Need Help with a Lying

My daughter had a huge lying problem, i would watch her do something and get on to her about it and she would look me in the eyes and say she did not do it. I was so completely frustrated. A friend of mine told me to give her a spoon full of apple cider vinegar every time she lied. The vinegar is safe but it tastes terrible. Let me tell you my daughter does not lie like that anymore. It also works as sassing juice. Great improvement let me tell ya.

Hi B.,

I agree with Becca. Children need to have the opportunity to decide if they are going to do the right thing or not. Discipline needs to be consistent as well. I made my child choose what her punishment was going to be for lying. If I didn't think it was harsh enough, I would tell her to choose something else until we agreed upon a good punishment. She needs to understand that there are consequences for her actions. She is old enough to know better now and allowing her to continue with this behavior will only make things worse as she gets older. Best wishes!

I have had occasional problems with my daughter lying. I found that I was "setting her up" so rather than asking "did you eat that chocolate?" I now say "I saw you eat that chocolate. You know that is not allowed. As a punishment you've now lost your candy priviledges today". I think that children are so afraid of the consequences of lying and don't want to disapoint us by doing something wrong that they are going to lie and deny doing whatever the offense was. I would also really talk to her and explain that you love her no matter what she does and that you would rather hear the truth. I have told my daughter that if she tells the truth about something that (depending on what it is)she may not get into trouble or her punishment will be less. But if she lies she will always get into trouble! Good luck. What a wonderful grandmother you are for raising your grandbabies and taking care of your husband!!

In my opinion, a natural consequence is always the best consequence. When someone lies on a regular basis, the natural consequence is that no one believes them anymore. What I would do is the next time she lies tell her that since she has lied to you so much, she no longer has the privilege of your trust. Until she has earned it back, you will not take her word on anything...and I do mean anything. She must prove to you that she is telling the truth. If she can't prove it, you will assume she is lying and respond accordingly. This puts the responsibility right in her lap. She learns what the natural consequence to lying is and she has to work to earn back your trust. I hope this helps!
S.

The best way I have handled this with my girls, now 16,14, & 13, is to get them excided about going somewhere, and then when it is time to leave, say, "No, I lied, we are not going anywhere." Then ask her how she feels about that, after she calms down. It worked for me.
Also on a differnt note, there is a Texas Grands yahoo group, and that will also connect you to a lot of grandparents that are raising grandchildren and it helps you know your rights as a grandparent in TX.
good Luck,
M. Harris

Punishment would be taking away the most important thing the child wants at that time. TV time, putting up a favorite toy, or no friends over. The next time she asks for something say no and explain the privilege was taken away because she lied. Try to find out why she is lying, for attention, afraid of punishment, or it could be she wants you to believe she is good and if she did something wrong you will think of her as bad. She needs to know she can tell you anything. Talk to her frequently about the impotence of honesty in relationships.

When my 6 yr old lies, intentionally and knowingly he gets soap in the mouth for 5 seconds before he can spit and rinse. It is foam soap and I do one squirt and make him close his mouth. He still does but thinks about it before he lies to me sometimes. I asked my pedi and it is par of growing up and learning about consequences. Good luck.

My son is 8 and has also lied, which could just be a normal growing up thing. We tell him that liars ALWAYS get caught, it may not be for a while down the road but they do get caught. We explain that he may be hiding it from us, but God knows what he has done and will not let him forget until he makes it right.

On top of that lesson, we do pull his favorite games or totally take away the TV for about a week. He is still lying on occasion but not as much.

Not sure if that helps or not.

J. S.

I am raising my great neice and i went thru that too she is 6 and i used vinegar in her mouth and it has stopped her they also say soap but that did not work but the vinegar did. Good luck

My daughter use to lie all the time. I could always tell when she was lying. I just would tell her that I already know the truth so you can stick by your story or you can tell me the truth. If she stuck by her story she would get in trouble for what she did wrong and then I would get a paper towel and wet it put one drop of soap on the paper towel lather it up and scrub her tongue. I told her she had a dirty mouth because of her lying to me. If she told the truth we would talk about things and she could go play. This gave a little bit more positive reinforcement for telling the truth...She has since decided she prefers telling the truth.
Good luck!

I've come across this many times both as a teacher and as a parent. The truth is you know that children like attention...good or bad, and will go to extreme lengths to get that (which always seemed crazy to me as I personally would like to do the right thing and get noticed for being "good". Still, this is what they do!

However, I also noticed that my daughter in particular, very soon got to realize that Mum had "magical" powers because she always seemed to know when she was lying. Sometimes I even wondered if this child even knew the difference between lying and being truthful. However, we realised that if i called her on it everytime I "knew" she was being untruthful and added ..."there will come a time in your life when it will be desperately important to you that people believe you, and it will be life or death important that they do this - say,what if Mum had collapsed on the floor and is dying and you want these people to go with you to sort it out?!! -the story of the boy calling "wolf" in fact(it has to be truly dramatic and even frightening so that they respond.Children have phenominal imaginations and will get this point even trying out a few even more horrendous stories on you!) However,continuing,"because they have caught you out lying in other smaller things they have decided NEVER to trust you again ...and who would blame them eh? So, this time your mother is going to die BECAUSE you cannot persuade people to listen to you seriously" Can you even imagine this?

It may not work the first time nor even the second but, believe me, it ALWAYS works, eventually! These children just have to understand the importance of being honest in their own terms. They are not necessarily being dishonest to be nasty, I suggest that it is far more often an attempt to please you and say what they think you want to hear, or else they want to impress you, so punishnents under these circumstances seem to me to be inappropriate (but only YOU know the circumstances of your case so do not consider this a criticism of your parenting skills please!!) Good luck and be assured this will definitely pass in good time -the above does seem to shorten the waiting time tho'!

