What can you do if you think your child or student is struggling with this type of fibbing?
The fight-or-flight response is the term coined by American physiologist Walter Cannon that describes the body’s innate reaction to a perceived or real threat to safety, or a frightening or highly stressful event. The nervous system quickly revs up and releases hormones that prepare the body to face or flee danger. More recently, researchers have added freeze, the inability to move or act against the threat; and fawn, trying to appease whoever is causing the danger to avoid conflict; to the range of possible responses to danger or stress.
There is a fifth response that children struggling with varying degrees of ADHD or anxiety sometimes exhibit, and that is fib. Fibbing or using fabrications, smaller untruths or inaccuracies, allows the child to reduce the immediate threat.
The fib mechanism serves the child in a number of ways. It offers temporary protection from the feeling of having disappointed someone else like a parent or teacher; it can deflect anger or consequences; it allows the child an extension, giving him/her some time to process his feelings or wait until the threat has passed; and can be a function of self-preservation, allowing the child to keep his/her self-esteem intact without feeling shame.
These children are not setting out to intentionally lie or mislead. But when facing stress, they may be unable to refrain from fibbing because of weak inhibition and/or faulty working memory — i.e., the failure to use hindsight, thinking about what has happened in the past, and/or foresight, considering the long-term complications once they’re found out. They may suffer from poor emotional regulation and feel overwhelming fear when facing a highly stressful situation. Alternately, they may lack problem-solving skills or the ability to access them when overwhelmed.
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