Lying is good for you

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

Lying is an important social skill:

The ability to lie is adaptive. When kids start lying when they’re younger, they’re essentially supposed to. It’s a good developmental sign their brain is working correctly when they become aware both that you actually can’t see everything they do and also that you can’t read their minds. Sure, they may not be that good at lying yet by our standards—my 4 year old recently insisted she was turning flips right in front of me, she was just so fast I couldn’t tell—but research suggests that the sooner you learn to lie as a child, the smarter you are, and also that the better you are at lying, the better you will do in life later on. Lying well is a necessary skill in adult life, unfortunately, and the ability to cover your tracks takes intelligence, as every dumb criminals/Florida man story attests.

Before adulthood, there is perhaps no better period where lying will serve you well than during your teenage years with your own parents, where as many as 96 percent of teens have learned that lying is absolutely critical to having any fun whatsoever. Teens and parents here are endlessly at odds, with one side needing to cobble together something called a life, Mom—and the other dead set on making sure that the aforesaid teens don’t do anything anyone would ever dare consider cool.

Post external references

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    http://jezebel.com/fact-parents-are-begging-to-be-lied-to-every-single-da-1687808173
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