How to handle a chid who lies?

[3lilreds in NC]

My 10 yo dd has developed the habit of lying. At this point, it's not something she's "just trying out." We have discussed it over the last few weeks, and I have seen her lie to my face with no evidence that she was not telling the truth.

 

For example, I found some Mary Kay product (I have a MK business) she clearly took from my inventory. When I confronted her about it, she told me that my 3 yo ds had given them to her and she had not found the right time to return them to me. (Yeah, right. But, she didn't even have to THINK about the lie. It rolled right off her tongue.)

 

A couple of weeks ago, I found some apps downloaded to my iPod that had each cost $0.99; not going to break the bank, but we "fund" our iTunes purchases with the occasional gift card, to keep the spending in check, and after she bought them I didn't have enough to get an app I'd wanted to use for school. Actually, that's probably the only reason I even noticed. When I asked her about them, she denied any knowledge. (The only account created in one of the games was named Emma. I guess her sister did that to be sneaky? I don't think so.)

 

Over the summer, she convinced her little cousin to let her have an American Girl doll purse, after my sister told them they were not allowed to trade stuff. (Faith is only 5 and doesn't have much AG stuff.) My sister called me to tell me about it because Faith came to her, crying, and told her that Emma had told Faith not to tell her mom about it, and of course, Faith did, because she's only 5 and it was the right thing to do. When I confronted Emma, she lied, and continued to lie until I told her that I knew my sister was NOT lying.

 

I have had repeated conversations with her about lying. I've talked with her about how God feels about lying, how I feel about lying, and how her friends would feel about lying if they found out about it. I have kept after her when I knew she was lying, until she admitted the truth to me. The thing is, I'm getting the impression that she lies to me all the time and I just don't notice most of it. Thankfully there isn't really that much she can get away with, but still.

 

She was banned from using my iPod & computer because of the downloads - I've since had to password-protect them because she would sneak on them when I wasn't not looking.

 

She is not taking horse lessons yet, because I told her I could not let her be responsible for an animal when I didn't know if she would tell the truth if the horse happened to get hurt. That means Abbie isn't taking them, either.

 

I'm considering making her pay me for the MK. I can't sell it to anyone else, and it's at least $50 in retail product that she took out of the boxes and has been carrying in her purse. She's not even old enough to wear it, for Pete's sake. RED lipstick? Did she really think I wouldn't notice RED lipstick if she tried it out? :lol:

 

I know I need to do more "tomato-staking" so she has no opportunity to lie to me. I know that. It's hard, with Isaac and the occasional need to be away from the children for a few minutes of peace, but it's got to happen.

 

So, here's what I need to know:

 

1. How have you dealt with lying in your family?

2. Should I make her pay me for the MK? She will have to give me what's left of her birthday money.

3. Should I let Abbie take horse riding lessons and not Emma? I'm beginning to think this is the only way I'm going to get through to her.

 

Thanks for any advice. I'm feeling frustrated by this because nothing seems to get through to her. I know it's age-appropriate and all that, but I don't know where to go from here.

Edited October 6, 2010 by 3lilreds in NC

[Meriwether]

Dd7 lied to me more and more often. I won't go into how I figured all that out. She has mostly broken the habit - and it had gotten to be a habit.

 

We had a very serious conversation about trust and truthfulness and how they have to go hand in hand. We talked about it being a sin. And we talked about consequences and punishments.

 

She memorized a verse about lying.

 

We had many moments where I would have to tell her, "I would like to believe you, but I just can't so you won't be able to ______________ -whatever it was. I didn't make up situations to throw in her face, but if I couldn't trust her completely with the situation I did not give her the benefit of the doubt. We have moved past this now. She has regained a lot of my trust.

 

At the time of our discussion, her birthday was a month away. I throw lavish parties and she is my party girl. I told her that if she lied to me even once during that month she would get no party, no cake, no presents. Several times she would be halfway through a sentence, stop, and start over, but she kicked the habit. I was proud of her.

 

This worked for us.

 

ETA: I would make her pay for the MK. If you have it in your house all the time, I wouldn't want her to get in the habit of helping herself. That could get expensive in the teen years. Maybe you could sell it to her at cost.

