Eye Spy
As you just read, excessive blinking is often a sign of lying; disrupted eye contact is another. When a child can't look you in the eye while he's telling you his version of the truth, it's because he's afraid of being caught or he's ashamed of what he's done, or both. When he stares into your eyes (and makes his own eyes as large as possible), it's an attempt to say, “I'm looking right at you so you can see I have nothing to hide.”
Most kids don't perfect the art of lying until they're around middle-school age, and even then, unless they're completely devoid of emotion, they're likely to give away one or two nonverbal cues when they're trying to pull the wool over their parents' eyes.
Another classic sign of anxiety is a flushed face. Some kids turn red faster and more easily than others, so if your child is prone to blushing when someone looks at him the wrong way, then just your accusation could be enough to make his cheeks and neck burn bright red. However, if he's red in the face as he's telling you he's off to play next door, you might want to check on him in about five minutes. There's a good chance he's really headed down to the creek where he's been forbidden to play.
Watch Those Hands
Little fibbers use self-touches to calm their nerves, but since some kids tend to do this kind of thing even when they're sitting around watching TV, it's not always the best way to determine your child's state of mind. If your child does something truly unusual, like holding his head in his hands or putting a hand over his own mouth while he speaks, those are pretty good indications that he has something on his mind that he doesn't want to share with you.
Children often hide their hands when they're lying. Let's say you've just come home to find that someone has knocked a big plant off the end table. When you find your son, you ask him what he knows about this unfortunate occurrence. He won't look at you, and he jams his hands in his pockets as he tells you that the cat did it. Don't toss that cat out the front door just yet … it looks like someone else might have had something to do with this little mishap (and his name isn't “Kitty”).
In adults, self-touches are a good indication of anxiety. However, some children love to touch themselves: they play with their hair, they pull at their eyelids, they twist their noses into strange shapes. These aren't necessarily signs of nervousness; they're probably just the work of idle hands and curious minds.
Extreme Expression
Marci's nine-year-old daughter, Jenna, isn't prone to emotional outbursts; in fact, she's a fairly calm child. Imagine Marci's shock, then, when Jenna had a major meltdown after Marci had asked her a seemingly innocent question. “I had just bought these new high-heeled boots,” Marci says, “and I couldn't find them anywhere. I mean, I hadn't even taken them out of the box yet, so I knew I hadn't left them somewhere around the house. I asked Jenna if she knew where they were. She tried to pull the classic ‘I have no idea what you're talking about’ routine, but her face was just frozen in fear and she was turning bright red, so I knew something was up.
“I calmly said, ‘Jenna, tell me the truth,’ and all hell broke loose. She yelled at me for accusing her of ‘stealing’ my boots, then she stomped off to her bedroom, she slammed the door, and she cried her little head off. When she finally calmed down, she told me that she had worn the boots sledding in the backyard. She had hidden them under her bed, and they were completely trashed.”
A kid will ratchet up her emotional response when she's about to be caught in a lie. When a child who isn't normally given to lots of hand motions, arm gestures, hopping, tapping the feet, or rocking back and forth starts displaying these behaviors in reaction to a seemingly harmless question, your antennae should be standing at full attention. There's trouble swirling in that little head. With some careful prodding, you might elicit a full confession.
