The Honest Truth About Lying Parents: A Qualitative Study and Taxonomy of Parental Lying

Parental lying is a prevalent parenting practice but parental lying itself and its motivations are poorly defined. Thus far, the literature has focused only on lies to influence the child’s behavior and emotions. This qualitative semi-structured interview study aimed to broadly explore how lies cluster based on intended goals and reasons for lying. Forty Dutch caregivers with at least one child aged 5-12 years, were interviewed and examples of parent-to-child lies were analyzed. Our analyses derived a new taxonomy of 11 subtypes, including lies intended to maintain the parent’s privacy or to look better as a parent. Lies were either triggered by caregivers’ state of mind (e.g., feeling overwhelmed), or related to internalized parenting convictions (e.g., I must protect my child). The new taxonomy allows future quantitative and qualitative studies to study the correlates and outcomes of different types of parental lies.