I have a 9 year old daughter that stole $100.00 from me this morning. I went in her room to wake her up and her 5 year old sister up so they can get ready for school. My 9 year old woke up and said "Mom I been looking under my pillow." after she looked under her pillow and there was $100.00 bill. I looked at her and said "there is no way a tooth fairy would put that much money under your pillow. She kept up with that lie. I asked my 5 year old daughter and she said "I was hiding in the living room and I told my big sister that I found a dollar, and she took it and put it under her pillow." That is when the oldest daughter starts to tell the truth. I am soooo angry right now. She lies about everything. When I say everything I mean EVERYTHING!! Myself and my husband have already put her on punishement for her lying about other things. She hasn't received any snacks, don't watch cartoons, took her playstation and games back to the store, and no toys. It has been 2 weeks since she hasn't done or received those things. She watched her little sister eat snacks, received new toys. I don't understand it. What can I do? How else can I punish her?? Another thing is she don't pay attention in school. Sometimes she can not tell me what she learned in school.
If my oldest daughter broke something she will blame it on her little sister, If the youngest girl say "Mom she ate my food" I ask the oldest and she says no. She lies when her little sister toys always come up broken. I think her behavior started when the youngest was born. She was soooo sweet but now she is such a liar. She even lies about if she had some gum. (which is in my purse) Recently she lied on her 4th grade teacher, she said her teacher asked her why was your Mom trying to act like she is nice. I knew she was lying about that because about 20 minutes later I asked her again and she said something totally different. Everytime I ask her anything I can not believe a word come out of her mouth. That is just sad.
I do not punish my daughter all the time. I show her lots of love. I treat both of my daughters the same, and I love them the same. She has been homeschooled for a few years and I think she is a little bit sad since she is back in school. I think I am a great Mom for what I have been doing so far. The teacher knows the whole situation and she talked to me a bit and I will talk to her again on Monday. She gave me tips on how to handle this situation such as give her an children encyclopedia and have her copy pages daily until she gets her act together.
I think it's time to seek professional help. You could start with the school counselor, and she what they recommend.
Children lie when they feel like they have no other choice.
My daughter was about 7 years old when she first started lying. When kids are younger, they usually only tell the truth.
At first we punished for lying, but that didn't help. She just lied MORE to get out of punishments. Basically, we started a cycle of lying that could have gone on forever.
So, we nipped it in the bud.
We started giving her a choice, and we rewarded telling the truth with a lesser punishment. For example, we discover a broken plate.
"Daughter, did you break this plate?"
She says "No, it was the cat."
We say "Okay. If you admit to breaking this plate, your consequence will be that you have to help clean it up. If you lie about breaking the plate, your consequence will be no TV for the rest of the day. So we ask again, did you break the plate?"
Sometimes lying can come from over-punishing. You don't have to punish your kid for every little thing they do! Sometimes all that is needed is for them to make the situation right. Sometimes they just need a hug and for you to say "Looks like you made a mistake, let's learn from this and not do it again next time."
Lying and stealing also comes from the child not being able to see that there is another way for them to get what they want. My daughter was about 7 when she tried to steal something from a store. I was FURIOUS! But we handled with her giving the item back, and the store manager came out and gave her a big scare about how he could call the police.
We ended up taking her on a tour of the police station where the policemen were nice, but stern on stealing. Finally we helped her make a chore list where she could EARN money to buy things she wanted. She's never tried stealing again.
The lying and stealing started when my daughter (who is really my stepdaughter who lives with us) was having issues at her mom's house. Mom had another baby with a different daddy (which made daddy #3 for her 3 kids). Unstable environments can cause behavioral problems.
I think that your punishments are making things worse. She probably already feels like you love her younger sister more (because she is getting the treats and the TV) and she has NOT connected that her behavior is the key. So your punishments will continue to not work.
One thing that we always do, is give our daughter a chance to earn back her privileges. Children come up with all sorts of "solutions" if you don't guide them to the right choice. Believe it or not, lying is a solution that you daughter has discovered.
Also, never withhold food like a snack as a punishment!
Be sure you let your daughter know you love her, and that you want her to stop lying.
I do have to say, at one point we got desperate with the lying. So we told our daughter that we were going for ice cream. She got excited and put her coat on and then just before we walked out the door we said "We were lying, we're not going for ice cream."
