For their own good?: parents’ goals and parenting practices when lying to their children

Abstract

Introduction: Parenting by lying is a practice where parents lie to their children for parenting purposes. Past studies implicitly assume that parental lies are used to achieve certain parenting goals, but it is unclear what these parenting goals are, or how parental lies are used in the context of other parenting practices. Method: Parents from an ongoing study in Singapore (target N=250, current n=92, children aged 3 to 9) reported on endorsement of culturally relevant parenting goals (child interdependence, achievement, self-development), use of instrumental and white parental lies, authoritative and authoritarian parenting. We aim to identify the parenting goals associated with parental lies and how they interact with other parenting practices. Results: Multiple regressions (parent-child demographics covaried) showed that the interdependence goal was associated with less instrumental lying (B=-2.99, SE=1.05, p=.006) and more white lying (B=2.07, SE=0.54, p<.001). Further, parents with higher interdependence goals told instrumental lies less often only when they were high in authoritative parenting (B=-3.12, SE=1.20, p=.01). The self-development goal was associated with less white lying (B=-2.63, SE=1.17, p=.027). Moreover, parents with higher self-development goals told white lies less often only when they were high in authoritarian parenting (B=-4.24, SE=1.33, p=.001). The achievement goal was not associated with either type of parental lying. Conclusions: Parents selectively use different types of parental lies to achieve specific parenting goals. It would be worthwhile to nuance the motivations of parenting by lying in future research and how they are used in conjunction with other parenting practices.