If you like telling lies to your children, first of all why ah?

But more importantly, that might have severe implications for them as adults.

That is according to a recent study led by NTU, and done in collaboration with the University of Toronto, the University of California, San Diego, and Zhejiang Normal University.

According to the study:

"Adults who reported being lied to more as children, were more likely to report lying to their parents in their adulthood.

They also said they faced greater difficulty in meeting psychological and social challenges. Adjustment difficulties include disruptiveness, conduct problems, experience of guilt and shame, as well as selfish and manipulative character."

And these aren't even big lies like the world is flat, or I love you, it could possibly even be things like " if you don't behave, I call the police" .

Compliance

While lying can be seen as a time saver to deal with a child insisting on asking "why" to every sentence you tell them, lead author Assistant Professor Setoh Peipei from NTU Singapore’s School of Social Sciences says:

"When parents tell children that ‘honesty is the best policy’, but display dishonesty by lying, such behaviour can send conflicting messages to their children. Parents’ dishonesty may eventually erode trust and promote dishonesty in children".

The study was done by having 379 Singaporean young adults complete four online questionnaires.

The first questionnaire asked parents to recall if their parents told them lies that related to eating; leaving and/or staying; children’s misbehaviour; and spending money.

For example: “If you don’t come with me now, I will leave you here by yourself” and “I did not bring money with me today, we can come back another day”.

The second questionnaire asked participants to indicate how frequently as adults they lied to their parents.

And the last two questionnaires were on their "self-reported psychosocial maladjustment and tendency to behave selfishly and impulsively".

The study found that parenting by lying could place children at a greater risk of developing problems that the society frowns upon, such as aggression, rule-breaking and intrusive behaviours.

Setoh also laid out what she thinks future research should focus on.

“Future research should examine the nature of the lies and goals of the parents so that researchers can suggest what kind of lies to avoid, and what kind of truth-telling parents should engage in.”

You can read the study here.

Image from NTU and Getty Images (Tang Ming Tung)