Worried about my 7 year old daughter...

[CoopCrazy]

Ia m battling the same thing with my 7 yo DS... He will lie about ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING... I have tried everything to get him stop and every time I catch him we have the "trust" talk.. I would love to be able to trust him but he just gets caught in soooo many lies that I cant.. He wants to be able to play with his friends but when he is caught lying he will fight to the death to swear its true , so he spends many afternoons inside.... If you figure out what to do .... Share with me please ..

 

[newdock]

Kids do things for a reason. Once you figure that you, then you will have your solution.

So, think about what she gains by lying. Think about your reaction and the reactions of other people she deals with. Think about what makes her comfortable and uncomfortable. She must be getting something positive from the experience or else she wouldn't do it. Kids are pretty simple that way.

Once you can figure out why she lies, then you will be able to try fix it.

Good luck with it. I have dealt with this before as well so I know how hard it can be (and frustrating). I have a step-daughter that is prone to lying on a regular basis. She was never taught how to deal with problems (she lived with her mom while she was young) so when she gets herself into one, she lies to get out of it. She is very uncomfortable with confrontation and lying is easier and safer for her. If she gets into a fight with a friend, she would rather walk away and lose the friendship than have to have a difficult conversation and resolve it. We are working to help her by teaching her how to deal with these problems head on - role playing and doing pretend conversations. I often have to help her come up with specific dialogue for resolving problems so that she has a little bit of confidence going into it. She is 15 now and her lying is costing her dearly. She is well known within the family and school as someone not to be trusted.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

When I was little, my parents told me that lying would get me in much more trouble than telling the truth. Make the punishments for lying MUCH worse than the punishments for telling the truth. (Edited to add: I don't mean to punish her for telling the truth when it is the right thing to do, but rather when she does something bad that deserves to be punished. If she lies about it, punish severely. If she tells the truth, punish her, but do so moderately and make sure she knows what the punishment would have been if she told a lie) Be sure she knows this. I very rarely lied because it only took one or two times of a severe punishment to fix that. Severe punishment meant having something I "treasured" taken away or getting put in my room for an entire day. I was only allowed to come out to eat without speaking and to go to the bathroom. My mom was a big fan of taking away favorite stuffed animals or video games. Didn't happen often because we rarely got in trouble or lied, but when it did, man was it terrible.

Also, don't threaten her. Just do it. However, give her a chance to talk to you. Get down on her level and ask her why she is lying and tell her that since she lied, this is her punishment. If she continually tells you she wasn't lying or seem to actually believe what she tells you, you might want to consider finding her some help. In this case, there may be an underlying issue.

 

[chickeypoo]

OMG! are you sure you aren't in my brain? lol. my middle daughter(6) also has this issue with lying..it seems like just about everything coming out her mouth is a lie. she stood on her dresser drawer yesterday. and something fell behind it.. then it was tippy. i asked her how it happened. *i dunno. i was getting a shirt out of the closet and then it was tippy*

i am fed up to here(imagine my hand a foot over my head) with hey lying. i can't take her lying.. all the time.

me= do you smell something?
her= nope
me= did you spray something?
her= nope
me= well, it smells like air freshener
her= oh that.. i did spray that.(guilty look on her face)

ugh. i didn't read all these posts. i just had to say my issues too. i broke down outside tonight cuz i am so stressed out. i was sick a week, having issues with breathing, baby girl is sick(20 months old) crying, cooking, dishes. laundry, all on nearly no sleep last night. all while hubby is sittin in the front room watching, having eaten. I asked him to bathe baby, he says too busy right then. grr. i hadn't even sat down since i had gotten home from work. i still haven't eaten.. but honestly.. i lost my appetite as i realized how little he really wants to help me.

sorry for the hijack. I needed to vent.

Thanks for listening.
Sue

 

[deb1]

Quote:
Your daughter did tell you the truth when you asked the right question. When you mentioned the air freshner she admitted to spraying it. My nose is not as sensitive as some people's. Sometimes I will light a candle or spray room deoderant and wonder why it hadn't taken effect only to have people tell me that it has.

 

[chickeypoo]

she can smell just fine. it's just that she doesn't want to tell the truth on it. ugh. she told me last night she was going to be a better girl today.. so far so good

Sue

 

[SunnyDawn]

Boy, that is the age isn't it? My daughter went through a similar thing when she was 7. Except she would do other things to get attention... Writing on walls, toys etc., breaking her toys, cutting her hair off (I cried), being extremely rude to people! I was going crazy!
Then a friend of mine (who is a counselor) pointed out how much attention she was getting with all this problem behavior... She said that some kids crave attention and they will take negative attention any day over little responses to positive behavior.
She told me to start praising her loudly and animatedly every time she did anything that even remotely resembled better behavior even if it didn't seem super positive to me... Well shock of shocks, within two weeks I had a new child! She quit destroying things and started being much more polite to others!
I don't neccessarily think that growing up to be a great actor or a wonderful story teller isn't something to encourage, but she needs to understand that it's important to let the listener know it's just a story and to not tell a story that will upset others if they think it's true.
Maybe when she tells a story and is honest that she has created this story herself ~ you could pour on the praise? I don't know, it's worth a try... It can be hard to tell what will work with different kids.

GOOD LUCK! BTW my problem child is almost 30 now and can manage to be polite to others most of the time, and she is almost never destructive!!!

 

[ORchickens]

This all reminds me of my friend's family. Her daughter had the same kind of lying. Huge stories, from the time she was a little girl. My friend didn't know why she was doing it.

Well, I certainly did. My friend "lies" all the time. In front of her kids. But in her mind it is quite different.

It isn't. Telling a tale is false no matter what. I know my friend lies or embellishes A LOT all the time. I choose to like her anyway. But her kids don't know the difference! Plus, at times she tells THEM to lie for her as well. For example, how they spent money, or where they were on a give day/time. Stuff like that. She tells them to lie, they listen to her make up stories, and then she's surprised when her daughter has an active imagination and shares it with others.

Perhaps not like your situation at all though.

Oh, and a lot of the time, I really really think that my friend believes the lies she tells. They are truth (or some version of it) to her. And her daughter, she too really believes a lot of what she says. Especially if it is something she WANTS to be true.

 

[claud]

I think it would help if you could figure out if she's doing it for attention or if she just enjoys fooling people(fun in a kid's mind).

For attention I think it would be beneficial to give her some one-on-one time - do girly stuff if she likes that.

If she's enjoying these stories and likes to actually fool people you might want to consider getting her into magic tricks - a book on simple magic tricks maybe. I remember when I was young my brother loved that stuff.

Just some thoughts - haven't experienced it myself - have teenager(and they NEVER lie

) and 3 yr old(not old enough for that yet)

 

[chickaddict]

When my sons were little I had them convinced that if they were lying to me I would know it because there would be tiny black dots on their tongue that only mommies could see. This worked like a charm for years, but they were 2,3,and 4 at the time.


When my middle child was 7 or 8 his lying started up again. Our response was pretty simple - we called him out on it every time.
It doesn't sound like it should be affective, but it was. You see, we called him out on it regardless of who was around. Relatives, friends, ours or his, it didn't matter but it wasn't easy.

It was extremely embarrassing for all of us if we had friends over and I would say "Canaan that story is not true" or "Canaan thats just a plain old nasty lie".


He is 18 now and one of the most honest people I know. He has a couple of friends who are liars and he calls them out every time.

lesson learned the hard way

we did not punish him we EMBARRASSED HIM!!!