Trust is an essential foundation for healthy relationships. As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your fifteen-year-old’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-teen relationship and understand how to promote trust in your teen.

Teens and emerging young adults ages 15-19 are in the process of exerting their independence and spending more time with peers. They are working on understanding and predicting others’ thoughts and feelings. As they do, they also may seek to hide the truth, particularly if they fear harsh judgment from respected adults or peers. They are also testing boundaries and taking more risks socially and academically. Often, that risk-taking can lead to mistakes, misbehaviors, or even failure. Teens may be tempted to cover up their failures or want to take risks their parents may not permit. 

Though younger children cannot distinguish between the subtleties of deception, teens and emerging adults can understand the differences between honest mistakes, guesses, and exaggerations, as well as sarcasm and irony. As part of their cognitive and moral development, a full understanding of lying and its consequences continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence. 

The key to many parenting challenges, like raising teens who learn the value of truth-telling, is finding ways to communicate to meet your and your teen’s needs. The steps below will prepare you to help your teen learn more about your family values, how they relate to lying, and how you can grow and deepen your trusting relationship.

Why Lying?

Whether it’s your fifteen-year-old lying about where they went after school or your seventeen-year-old lying about failing a test, your teen’s ability to tell the truth can become a regular challenge if you don’t create plans and strategies.

Today, in the short term, honesty can create

●      greater opportunities for connection and enjoyment 

●      trust in each other

●      a sense of well-being for a parent and teens

●      added daily peace of mind

Tomorrow, in the long term, your teen

●      builds skills in self-awareness

●      builds skills in social awareness, perspective-taking, empathy, and compassion

●      builds skills in self-control

●      develops moral and consequential thinking and decision-making

Five Steps for Teaching Your Teen About Honesty

This five-step process helps you teach your teen about honesty. It also builds essential skills in your teen. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process[1] ).

Tip: These steps are best when you and your teen are not tired or in a rush. 

Tip: Intentional communication[2]  and a healthy parenting relationship[3]  support these steps.

Step 1. Get Your Teen Thinking by Getting Their Input

You can get your teen thinking about honesty by asking them open-ended questions. You’ll help prompt your teen’s thinking. You’ll also better understand their thoughts, feelings, and challenges related to honesty so that you can address them. In gaining input, your teen

●      has the opportunity to become more aware of how they are thinking and feeling related to lies and truth

●      can begin to formulate what it means to be in a trusting relationship

●      can think through and problem-solve any temptations to lie they may encounter ahead of time

●      has a greater stake in anything they’ve designed themself (and with that sense of ownership comes a greater responsibility for implementing new strategies and taking responsibility for their relationships)

●      will have more motivation and courage to take responsibility for their actions

●      will be working with you on making informed decisions (understanding the reasons behind those decisions) about critical aspects of their life

Actions

●      Ask questions and listen carefully to your teen’s responses since they will shape how you talk about lying and honesty. Questions you could ask include: 

○      “Who do you trust and why?” 

○      “What’s important to you about honesty?”

○      “Have you ever been lied to? How did it feel?”

○      “When are you tempted to lie?”

○      “How do you feel when you get away with a lie? How do you feel when you get caught in a lie?”

○      “What’s the worst thing that could happen if you tell the truth about a misbehavior?”

Tip: Teens don’t want to be in the spotlight, and questions can feel like an interrogation. So, look for comfortable windows of opportunity to introduce the questions. For example, is your teen telling you about a friend who lied to their parents? Or are you watching someone lie on a reality television show together? Those are ideal moments to move into these kinds of conversations.

Step 2. Teach New Skills

Being honest about motivations, feelings, limitations, and choices can be tough for adults. No wonder teens have difficulties determining when, how, and why honesty is important. Learning about developmental milestones[4]  related to honesty and moral development can help parents know how to help their teens.^1^

●      Fifteen to nineteen-year-olds strive to figure out their adult identity and may push parents away as they attempt to gain independence. Teens may be exposed to more risky behaviors like drinking, trying drugs, or sex. Lying fits this equation if they experiment in dangerous areas and don’t want adults to intervene. Older teens have a much greater sense of logic and fairness in larger social contexts (though their rational brain capacity is not fully formed until their mid-twenties). They can wrestle with ethical dilemmas (and may enjoy it) and think them through more sophisticatedly than ever before. This helps them exercise their responsible decision-making skills.

