LYING BY CHILDREN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5081, 28 January 1927, Page 3

LYING BY CHILDREN.

AT WAT AGE DO THEY BEGIN I

A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY.

At what age do children begin lying ? This interesting question is raised by a learned paper by Dr. Adolph E. Meyer, of Ne.w York University. Dr. Meyer says some psychologists doubt whether normal children under the age of four ‘actually, if evei; tell a lie.” The doctor himself reserves his own opinion apparently, Tor among his instances is a case o’f a child of three hard at it. We have tried hard to remember what was the first lie we told, but all memory of our maiden effort has vanished beyond recall. Perhaps some reader can enlighten us as to the earliest age at which they have known a child to tell a lie. We- have an idea of our own that some of them do it before they can talk I There is a school of thought which holds that children are* horn good, hut become bad by infection from their elders (writes T.D.H. in the “Dominion). The children of poor people, learn to lie, one gathers, because their, parents don’t kn< w how to bring them up, and the children of wealthy people lie because their parents are too busy enjoying themselves to look after their offspiing. This sounds plausible, but the. question is a very open one, for until children are discovered who have been reared among entirely truthful persons it is impossible to say whether an infant of tender age really has the initiative to lie on its own account. Perhaps when the happy days of Socialism come and the community’s infants are. reared in an incubator, we shall get down to the Tacts on this profound, and so far insoluble, psychological problem.