My Seven-Year Old Son Lied To Me

Q. My seven-year old son did something bad and then lied to me about it. I have been taught that lying is the cardinal sin for young children and that they need to be strictly disciplined for lying otherwise they will continue to lie and live double lives. Is that right? What should I do?

No, what you have been taught is not correct.

Your young child hasn’t yet reached the age of moral responsibility (taklif). That means that no matter how bad his behavior, Allah Most High doesn’t hold him accountable. He cannot commit any sin, let alone a cardinal sin. If Allah Most High were to take his soul tomorrow, he would go straight to Paradise!

Keep this in mind as you struggle with the frustrations of his bad behavior. Tell yourself that if Allah Most High, the one who created you and your son, the one for whose sake you are raising your son, if He doesn’t treat him like a mature adult when he behaves badly, then how can you possibly treat him that way? What right can you possibly have to think that he is “bad” or “sinful”?

Children are never bad or sinful. They are not mature enough to think along those lines. Young children such as yours think more along the lines of wanting to be accepted, supported, and protected by their parents.

The reason why your son is lying to you is not because he is “bad”. The reason why he is lying to you is that he is ashamed of what he did and he doesn’t want to let you down. He wants your approval, praise, and love, and he is scared that if you find out what he did, he will lose your approval, praise, and love.

The way to stop him from lying is to tackle the problem at this root cause. Begin by calming his fear and making him feel secure. Don’t abruptly confront him about his lie. Instead, pretend that you don’t know. Then spend some quality mother-son time with him--cuddle him in your lap, run around with him in the house, read him a story, tell him you love him.

Now that your son feels secure, sit down with him, perhaps over a snack, and have a discussion with him about how he should act if he ever does something that he knows he’s not supposed to. Tell him it’s normal to slip sometimes, that even you--his mother--slip! When he slips, he should know that he can (and should) always talk to you about it because your job is to help him improve and become someone who Allah Most High will love. You can tell him that it is related from the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) that he said, “Every child of Adam frequently makes mistakes and the best of those who frequently make mistakes are those who frequently turn back to Allah.” (Ahmad and others)

Now that you’ve prepared the ground, tell him with a smile that, for example, if he ever does XYZ (mention specifically the thing that he did without accusing him of doing it), then he shouldn’t lie about it because lying is something that Allah Most High has forbidden. Mention a hadith or two about the importance of telling the truth or the dangers of lying. Then tell him gently, “Don’t lie next time, OK?” He will probably be embarrassed and say that he won’t. Then you can hug him, kiss him, and send him off to play.

In all likelihood, your son will again lie in the future. When he does that, you need to gently remind him, as you did in this case. Over time, because of his loving relationship with you, his desire to please you, and his desire to be a godfearing person like you, because of all of these things, he will learn to not want to lie. He will then--if Allah wills--grow into a young man who has chosen for himself not to lie.

This is how our Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) would have solved the problem. His sunna is gentleness and mercy. He said, “Surely, Allah is gentle and He loves gentleness. He gives through gentleness what He doesn’t give through harshness nor through any other means.” (Muslim)

If, instead of this gentle approach, you adopt the harsh approach that you describe in your question, then your harshness will have the opposite effect. If you simply punish your son for lying, that will increase his fear and insecurity, and the next time he does something wrong, he will be even more likely to lie about it. If (God forbid) your harshness were to continue when he lied the next time, he would, over time, emotionally disconnect from you, present you the face that you demand from him and live a completely different life when you don’t see him. He will see his growth into a young man as a transition into independence where he can finally be free of you and do what he wants. Instead of drawing him towards Allah Most High, you would have pushed him away.

That is why the Holy Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Gentleness is never found in anything except that it makes it beautiful and it is never taken away from anything except that it makes it ugly.” (Muslim)

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If you liked this answer and you have kids, you might be interested in Raising Religious Children.