[Mimm]

I've dealt with this on a slightly younger child. It takes time to break them of the habit once they are in it. Imogen went through a phase of around a year where she would lie continually. It was always to get out of trouble. One night it all hit the fan when we were scrounging up dinner and she made herself a sandwich. (Yes, this story is about a sandwich. To this day, I can't believe it.) She asked her father for ice cream and he told her she needed to finish her sandwich. She came back later asking again and when he asked if she had finished her sandwich, she said yes. So she had her ice cream. And then my husband found a sandwich with only two missing bites in the trash can. She insisted over and over, very emphatically, that it wasn't hers. The thing was, it could only have been hers. It had mayonnaise on it. Genevieve and I are strictly anti-mayo and my husband doesn't throw away food. By the end of the night, it wasn't about the sandwich at all, but about the lying in the face of such obvious proof. She didn't admit it till two days later.

 

Anyway, what I did was make it clear very often that I didn't trust her. This took months. She would ask to do something, say, play on the Nintendo DS. I would say no. She would ask why. I would tell her I don't trust her. She would get in an argument with her sister (who very rarely lied). I would get two different stories and I would believe her sister. And make it clear why. I would frequently bring up specific incidences when she lied, like the sandwich thing. I know it felt to her like I was holding a grudge, but I wouldn't do it in a nasty way, but just always to keep this type of thing in the forefront of her mind. And ANY time she would confess a lie BEFORE I argued with her about it, I thanked her and praised her and so on. I wanted it to be a very rewarding experience to tell the truth and even if she blurted out the lie, I wanted her to be able to undo that. I also talked about it a lot, about how it takes a long time to repair trust and how I wanted to be able to trust her and how she should pause and think about how she's going to answer me before she does.

 

I think lying gets to be a habit, something that people do without thinking about it. So I tried to make lying something that was thought about frequently. Also, I tried to make the negatives about lying completely outweigh any positives about lying (such as getting away with things). Even if that meant that things were unfair for her at times.

 

I'm happy to say that she almost never lies anymore and I trust her very much.

[RegGuheert]

Click on the 'lying' tag below if you would like to see previous discussions of this topic.

[Peela]

When my son was younger than your daughter, we knew he had stolen $5- I think it was on the couch or something. We literally stopped everything- all of normal life ground to a halt- while we sat and confronted him about it, UNTIl he finally confessed. Then we thanked him for telling the truth, forgave him, had him make amends to his sister (whose money it was). Even though it had taken literally a good couple of hours until he confessed, we didnt budge from the couch until he did. He didn't get punished or guilt tripped. We just wanted the truth.

I think it made a strong impact.

Both my kids still lie sometimes but he is the one least likely to.

[JudoMom]

I've dealt with this on a slightly younger child. It takes time to break them of the habit once they are in it. Imogen went through a phase of around a year where she would lie continually. It was always to get out of trouble. One night it all hit the fan when we were scrounging up dinner and she made herself a sandwich. (Yes, this story is about a sandwich. To this day, I can't believe it.) She asked her father for ice cream and he told her she needed to finish her sandwich. She came back later asking again and when he asked if she had finished her sandwich, she said yes. So she had her ice cream. And then my husband found a sandwich with only two missing bites in the trash can. She insisted over and over, very emphatically, that it wasn't hers. The thing was, it could only have been hers. It had mayonnaise on it. Genevieve and I are strictly anti-mayo and my husband doesn't throw away food. By the end of the night, it wasn't about the sandwich at all, but about the lying in the face of such obvious proof. She didn't admit it till two days later.

 

Anyway, what I did was make it clear very often that I didn't trust her. This took months. She would ask to do something, say, play on the Nintendo DS. I would say no. She would ask why. I would tell her I don't trust her. She would get in an argument with her sister (who very rarely lied). I would get two different stories and I would believe her sister. And make it clear why. I would frequently bring up specific incidences when she lied, like the sandwich thing. I know it felt to her like I was holding a grudge, but I wouldn't do it in a nasty way, but just always to keep this type of thing in the forefront of her mind. And ANY time she would confess a lie BEFORE I argued with her about it, I thanked her and praised her and so on. I wanted it to be a very rewarding experience to tell the truth and even if she blurted out the lie, I wanted her to be able to undo that. I also talked about it a lot, about how it takes a long time to repair trust and how I wanted to be able to trust her and how she should pause and think about how she's going to answer me before she does.

 

I think lying gets to be a habit, something that people do without thinking about it. So I tried to make lying something that was thought about frequently. Also, I tried to make the negatives about lying completely outweigh any positives about lying (such as getting away with things). Even if that meant that things were unfair for her at times.

 

I'm happy to say that she almost never lies anymore and I trust her very much.

 

This is how I've handled it (though the boys were much younger, and it only took a couple of days).

