The next step after lying comes easily, said students many times. They called it "ratting out," "snitching," "telling," and even the very old fashioned, "framed." It comes when a frightened child, deeply desiring to avoid punishment and rejection, blames someone else for whatever violation of parental regard that child has committed. "He did it," "She did it," simply means, "I didn't do it," which really means, "Please don't hurt me. Please don't punish me. Please don't reject me." It's a lie, but lying doesn't matter. Only avoidance matters. Just as with lying, when we pretend to be a different self to hide from punishment, it alienates the self from the self. It also alienates us from others. We no longer see them with the natural feeling of compassion. We see others as objects for our use, shields against our fear, and we use them in whatever way we can.
The child has been brought into a meaning perspective that can limit if not distort any relationship that child might ever experience. He she/he has learned to use objects, to use another person not as an end in themselves but only as a means to the child's end. The child has moved outside the moral sphere. The consequence of lying isn't punishment. The consequence of lying doesn't need discovery. To lie simply and inevitably diminishes the self. That's a very real and very powerful consequence which can be repaired to some extent and can be avoided absolutely once the child understands the nature of the consequence. Real experience and knowledge of real consequences to others and to self can do far more for self-discipline than punishment and fear.
When I asked, my students said they thought that self-discipline served better than any discipline derived from punishment from fear.
In the case of lying and framing, we encounter a very real and very damaging consequence beyond the damage within the child. When a child avoids punishment by deflecting blame, the other person blamed will know about the nature of that lie. That person will feel its sting, the very rejection the original child wished so desperately to avoid. That damage happens even if the lie and the frame didn't really get believed and nothing else happens to the person framed. That person may remember that lie, that blame, for the rest of that person's life. It may taint that life and taint the relationship between the one who lied and the one lied about. If the lie sticks, and the other feels the powerful sting of the rejection of punishment based on another's lie, what happens to the one who lied? That child may feel very bad for what she/he has done, but the chances are very low that the child will escape that feeling by confessing to the lie and the original deed and now the lie. The exacerbation of the issue also confuses what is actually happening and creates a kind of cognitive dissonance. The child knows about the wrong in lying, and can see the damage to the other, but the original fear of rejection through punishment still pertains, has indeed increased. The child will find some way of putting the dissonance to rest. If that doesn't come with learning to speak the truth at any cost, it may resolve in a sense of self-justification about the original lie and the framing lie. Such a self-justification can also form into a meaning perspective and become a motivator for future harmful lies and denials of the truth. It can become a permanent motivator to avoid blame at all costs whatever it may cost others.
A lie feels even more serious when directed at another because it causes considerably more harm than whatever the original lie meant to avoid. It's like using too much bug spray. We can make yourself quite ill by trying to protect ourselves from a rather unpleasant but minor annoyance.