In addition to these milestones, you’ll also find clues on where to focus your teaching as you examine their challenges with honesty. Reflect and ask yourself, “In what circumstances have I noticed my teen lie?” If it involves several areas, write them down and consider how you might use one or several teaching tools to help your teen learn.

Teaching is different from just telling. It builds basic skills, grows problem-solving abilities, and sets your teen up for success. Teaching also involves modeling and practicing the positive behaviors you want to see, promoting skills, and preventing problems. It is also an opportunity to establish meaningful, logical consequences[5]  for when expectations are not met.

Actions

●      Model honesty. Modeling honesty could be sharing aloud what you are thinking when expressing how you feel since this is an area where adults tend not to share their honest feelings fully. For example, you could share the opposite of the truth first and then share what the truth for you is. This shows your teen the contrast and makes your internal debate apparent. For example, “I am tempted to say that I feel just fine in response to your ‘How are you?’ But, the truth is that I am upset about a conversation I had at work, and I can’t seem to get it off my mind.”

●      Teach your teen to take a breath before answering. This will give your teen a moment to allow their thinking brain to catch up with their reactive/emotional brain and allow them to share a more honest response.

●      Ask the right questions to help your teen succeed. Instead of “Did you do this?” ask, “Tell me what happened.”

●      Ask your teen about the lie they just told. You might say, “What happened just now that made you lie to me?”

●      Catch your teen telling you the truth, especially when it is difficult. You can say, “I know it was hard to tell me the truth, and I appreciate your honesty.”

●      Talk about trust and how it is built slowly but can be broken quickly. Help your teen understand that lies today lead to a lack of trust that will significantly impact them tomorrow. For example, if you can’t trust their word about what they did after school, you will not trust them about whose party they are going to later. 

●      Take time to examine how you feel when your teen lies. Many parents highly value honesty and may worry that lying in adolescence will equate to a dishonest characteristic in their teens. While it is important to teach honesty, it is also important to keep in mind that it is developmentally appropriate for a teen to lie if they are concerned about a negative consequence. A calm approach will help your teen do the brave work of learning honestly, even when it is hard. 

●      Learn about moral development. In understanding how moral development emerges in teens, Carol Gilligan proposed three stages she called “The Stages of an Ethic of Care.”^2^ These three stages help you understand and empathize with your teen’s point of view and also help you set goals for guiding them forward. 

○      Selfish

■      Every person’s worldview begins with a survival perspective focused only on themselves. This worldview (infancy through nine years old) assists young children in focusing on securing relationships and establishing their support for survival so that they can open their minds to other possibilities later in life. This focus on a secure attachment allows children to form healthy relationships and gives them the confidence to explore school and their world beyond home.

■      In this worldview, rules are given by authorities, not questioned but obeyed, and taken literally. If they are disobeyed, there is punishment. But, if a person remains stuck in this survivalist worldview, it limits their growth and ability to demonstrate care for themselves and others. It also limits making decisions that involve taking responsibility for one’s role in a larger community. As a person moves out of this phase, there is a questioning of authority, which is necessary for moving from a sense of selfishness and survival to responsibility.

○      Social

■      This is the phase your teen ages fifteen to nineteen is likely in. In this phase of moral development, caring for others takes primacy. A core sense of responsibility is established, an awareness of others surrounding the individual emerges, and their impact on those others becomes the focus. In this stage, self-sacrifice is good. Individuals may care for others while ignoring their own needs. They may even harm themselves (perhaps inadvertently) to help others. In this stage, the individual becomes aware of the rules of the wider society and obeys them to avoid guilt. This is where most teens will be in their development.

■      Moving out of this phase into the final phase, the individual moves from goodness to truth, from responsibility to gain approval to an internalized compass for not hurting self or others in concert with or despite societal rules.

○      Principled

■      Most people never evolve their worldview to this place, though this is the final stage. In this stage, the person’s thinking evolves to valuing nonviolence and making decisions, however complex the situation, relative to not harming self or others. Though this kind of thinking and the following actions are rare, it certainly is a level to pursue and promote with teens.