Lying to authority figures leads to distrust of that person, she needs to know that. Broken trust is very hard to repair.

A loss of privliges each time this happens is in order. If you can't trust her to tell the truth, perhaps you can't trust her with her privliges.....play dates, extra curricular activities, one-on-one time with Grandma, bedtimes-you could make her bedtime 1/2 hour earlier when this happens.

You have your hands full, good luck with this!

B., Many times a child who lies could easily be a child who needs attention. This many times is an unconcious call for help. I noticed you are a grandmother who not only is raising two grandaughters, but also caregiving to a husband and working as well. On the surface, this indicates that the lying could easily be a bid for attention. Punishment will give negative attention and may increase the lying. Perhaps spending special time with your granddaughters individually, like a "date" of sorts.....setting a time on a regular basis to do something....it could be going for an ice cream cone and sitting and talking, it could be making a special recipe together and/or sharing a tea party. There are many simple things you can do. Of course with lying there needs to be natural consequences, they need to be executed very simply with a minimum of attention. Do NOT use your special time as a punishment...that needs to be a regular "date". God bless you. You have A LOT on your plate!! KST, laughing all the way.

If you were punished every time you did something the others in your life thought was horrible then you would probably lie also. If you make a big deal about everything then don't expect to hear the truth. Calm everyone down! Listen, Listen, Listen to everything. Give yourself time to react in private but never show too much emotion to what she is telling you. The energy is way overwhelming in your life and she is reacting to it. Listen, nod, ask quiet questions and if she feels safe she will tell you the truth, to which you will not flinch. You can ask her, how does the situation she is talking about make her feel and let her talk. Relate some of your insecurities and how you handled it. DON'T lie yourself in any situation. Love her and be consistantly calm. Pray for the peace of God.

I think all parents have this problem to some degree at least once when raising a child. So you are not alone.

However, I think you might be focusing too much on punishing and not moving beyond lying.

You're an adult. She obviously has a problem, but she's 8 and you are not. So start off by not setting her up. Then you can stop punishing her and start building on something that'll actually work.

Don't ask her anything that could result in a lie. Don't ask her "did you make this mess?" or "did you do your homework?". Just don't ask. Don't even ask her if she brushed her teeth in the morning.

Talk to her if she wants to talk to you. Don't ask her "how was school?". Ask her "How are you?" If she wants to tell you about her day, great. If not, you can either be quiet or tell her about your day.

Something that'll get you out of asking and let her know what her responsibilities are each day is a list, for her room. I'd just say "A list might help you remember what you're supposed to do each day. You're 8 and need to be responsible for certain things." Don't make the list full of hard stuff.... make it easy, so she can do it. And then don't ask her if she's done it.

I think she must be exerting some control by lying, so give her more responsibility and control over her life and step back a little.

Just for clarification I have a child that lies like the days are long. LOL! I do not agree with not asking questions like "Did you do your homework" or the questions that seem to set the kid up to lie. I want to make this clear. The child(when old enough to understand what lying is)makes the choice to lie. When you become an adult and get a job your boss is going to ask question like "Did you look over that presentation last night?" that is exactly the same as the homework one. SO kids have to be taught to think about their choices. They (again when old enough to understand lying) have to be able to make the choice and then learn from the results of their choice. I am not saying to let them lie but you have to ask the "did you do ..." questions to train them to always tell the truth. My daughter who has taken up this habit is in 1st grade. So we use the color system that the school uses for their behavior charts. She has a chart at home and we go over it at night after dinner. If she can keep her chart on blue for two weeks then we will do something fun together or some other reward happens. As far as discipline goes we have tried everything. The only thing that works for mine is the element of surprise. We change up the discipline but consistancey(sp?) is the most important part. Responding to the action of lying everytime is draining and I hate going through it but it has improved since we have started this process. There is a no tolerance rule when it comes to lying in our house. It has helped. I hope this helps you.

Also it is not about control or wanting to control what is going on in their life it is about selfishness. They lie to get what they want. My daughter lies to manipulate others to get what she wants b/c she thinks that she is the center of the universe. She also lies to cover up things that she does not want to get in trouble for. She also lies when she thinks that the lie is better than the truth or when she thinks that I am too tired/do not want to hash it out. We just have to keep steady with the discipline and we have noticed a decent slow down of lying. I hope that I haven't offended anyone here but I have been dealing with this for about very frequently for about 3 mths but before that it was a once in a blue moon event.

Well, I think that it's very true about any addiction, that it has to be harder to keep doing it that to not. I would take all fun things away and electronics with the explanation that she can't be trusted. Even if you think she's telling the truth you have to stick to no fun weekends until she really understands. Then slowly allow privileges back with immediate and complete revoking if she lies again, and every time that happens a longer no fun period with talks at every chance. I really hope things get better, adolescence is hard.

I know this sounds mean, but I've put hot sauce on my kids tongues when their mouths have gotten them in trouble...for lying, being sassy, etc. we even called it "sassy sauce". I would just put a drop on my finger and then put the drop on their tongue. It only took a few times before the sassyness stopped. Maybe that would work for the lying too.

try soap in the mouth...i've actually had luck with that old time fix

This seems mean but I used to listen to Dr. Laura and a long time ago, she talked about her young son going through a lying stage.

She said that one day on the way to school, she told him they would stop by McDonald's on the way home from school that day. Then on the way home, she blatently drove right past McDonalds. When her son questioned her... her response was "I lied".

Now, that sounds like a last resort to me. I personally would not lie to my 13 yr old daughter because I have taught her that lying is wrong, breaks the trust between parent/teacher/friend, etc whomever is lied to. We have not had issues with her lying (at this point) so I have not had to deal with punishments.

Good luck