Is this normal for a 4 yr old?

[NotTheOnlyOne]

he is lying. about things thaqt dont even matter. and about some tings that do. he bit himself the other day (obvious it was his teeth marks) and blamed it on his 2 year old brother. I do home daycare and if someone cries he tells me he saw what happened and then makes something up. If he hurts someonem pushing or something, he will deny it to the end even if i saw him do it. what do i do??

[Mosaic]

My 4yo is doing it, too. I think I read somewhere that at this age, real and fantasy are still kinda mixed up, so the lying isn't deceitful so much as "how it is or how it should be in their mind." We stress that the truth is important, and when she tells us "a story" we expand on the story until it's so crazy that everybody is well aware that we're just playing around. I don't know if that's the best approach, but it's working for us so far.

[Mosaic]

I googled this, and there are a lot of good articles on this issue. Here's one:

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=702

[Alyantavid]

Totally normal. Both mine went through it and we're in the midst of it now with my youngest (4.5).

I don't consider it lying though, more trying to figure out how things work. We talk alot about how mama always needs to know what really happened. When it doesn't matter, I let him spin his wild stories and we laugh and have a great time. Hopefully it will help him see the difference.

We got it through it with my oldest and he's the most honest kid I've ever met, so I have hope.

[ladylove]

One thing I have started doing is not asking questions to which my almost-4yo DS will want to lie.

Example: Did you just hit your brother? (DS knows that the answer to make me happy in NO) Instead, I ask "why is brother crying?"

Do you think he is just trying to give answers that he know will please you? Or, if he is just being silly, I would dismiss it with a laugh and say "that's so crazy, that could never happen..." Then, after the story is done, ask what really happened.