Lateral Thinking Puzzles

42. BOY or GIRL

A boy and a girl are sitting on the porch. "I'm a boy," says the child with black hair. "I'm a girl," says the child with red hair.
If at least one of them is lying, who is which?

Submitted by deedeebew@gmail.com · Added 26 January 2014

Solution:

The child with black hair is the girl, and the child with red hair is the boy. Since at least one of them is lying, if the black-haired child claims to be a boy, they must be lying, making them the girl. Consequently, the red-haired child, claiming to be a girl, must be the boy. This conclusion is supported by the understanding that both could be lying, which aligns with the condition of at least one lie.


Comments (12)

Nsj 4 February 2014

If at least one of them is lying then they are both lying. So the black haired child is the girl and the red head is the boy.

KUMAR 31 March 2014

I would ask one of them that what will the other person say if I ask about the gender, if the person replys f, and the other one say f then the first one is right and he is male, and if differ she is female

Gazza 6 May 2014

Child with Black hair is lying, no "boy" would be sitting on the back porch, he would be off playing pirates or some such thing.

agarhi 16 June 2014

One of them is 'lying' down and they both are saying the truth. Trust the kids man !

balu hegde 20 June 2014

either black hair kid is a girl or red hair kid is a boy

Gynwaith 21 June 2014

Well it says AT LEAST one is lying, not necessarily only one. So since there is one boy and one girl, but two kids each claiming to be a different one of the two, then they're both lying. The kid with black hair is a girl because they claimed to be a boy and the kid with red hair was a boy because they claimed to be a girl.

dave08 22 June 2014

jj or joshua???

ashwin 14 January 2015

Child with black hair is the girl!

Expln: If the child with black hair was telling the truth, then in order to maintain the 'atleast' condition, the child in red hair should tell a lie, in which case, both replies should be the same. Hence, child in black hair was lying, and hence, the girl!

samuel.n 20 January 2015

It says that one of them is lying, so the other must be telling the truth. So, if the first child is lying, then she is a girls and obviously the second one is telling the truth, so she too is a girl. vice versa for boys.

Tri_Trunks 22 February 2015



They are both lying and they both telling the truth. Both children are transgendered.

Banban 1 April 2015

I found nothing wrong in those childs.if at least 1 z lieing...thn i think it might b d person who is asking the qn that at least 1 is lie

PurpleGiraffe 20 March 2018

One child has red AND black hair (dyed or some strange mutation (or a tiger that can speak for some reason)) and lies, since it is not both a boy and a girl. The genders of both childs cannot be determined.

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