Things You Need to Know About Lying and (False) Confessions
Plus the magic question to ensure innocent people are not judged as guilty.
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Parents know this all too well: kids lie. But how often? Quantifying it is a challenge. Imagine researchers stationed in our homes, equipped with surveillance gear, capturing every conversational snippet and witnessing each alleged misdeed. They'd need countless hours to confirm that, yes, "At recess, Raven broke into Lucy’s lunch box and swapped a fresh batch of salmon sashimi for a flabby-looking fluffernutter sandwich cut into a heart shape."
Receiving calls to discuss such incidents with school administrators fuels the argument that parents are less happy than their single counterparts. Singles who, while your child battles a norovirus-induced vomiting spree, are jetting off to the Amalfi Coast for a three-day splurge on mojitos and chartered boats.
We all face two kinds of lies, and how we respond to them makes a big difference. One is suggestio falsi—the bold-faced lie that paints a false story. The other is suppressio veri, a more subtle form, where the truth is deliberately hidden or omitted. While both demand attention, they require fundamentally different responses. But there’s a third lie, more insidious, where someone might even confess to something they didn’t do: the false confession. This lie blends the two—fabricating a narrative and omitting critical truth—and understanding it is crucial not just in law enforcement, but in how we approach dishonesty as a parent, in schools, the workplace, and in relationships.
Understanding forms of deception empowers us. By discerning dishonesty, we can foster environments that value truth and transparency.
The Bold Lie
Let’s say your son, Ben, gets caught roughhousing at school. When the teacher confronts him, he says, “He pushed me first!” It sounds plausible until the security footage tells a different story. Ben was the one who started it. This is suggestio falsi: a fabricated story, told to redirect blame.
How do you respond? First, slow down. Coming down hard is tempting because the lie feels like a betrayal. But you want to teach Ben why this type of dishonesty cuts deeper than he realizes.
First step: Help him understand the ripple effect. Sit him down and say, “When you lie like this, you’re making someone else take the blame for what you did. Imagine how it would feel if someone did that to you.” Ask him to name how the other boy might feel. Name the breach of trust between him and his teacher, between him and you.
Follow-up consequence: Repair what’s been broken. Ben should directly and sincerely apologize to the other boy and his teacher. If appropriate, add consequences — like missing a fun outing to write a letter reflecting on lessons learned. This is about integrity, yes. But it’s also about courage—the courage to stand in the truth, even when it hurts (temporarily).
Adults showcase the same gestures as the little Bens of the world. You’re in a meeting, and a colleague blames another team member for a missed deadline, claiming, “They didn’t do their part.” But the records tell a different story—your colleague didn’t deliver their portion on time, and now they’re producing an alternative reality to avoid responsibility.
It’s tempting to confront the lie head-on and impose a strict consequence. But, it’s essential to address the lie’s impact. You might say, “When you tell a false story, you’re refusing to accept the consequences of your actions and damaging the trust others have in you. What happens when potential collaborators hear this story? How does this deviate from what you want your legacy to be here?”
The goal is to help someone grasp the bigger picture—how their lie reduces performance and creative potential. Raising awareness of anticipated costs to others (that then hurts you) is a major target when treating someone who is selfish or at the margins, extremely narcissistic - link.
The Silent Omission
Your daughter, Chloe, is part of a group chat during math class, breaking the school’s no-phone policy. When asked, she admits she participated—but doesn’t mention that she was the one who started the group. This is suppressio veri: not an outright lie, but a withholding of essential facts that change everything.
Half-truths are trickier to untangle. They’re slippery, not as blatant as a bold-faced lie, and often dismissed as “not a big deal.” But they can be more damaging because they rely on manipulating someone’s ignorance.
Start the conversation here: “You told part of the truth, but didn’t tell the whole story. That’s a type of lying. When you leave out something important, you’re intentionally misleading people. Police wouldn’t be able to solve cases. Judges couldn’t determine who was innocent or guilty. Friends wouldn’t know if it’s safe to share personal information. By misleading people this time, it’s hard to believe you will be reliable and fair next time. How would you rather be known or remembered?” Keep your tone steady, but make it clear that omission is a choice. As such, it is easily prevented next time.
The key is to target transparency. “I appreciate you sharing the details, but your version feels incomplete. What might you be leaving out that could make the situation less clear-cut? It’s rarely as simple as one person being wrong and the other right, and I want to know the whole story. When you leave out details that complicate things, you’re being dishonest, whether you mean to or not.” The goal here isn’t to attack, but to emphasize the importance of sharing the full picture.
Follow-up consequence: Encourage the person to think about how their omissions can shift someone else’s understanding—and lead to unjust outcomes. One consequence could be to write a reflection on how honesty forms the bedrock of strong relationships. Ask them to consider: What if everyone decided to omit details and derailed the search for truth? The purpose is to show Chloe—or anyone else—that half-truths don’t give you a free pass. They're just as damaging, even if their harm isn’t immediately obvious.
False Confessions
While we might expect a lie to involve someone trying to escape responsibility or cover up a misstep, there’s a third psychological twist: the false confession. Here, the person doesn’t just lie to others—they lie to themselves.
Why does this happen?
How can false allegations be reduced and innocent people be exonerated?