I finally gave up lying to my parents when they decided that the penalty for lying would be in excess of the penalty for the misbehaviour I’d be lying about.
This was around age 17. It took all of us a little while to twig.
Thanks for sharing that matt_mcl ~ I’ve just borrowed it for my son who should have outgrown lying LONG ago.
Not 30 minutes ago my almost 12 year old son came to me crying. He said he’d burnt his hand getting ice out of the icemaker (new fridge - installed today - our first icemaker). The odd thing is that his left hand is burned along the palm and thumb - which tell me he was investigating the coils tucked under the ice maker rather than grabbing some ice as he’d said. I threw some ice cubes in a baggy for his hand and chewed his *ss out for lying about how he’d gotten hurt.
These kind of lies happens ALL THE TIME here - just by this child - who happens to be the only boy of our six kids. The fact that you were 17 and still lying to your parents scares me.
My I slightly hijack this thread and ask what other parents have done with children who lie when telling the truth would be easier?
does this mean that lying to save our skin is instinctual? i wonder if dogs lie…
Sleeping ones do! 
I agree that your child is a little young to punish for lying. I agree with the advice to start explaining the difference between real and not real, also include pretending and “stories”.
I did not lie to my parents as a teenager, the punishment was always worse for lying than for almost everything else, so it just wasn’t worth it.
One thing which is not applicable to tanookie’s situation. When I was around 10 or 11 years old, I think, I kept losing my glasses. When I realized I had no idea where they were, I’d lie to my parents until I got caught because I was afraid of what would happen if I admitted losing them, and I was desperately hoping they would mysteriously become found. As a result, I’d wind up getting in trouble for both losing my glasses and lying. My advice is to make sure the penalty for lying is worse than the penalty for doing whatever the act that prompted the lying was.
With a two year old, I’d go with what people who are far better with kids than I am have said. Point out to her that she’s making up stories and talk to her about what’s real and what isn’t. Maybe as part of helping to teach her the difference, you could play a game where you see who can make up the most outrageous stories. I know as a kid, I loved tall tales.
CJ
Maybe this is a bit too much of a downer to share here. But here goes anyways.
My father grew up on a farm in Kansas many years ago. There was a friendly happy dog named Charlie, who kept him company.
One day, my dad saw a stray dog attack and kill some of the livestock. He knew what had happened, and went to report to a grown-up. They asked him how the animals had been killed, and my poor dad wasn’t old enough to know that “Charlie” and “a dog” didn’t mean the same thing. So Charlie was shot and killed, on the word of a 3 year old with an incomplete vocabullary.
ANYWAYS:
tanookie, savor this moment. Print it out and save it in the scrapbook… and 10 years from now you can show the little one, one day while you are out buying ice cream together, the first time she lied to you 
When this happens here at Casa flodnak, we quote an old old Garfield strip. Garfield blamed some transgression on his teddy bear, causing Jon to look at the reader and say: “It’s not his lying that bothers me as much as the credit that he’s giving my intelligence.”
But yeah, at 2 or even 3 (totnak’s age), they’re so clumsy about lying it’s actually cute. Generally our policy is not to ask Who Did It or Did You Do This when the answer is obvious. Don’t give the kids the chance to lie. Otherwise, flodjunior is plenty old enough to know that if you misbehave and then lie about it, the consequences will be much worse than if you came clean about the crime in the first place. So far that’s incentive enough to stay reasonably honest, but he’s only 9. I’ll get back to you on this policy when the Puberty Fairy starts making deliveries.
Ugh… lets not mention the puberty fairy shall we 
I don’t think any parent is ready for that one!! My niece just turned 13 today and my SIL was telling me how now she is regarded by my niece as always wrong and pretty stupid. sigh