Then we turned it into a discussion about how she felt when she found out we were lying. She was disappointed, hurt, felt like she couldn't trust us. We talked about how lying hurts your relationship with other people, and hurts the ones you love. She did end up crying a little bit because I think that was the turning point for her when she truly confronted what she was doing. We finished with a discussion about taking responsibility for her actions, and ways she could do that. Instead of lying about breaking the plate, she could say "Mom, Dad, I broke a plate. I'm going to clean it up. Then I'm going to use my allowance to replace it."
After that discussion, we did go for ice cream :) And the lying stopped.
Good luck!
Please get her professional help.
My youngest sister, who is now 32, has lied since she was very young. Stolen things. Destroyed what wasn't hers out of jealousy. She is a pathological liar. She has a spending problem on top of it. She lied to her ex husband. So much so, that she couldn't keep up with her own lies. She as lied to my parents. She used to tell them that she was broke and couldn't afford this or that for her daughter. My parents started sending her money every month. Years later, her now ex SO, visits my parents often, and during discussion this came up. Now parents are finding out that them being broke was a lie! My sister is estranged from our entire family! She has a lot of mental issues. My parents never got her help when she was younger and she is out of control now. It has rubbed off onto my niece who is now your daughters age and is stealing from her stepmom. She stole money, and jewelry. She even went as far as destroying the jewelry by prying the prongs apart to get to the diamonds. I even overheard my niece telling my son that she knew where to get money from, and she was telling him that they could take money from their cousins piggy bank and he would never know. This isn't healthy and you need to nip it in the bud right now. I know that's what your trying to do by asking for advice here, but you need to get her professional help before it goes to far. Talking may only make her conceal her actions more carefully in the future, which is what happened with my sister.
Best of luck
Red flags everywhere. Stop here and do some family therapy and individual counseling for her. You can ask the counselor or your led. They can recommend someone who can work within your budget.
Something's broke and you need help to fix it. This is like she has a broken leg that has not been fixed kind of urgent. This will effect her life and yours if you don't get it fixed. Punishment isn't working and you need some professional parenting advise. Don't sweep everything under the rug. She needs to talk to someone else.
OK, this sounds like my oldest sister. She was horrible to me as a child and blamed me for everything. Best thing is that my parents usually caught her in the act of aggression towards me.
To this day, we are now estranged because she is still a pathological liar. I wonder now if her entire 'sibling jealousy' issue had been better managed if she would have turned out better. I don't know.
But nowadays, you can seek professional help with this one. Please speak with your school counselor and even her teacher and see if she is this way at school as well as at home. If it's just at home, my bet is that your instincts are right and it all started with the new baby.
Someone else posted a similar question to this one. Sounds like she just need a good ole fashion spanking. And I promise you that she wont ever do it again.
If she is that bad I would honestly try to find a councilor that specialises in kids and see if they can help you cause if she's doing that kind of thing now it will just get worst as she gets older.
I understand that you are angry and want to punish her, but the evidence is that punishment is counter productive. It only leads to more lying. Please take a look at this link to some info from Po Bronson.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1122...
Why does she lie?
When did this start?
What does she lie about?
How often does she lie?
We need more info.
My niece's oldest son acted out the same way. He started lying which led to stealing which led to lying about stealing to stealing from a store, getting caught and the situation being taken out of his mom's hands and him being placed in a juvenile hall where he still is 9 months later. He turned 14 in August and he can't leave until he acknowledges what he's been doing is wrong.
At the core of the issue is his relationship with his mother. She had him at 16 and he's always been a 'bother'.....but he's a quiet kid who doesn't act out in any other ways so the stealing/lying is his way of having some control over something. His mother has always put her boyfriends/her life/ her happiness before him and is now married with 3 step kids and a new baby who she DOTES on....just imagine what that makes the oldest child think/feel. She is also always the victim and only cares about her son's actions in relation to how they affect her.
My point is that the stealing/lying is a symptom of something more and that is what the focus needs to be on-not on new punishments. My niece was constantly punishing her son and couldn't figure out why nothing worked...it didn't work because what he needed was attention and love and he figured out that negative attention is better then no attention.
