Need Some Effective Discipline Ideas for 6 Year Old

2 ideas...

1) Taking away privilages instead of time out. Whenever possible, try to connect the consequence with the incident. If you can't, take away TV, computer, playing outside with friends, certain toys,whatever she does in her spare time.

2) More effectively, though, may be what you said you've done in the past, which is just talking with her. My daughter went through a lying spurt and my husband and I made a BIG deal about how now we can't trust ANYTHING she says. We had to illustrate how telling lies makes it difficult for people to trust you. No one can ever tell if you are telling the truth or telling a lie, so always be truthful and you'll be trusted. Once she started telling lies, we treated everything she said as if we couldn't tell if she was lying or not. Example, we'd ask if she brushed her teeth. She said yes. We said we couldn't trust her anymore-- how could we tell if she was lying or not? And we made her go and brush them again. If you do this for a few days, she will be miserable and get the point. Let her know that once you become tagged as a lier, you have to build back the trust. After a few days, we told our daughter that we believed her and trusted in her and would like to give her a clean slate, and we hoped that she would not back slide and tell another lie because then she would shatter our trust and we'd be back to square one

Also, kids don't hear the stories anymore that we heard as kids, so she may not know about the boy who cried wolf-- tell her that story

The lying for her is rewarding, it helps her avoid pain - most people would do the same in her shoes. Perhaps you need to address with her what are the things that she feels will get her in trouble and how she can either refrain from doing those things so she won't feel she has to lie to avoid trouble - or help her accept consequences of misdeeds, maybe seeing to it that consequences of "getting in trouble" aren't excessive. There is a cognitive dissonance when you teach lying is bad while she's finding it rewarding and protective for her. Lying isn't purely negative, there are situations in life when lying might be valuable for a benevolent purpose. It sounds like everyone wants to punish her for lying yet there is no benefit for her telling the truth and if she lies successfully she gets a benefit, so she's learning to be a talented liar. She's adapting to the situation adults have created, so if you want her to change then you and the other adults in her life would want to consider creating a different situation.

- JS
www.phinsights.com

Get her an art set; and diary for all the stories she seems to be good at making up.
Her creative energy is pent up...so let her be creative.

I think checking out ChildrensBehaviorHelp.com might help- we use them and they are great for us.
best of luck-k

Try reading, "How to talk to you kids so they will listen, and listen to your kids so they will talk" by by Adele Faber

If you are a christian, I would reference the bible. Put it into terms for her age and explain why it isnt right. My 4 yr old sometimes fibs and I ask her to please tell the right story and talk about how important it is to always tell the right story. I usually make her consequence less if she fesses up....I don't want her actively choosing to lie to avoid punishment.

Like I said, if you are a christian, then google great places to look for references to deceit and lies. Go to her childrens bible and read those stories....

What works for my 7 1/2 son is taking the one thing or things that he loves to play the most away, being for a couple of hours or a couple of days depending on the situation.