Trust is an essential foundation for every healthy relationship. As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your eighteen-year-old’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-teen relationship and understand how to promote trust in your teen.

Teens and emerging young adults ages 15-19 are in the process of exerting their independence and spending more time with peers. They are working on understanding and predicting others’ thoughts and feelings. As they do, they also may seek to hide the truth, particularly if they fear harsh judgment from respected adults or peers. They are also testing boundaries and taking more risks socially and academically. Often, that risk-taking can lead to mistakes, misbehaviors, or even failure. Teens may be tempted to cover up their failures or want to take risks their parents may not permit.

Though younger children cannot distinguish between the subtleties of deception, teens and emerging adults can understand the differences between honest mistakes, guesses, and exaggerations, as well as sarcasm and irony. As part of their cognitive and moral development, a full understanding of lying and its consequences continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence.

The key to many parenting challenges, like raising teens who learn the value of truth-telling, is finding ways to communicate to meet your and your teen’s needs. The steps below will prepare you to help your teen learn more about your family values, how they relate to lying, and how you can grow and deepen your trusting relationship.

Whether it’s your fifteen-year-old lying about where they went after school or your seventeen-year-old lying about failing a test, your teen’s ability to tell the truth can become a regular challenge if you don’t create plans and strategies.

Today, in the short term, honesty can create

● greater opportunities for connection and enjoyment

● trust in each other

● a sense of well-being for a parent and teens

● added daily peace of mind

Tomorrow, in the long term, your teen

● builds skills in self-awareness

● builds skills in social awareness, perspective-taking, empathy, and compassion

● builds skills in self-control

● develops moral and consequential thinking and decision-making

This five-step process helps you teach your teen about honesty. It also builds essential skills in your teen. The same process can also be used to address other parenting issues (learn more about the process[1] ).

Tip: These steps are best when you and your teen are not tired or in a rush.

Tip: Intentional communication[2] and a healthy parenting relationship[3] support these steps.

You can get your teen thinking about honesty by asking them open-ended questions. You’ll help prompt your teen’s thinking. You’ll also better understand their thoughts, feelings, and challenges related to honesty so that you can address them. In gaining input, your teen

● has the opportunity to become more aware of how they are thinking and feeling related to lies and truth

● can begin to formulate what it means to be in...