Babies not as innocent as they pretend
 

Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected.

Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life.

Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult art of lying until four years old.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...scibaby101.xml

LOL, I could have told you that :) from the time my two boys were old enough to point, ask them "who did it?" and they'd point at each other :eek:

it was sometime after, I made them realize, they'd be better fessing up than letting me figure it out for myself ;)

Right, the means by which we develop the child is to reward them when they do good and punish them for doing bad. The key to teaching them NOT to lie is showing them it doesn't help them avoid punishment and only makes the consequenses that much worse. Teaching a child that lying only makes things worse and how stressful it is trying to constantly conceal the lies is the best way to teach the child that the best option is honesty.

Every kid is going to attempt to do bad to see if he/she can get away with it. The easier you make it, the more they will try.