Photo by: Tanja Niggendijker

At the End of my Rope

by Holly Rogers
Photo by: Tanja Niggendijker

I’m at the end of it.

Our son is about to cause the first ever simultaneous aneurysm-stroke-heart attack-mental breakdown. I honestly don’t know where to go from here with him….

He just turned 10. And I know 10 year olds are not exactly the most truthful creatures on the planet. But the lying to avoid work is going to have to end. You know, if we’re going to make 11 without trading him in for a llama. He happened to mention last night in the car on the way home from the day of FANTASMIC FUN* we just gave him that he was supposed to fill a coffee can with items from the book he was supposed to read.

Excuse me what? What book? What can? WHEN IS THIS DUE?

He took his agenda to hubby and as hubby was flipping through he finds a very large scratched out area….clearly with adult writing underneath. Thankfully son hasn’t figured out how to do these things with any skill yet and he scratched it out with pencil. Hello eraser? Sigh. Turns out he had LIED to his teacher and told her we made him stay up all night reading and he was too tired to do his work.

It makes us look bad and him look all Tiny Tim-like. I give him props for invention.

And then I take them back and beat him with them! (no not really, people relax).

I emailed the teacher; used my screechy voice on son… and he’s on ‘life sucks so hard I should listen to my parents from now on’ lock-down. This has been a very long phase. A miserable, make me hate the parenting aspect of parenting kind of phase. We punish each and every time we find he has lied to us. And trust me, I’m a hard ass. Clearly whatever we are doing isn’t working.

Telling him he’ll get in less trouble for telling the truth? Doesn’t work. Soap in the mouth after 3 chances to tell the truth? Doesn’t work. Losing video games and TV? Doesn’t work.

How do you deal with lying and work avoidance?

’Cause that llama is looking better and better every day.

*FANTASMIC FUN: We drove 90 minutes outside of the city to visit with friends, hold raccoons, play with a baby COUGAR, play with lemurs, catch bunnies, hand-feed brown bears and pet a timber wolf. THEN bought a slurpee and chips to tide him over until dinner out and a walk-through Toys R Us.

I’m working (term used loosely) full time as a legal assistant, married to a cop, raising two kids who despite our attempts at suppression are stubbornly strong willed, and living in a busy city longing for the simple life. My sense of humor is very… well, not normal. I am NOT June Cleaver. In fact, I think I single-handedly killed the ghost of June Cleaver and then stomped on the corpse.

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40 Comments

This could not have been more timely. I am currently hiding in my bathroom with the door locked to avoid the temper explosion I am feeling right now. I am so frustrated with my 8 & 9 year old daughters that I can not think straight. In fact, I am shocked that I can even type this from my phone. Thank you for letting me know that, RIGHT NOW, I am not alone.

I too appreciate this well timed blog as I am dealing with my eleven year old not turning in homework and lying about it. This is despite the fact that he knows I email his teachers every Friday to find out if everything is turned in. This is despite the fact that he knows he will lose another week of computer / video games. He would be an A student if he just wasn't getting zeros for not turning in work and he still "forgets"...

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I have a good way because my second son does the same things. I told my son I was taking him to DQ and then drove passed it to do the grocery shopping. When he realized I was not stopping, he started asking why and I told him I did not say that and then when he continued I said Oh I forgot. That slowed his lying down for some time because we discussed how it made him feel to be lied to...

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Children are born with inate personalities. The rest of the personality is learned.
To all of these parents I have 3 children. 5,9,10l
I have yet to experience any of disrespect. I respect them, give them positive feedback. they have chores, if the chores doesn't get done, I don't say a thing. when they want to do something, I just say, well, we still have some things to do.. I get hugs and kisses everyday.. Ladies, you are the problem, not the children

It might be a good idea to step away from punishment, as that tends to degrade and humiliate children instead of steer them to the right behaviour as intended. When children act out, they are trying to tell the adults around them that something is wrong - after 20 years of being an educator, I have yet to meet a child who enjoys being punished.

I'd be curious as to WHY your child is lying...

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I like your sense of humor. And I have to agree with Smiley. I won't get preachy, but just suggest Bruno Bettelhiem's "A Good-Enough Parent". The title isn't to deter parents, but to release them, and he discusses connecting our own feelings about our children to our own experiences and how we felt about them.

Keep writing!

wow! i have 2 six-year olds, and I dread the day they start lying-so far, discussing lying and what a lie actually is has worked, but I can sense the day coming-because it is a part of childhood...

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Girl, lying, stealing and total hate you as a parent is hitting you when it did me! We lasted 2 years-screaming, kicking and cussing our way to it...

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I do not agree with Ms. Daisy either. I got no disrespect from my eldest until around 11--he was always the model child. If I homeschooled, he might still be, but I run a business and simply cannot homeschool. Despite punishments, I still get hugs from him every day and he is 14. My youngest wouldn't know the truth if it slapped his face and called him sugar--he is 9 and also hugs us every day...

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I also agree with Wendy. I have a 15 year old that just hates History at school and hates doing dishes even more. Being from the Northern states it can be very cold here even after school, so I take her to the bus and pick her up so she has a warm car to sit in rather than stand in the cold and so she doesnt have to walk. We just had a long conversation about her lack of respect for not only me but herself too...

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If it really was the parents fault for the lying, then why do I have only ONE liar out of FOUR children? I didn't parent that child any differently than the others. By that reasoning (Daisy), they should ALL be liars, or ALL be truthful.

I love Wendy's suggestion & will use it on a bigger scale...We'll be going to Toys-R-Us for a new video game they've been wanting...

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Though I cann't tell you how to fix the problem as every situation is different, when my daughter went through the "story telling phase", I seem to slow it down when ever she told me something I would ask her "Is this another story". After her questioning why I always ask that, I told her she has lied to me so many time I never know when to believe her. I will say that after going through that phase, I literally called my mother and apologized to her if I was any way like my daughter...

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My 11-year-old, who is an honor student, has been lying about school work, and little things like if he brushed his teeth or put on deoderant. I was getting really upset about it, but when it comes to the school work, I now just bring up his grades on line and show him what his grade would be if he had turned his assignments in on time (or at all!). This way he can see the consequence of his actions and he gets to work on figuring out averages...

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I have a 3 year old that has started to lie. In fact, I even hate to pick him up after a long day at work (me) from the sitters because I know that he will cry the entire way home, lie about something that didn't happen, and then because we are still trying to potty train, he lies about not going until you realize that something smells really bad...

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Yikes! My son is just 2 so we're not in that realm of problems *yet*. That being said, my brother has a son who is will be 19 in February and he has been a handful to say the least growing up...

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