in which they have of showing some control over what is going on in their lives.

Healing from trauma takes many long years of hard, gut wrenching emotionally draining work, which means: don’t expect lying to disappear overnight, the lies will lessen as the child’s emotional pain does. While you may not be able to instantly cure a liar, it sure isn’t hard to spot one once you know what you are looking for.

You Know Your Adopted Child is Lying When You Experience:

• Long pauses and stutters, accompanied by slow speech

• infrequent mention of details; places, names, times, locations

• Overcompensating by telling events either in sequential or chronological order

• The emotions conveyed in the lie do not match facial expressions

• Finger pointing, foot tapping, and exaggerated expressions of being falsely accused

• Higher pitched voice

• Slightly delayed answers 

• Body and face become stiffer

• Face touching, especially nose rubbing and mouth covering

• Flaring nostrils

• Deeper, or audible breathing

• Thinner, tighter lips

• Compact body, shoulders pulled up, elbows pulled in

• Forehead tightens up between eye brows

• Breaks eye contact, squints or close eyes

• Increased heart rate

• Hand palms turned down or closed, and not revealed to you

Now that you have the secret list of how to detect a liar, you can ask your adopted child about homework, behaviors, and situations, and will still probably not get the truth, the difference is that now you will know just how often it is that you are not getting the truth!  And of course these automatic body responses to telling lies are not restricted to traumatized or adopted children, so if you would like to use your new super powers on your boss, co-workers, and friends, detect away!  

Related Articles:

• Keeping a Behavior Log
• No Other Choice but Long Term Residential Treatment
• Why Would You Hold or Restrain a Child?
• Does Your Child Have Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD)?

Image Credit: takomabibelot