 

I would also let Abbie take lessons.

[Barb_]

One of ours used to lie like a rug. She was impulsive and sneaky when she was little--impulsive like absently carving a spider into my dining room table and sneaky like stashing chocolate chips in her room--and by the time she turned 10 she had developed into a reflexive liar. She lied about things that were unimportant, but once the lie was out of her mouth, she felt like she had to go with it. She had outgrown the impulsivity and had developed a conscience, but couldn't break the habit. So I came up with the three second-second chance.

 

I told her that she had roughly three seconds after a lie to come clean and it would be like she never lied in the first place. At first she would need prompting as in, "Are you sure that's what happened, or do you need to answer that question again?" Later she would catch herself lying and almost immediately say, "Wait, I don't know why I just lied about that. That was really stupid...what really happened was..." The trick is to stay calm and rational as she is trying to break the habit. Oh, I would still address the transgression that caused the lie, but I would always thank her for remembering to come clean and rebuilding my trust in her.

 

The second-chance method only works if the child in question understands how lying erodes trust and is motivated to replace the habit with a better one.

 

Barb

[Liz CA]

Even though I do not have more than one child (now grown) I was never in favor of punishing everyone for the infractions of one.

It may make her realize rather fast WHY her sister is riding and she is not.

 

I also agree that it has to be nipped in the bud. The only time I was careful was when I sensed/knew that fear of punishment was the reason for lying. There is a fine line between punishment and consequences.

After she lies and you know it you can calmly say: "Tomorrow your sister will be going for her riding lesson but you will not ride as a consequence." The fact that you cannot trust her anymore (I would communicate this to her) is also not punishment (IMHO) but a natural consequence. Soon enough other children may not believe her anymore, this is also a consequence.

 

The whole issue is always painful because it's such blatant dishonesty but most parents have to deal with it sooner or later. Better when they are young, I think.

[TechWife]

A couple of weeks ago, I found some apps downloaded to my iPod that had each cost $0.99; not going to break the bank, but we "fund" our iTunes purchases with the occasional gift card, to keep the spending in check, and after she bought them I didn't have enough to get an app I'd wanted to use for school.

She needs to pay you for these, either with any monies she has on hand or by doing extra chores.

 

She was banned from using my iPod & computer because of the downloads - I've since had to password-protect them because she would sneak on them when I wasn't not looking.

Good move.

 

She is not taking horse lessons yet, because I told her I could not let her be responsible for an animal when I didn't know if she would tell the truth if the horse happened to get hurt. That means Abbie isn't taking them, either.

Enroll Abbie tomorrow. She shouldn't have to pay the price of her sister's irresponsibility.

 

I'm considering making her pay me for the MK. I can't sell it to anyone else, and it's at least $50 in retail product that she took out of the boxes and has been carrying in her purse.

You're on the right track here. At least have her cover your cost.

1. How have you dealt with lying in your family? Loss of any related privileges and whatever else is most important to the child at the time - computer privileges, camera, lego, etc. Also, apologies to any other people involved.

2. Should I make her pay me for the MK? She will have to give me what's left of her birthday money.

Absolutely.

3. Should I let Abbie take horse riding lessons and not Emma?

Yes, indeed you should.

[AK_Mom4]

1. How have you dealt with lying in your family?

2. Should I make her pay me for the MK? She will have to give me what's left of her birthday money.

3. Should I let Abbie take horse riding lessons and not Emma? I'm beginning to think this is the only way I'm going to get through to her.

 

1 - similiar to others, we just stopped believing her. Ever. For a good period of time, I checked up on virtually everything she told me.

2 - Yes. Make her pay you back. That's a reasonable consequence.

3 - Yes - send Abbie to lessons. Emma can wait til the next time around if she has made an improvement....

[3lilreds in NC]

Thanks, everyone. I guess I knew that I needed to make her pay me back and not let her take horse lessons. I hate having to be the hard a$$. I wonder if she will ever know how much it breaks my heart to have to do stuff like this. I suppose she will if she has children of her own someday. :)

[ShutterBug]

Here's what I would do.

 

I'd tell her you're going to take her somewhere she'd really like to go...an amusement park, a movie, whatever. Put it on the calendar. Mention it often to get her excited about going. Then the day of when she's ready to go very non-chalantly tell her "Oh, sorry, I lied."

 

Yes. It sounds mean...but she's also 10 and could stand to be taught a lesson. But I bet she'll think twice before she lies again :) .

Edited October 6, 2010 by ShutterBug