"She regularly lies, sometimes really obviously, and sometimes I can't tell if what she's saying really happened or not. And if I ask her whether she's telling the truth, she sometimes changes her story entirely or just makes it more elaborate and seemingly further from the truth."
"I'm actually not even sure this should be called "lying," because that implies deliberate badness, when I think often she's just wanting to contribute to the conversation or answer a question more thoroughly than she has the information to do."
"Sometimes it's a harmless detail about a classmate or teacher ("Melissa doesn't have any sinks in her house!"), and sometimes it's reporting about conversations with her friends that I'd actually be concerned about depending on whether what she's saying was true ("We decided that Melissa isn't allowed to play with us on Fridays")."
A 6-year-old exhibits intense imaginative play, frequent storytelling, and recurring fabrications that can be obvious or indistinguishable from reality. The child often embellishes or changes accounts when questioned, sometimes appearing to fill conversational gaps rather than intending harm. Examples include exaggerated claims about classmates and reported exclusion decisions among peers. Caregivers have attempted to reassure the child that not knowing answers is acceptable and have emphasized the importance of truth for trust. Concerns persist about when such behavior is developmentally typical versus problematic and about the impact on emotional connection and peer relationships.
Read at Slate Magazine
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