30/09/2023
Don't put your children in situations that force them to lie. When the parent doesn't create a safe space for the child when confronting them about their behaviour, the child's natural default is to lie to protect themselves from perceived dangers especially if they were punished before for misbehaving.
When the child sees that by lying they are saved from punishment, they will continue to do it, so much so, that it becomes a habit deeply ingrained in the child's conscience and then becomes a personality trait within them that they don't even know why they are lying anymore. As adults, they become manipulative to avoid accountability or to get their needs met because that was what was learned from childhood. This is how compulsive liars and manipulative personalities are built.
This is why the Prophet ﷺ warned about lying and said: "Beware of telling lies, for lying leads to immorality and immorality leads to Hellfire. A person will keep telling lies and striving to tell lies until he is recorded with Allah as a liar.” [Muslim]
Once lying becomes deeply ingrained in the person's conscience and personality and lying becomes natural for them, they lie even when there's no real reason to lie, they tell lies in all sorts of situations, that is when he/she is recorded with Allah as a liar. Recorded here means the person had many opportunities to stop and repent but they consciously chose to lie and be deceitful and their heart has become hard and spiritually diseased. This person becomes unreliable and can't be taken as a witness or reference. His words would need to be verified whenever he shares information. No one would want to do business with him or be married to him.
Despite this, as sane adults, lying always remains a choice and it is a major sin in Islam because it is harmful to the liar and society. It destroys homes, breaks relationships, and causes dysfunction in society. You are showing people who you are not and gaining people's trust through dishonesty and distorting reality. People deserve the truth so they can choose what to do with that information in a relational perspective (marriage, business, trade, family etc). Whether to continue the relationship with you, keep a distance, or not be in a relationship with you at all.
As parents we should avoid putting our children in situations that forces them to lie to escape punishment. This is why punishing kids isn't healthy. You are not teaching them, rather you are forcing conformity by fear, and as humans, it's our survival instinct to escape from fear even in maladaptive ways such as lying and manipulation. You might have them obedient in front of you, but once you are not there they will go back to the undesirable behaviours. You are teaching them conformity only comes by using fear. In intimate relationships as adults they will use fear/control/abuse/manipulation to get their needs met or that these behaviours are ok if someone was to treat them this way.
Discipline and punishment are not the same thing. One key difference is accepting the fact that children can make mistakes and these are opportunities to teach them. When you discipline while being emotionally regulated, children will feel safe and will own up and take responsibility because you aren't looking down to their face shouting and being aggressive. That's when you can give your advice and teach them, not when the child is terrified in fight and flight mode. If you are finding patterns of your child's behaviour triggering you, that's an indication of your own unresolved traumas. You should never attempt to discipline while triggered. Take a short break, breathe, and return when you are a little bit calmer.