■      As with all stages of development, individuals can dip into former stages depending upon the circumstances. The previous stages are always a part of a person. 

●      Teach positive behaviors when you identify misbehaviors. Teens are most tempted to lie when they make a poor choice or mistake. With that knowledge, each time your teen breaks a rule, consider the question: “What positive behavior can I teach my teen to replace what I’ve told them not to do?” 

●      The following simple process, interactive modeling, can be used by teachers to become a powerful teaching tool for parents.^3^

○      Say what you will model and why.

○      Model the behavior. 

○      Ask your teen what they noticed.

○      Invite your teen to model.

○      Ask what they noticed with their modeling.

○      Practice together.

○      Provide specific feedback starting with strengths using “I notice…” statements.

○      Share your family values and need for trust.  

●      At a family meal, share a personal story about how trust between family members has been critical in a safety or other important situation. Talk about how you come up with alternative solutions when tempted to lie.

Trap: Teens who fear punishment when misbehaving are prone to lie to cover up their mistakes. Part of modeling as parents requires learning more about how to teach responsibility and self-discipline through alternative strategies. 

Trap: Teens who are left alone frequently and whose needs are neglected often turn to lying to find attention, take unhealthy risks, and meet their needs in ways that can be self-destructive and potentially destructive to others.

Step 3. Practice to Grow Skills and Develop Habits

Practice can involve cooperative work or trying out a new skill with you as a coach and ready support. It is nice and necessary for teens to internalize new skills. It makes vital new brain connections that strengthen each time your teen performs the new action.

Actions

●      Use “I’d love to see/hear…” statements. You may want to offer your teen practice in truth-telling when it’s tempting to lie. When you notice misbehavior, before your teen can attempt to cover it up, you might say, “I imagine that there’s a part of you that is worried about getting into trouble, so I would love to see you take a risk and try truthfully telling me what happened.”

●      Recognize effort. Frequently, teens get feedback on what they are not doing right, but how often do you recognize when they are working on their behaviors? Recognize effort by saying “I notice...” statements like, “I notice how you told me when you went to the movies with your friends instead of staying at your friend’s house. I appreciate your honesty!”

●      Focus on the logical consequences of dishonesty. Show them the logical consequences if your teen lies about where they are. You may need help trusting what they are saying. This may translate to you saying “no” the next time they ask to go out. Or it may mean they will be escorted next time. 

●      Discuss characters in stories. Courage to be true to self is a universal theme that comes up in literature time and again. Find these heroes, particularly those who are flawed and human. Point out their faults and frailties, and then learn together how they triumph. Be sure to discuss how the conquering hero has to make choices that do not align with what others want.

●      Proactively remind. Often, parents have a sense of when a teen is tempted to lie. Before they do, you may whisper in your teen’s ear, “Remember to tell the truth even when you make mistakes, and then we’ll figure out the rest together.”

Tip: The best way to turn around misbehavior is to recognize when and how your teen makes good choices and acts positively in similar circumstances. They need to learn what to do and what not to do. 

Step 4. Support Your Teen’s Development and Success

At this point, you’ve taught your teen some strategies for telling the truth and understanding why lying is harmful. You’ve practiced together. Now, you can offer support when it’s needed by reteaching, monitoring, coaching, and, when appropriate, applying logical consequences. Parents naturally provide support as they see their teen fumble with a situation where they need help. This is no different. 

Actions

●      Ask key questions before jumping to responses or decisions for action. Parents and those in a parenting role are often in a position where they have to direct their teen’s actions, but jumping in and directing your teen’s actions can become the default if you are not careful. Look for chances to ask questions before stepping in with directives. Good questions promote thinking and help teens internalize the evaluative process of responsible decision-making – thinking through the action to the consequence sequence before they act. 

○       “How do you feel about the decision you made?” 

○      “What does your heart or inner voice tell you?”         

○      “What are some options if you break a rule?”

●      Learn about development. Each new age and stage will present different social challenges. Being informed about what developmental milestones your teen is working toward will offer you empathy and patience. 

●      Reflect on outcomes. “Remember when you broke the neighbor’s lawn chair? You told her you were sorry; she said she knew it was an accident and had it repaired. It was all okay, and we appreciated your honesty.” 

●      Stay engaged. Working together on ways to respond