Left brain world

'Lying your way to the top: How tale-telling toddlers could turn out to be tycoons of the future '

By Fay Schlesinger

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278844/Lying-way-How-tale-telling-toddlers-turn-tycoons-future.html

For parents driven to distraction by their children's little white lies, here is the good news.

Far from being a sign of future problems, research has shown that children who fib from an early age are more likely to become high-flying leaders, executives and bankers.

The complex brain processes involved in formulating a lie are indicators of a toddler's intelligence, it is claimed.

So the next time your son or daughter denies having touched the chocolate biscuits despite the suspicious brown smears around their mouth, there is no need to worry, according to researchers.

A study of 1,200 children found that a fifth of two-year-olds are likely to tell lies, rising to 90 per cent from the age of four.

This figure increases further until children reach their lying peak at 12.

But no link was found between telling porkies and a tendency to cheat in exams or commit fraud in later life.

Dr Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University, examined children aged two to 17.

He said: 'Parents should not be alarmed if their child tells a fib.'

The left brain habitually lies, sometimes knowlingly and sometimes unknowingly - the right brain cannot because it deals with reality rather than conceptualisations. As the left brain becomes increasingly dominant as a child grows up, their ability to lie increases. It is a skill for success in a left hemisphere world that is founded on a separation from the reality of life.