WOT: Lying 7 year old

My 12 year old daughter just lied for the first time (that I know of) this week to us about her grades. She has ALWAYS been straight A's.

I did spank her up to age about 8, but she received very few because she is really pretty good and after that I don't think it is very effective.

I did take away her cell phone and I POD, she can't go to the 7th grade dance and a few other things.

Her mother is sending her to confession. Not sure that will have much impact.

I sat down and had some "one on one time" and didn't yell, just expressed disappointment. She also has to write me a two page essay on why lying to your parents is damaging. We will discuss in detail when she finishes.
 
Russel Peters! CLASSIC!!!!!!

I lied a couple of times as a kid. Dad or Mom spanked me arse or my hand. I had to give them my bike and forest ax and pocketknife while i was grounded. < that was brutal to me.....living in the country thats how us kids got around, on a bike. and we ALWAYS had our packs, axes and knife with us.
 
Explain, rationalize, condemn, reprimand, restrict...then bust that rear end.

My father rarely spanked us, because one solid whoopin' left a standing reminder of what would happen if talking didnt work.

We weren't punished with work...manual labor was a part of being a family member, and everyone worked, even from a young age.
 
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Magnussen said:
Just keep taking privilages away.... (not drawing though.... that's developmental.) Take away toys, games, movie time... that sort of thing. Don't blow up or get too angry. Just be "matter of fact" about it... if he lies he gets punished... that simple. Don't dwel on the lie itself... be very supportive of telling the truth. Positive reinforcement works!

If it doesn't..... beat him with his own shoes!!!

Rick (I have a 3 and 6yr old... plus 9 very close neices and nefews 5-13yrs)
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I agree wholeheartedly with Rick. I use the 'love and logic' method - and MAN it works.

My five year old has been hitting - I figured it out with him. I gutted his room - I mean gutted. He was mad - he slammed the door - I took his door.

He stopped. He first earned back a pillow - then his mattress - then his blanket (doing chores) - then I asked him what he wanted to work for next.

What he told me - TOLD ME - what his currency was. That was the thing that he earns use of for the day by not hitting.

I fall all over him when he is doing right - I catch him doing good stuff and reward him - and now he earns stickers for materials goods. 14 stickers and he gets a 10 dollar item. Usually it is some version of Pokemon' item. ;)

Read the love and logic series for more ideas - it works for me.

Whuppin' does not work for me - because when it stops working (and he WILL be a big kid) I will not be willing to escalate.

TF
 
Give him a talk on why it is not right to lie. That is all it took for me to do to my nephew. Never lied to me again.
 
First of all, it's a given that kids tell lies. Part of it is developmental-- they can't see that far in the future and they want to take care of their immediate needs, like avoiding punishment.

It is a huge moral issue for some parents. I think kids should learn the importance of morals, and they need to understand the effect they can have when they break society's rules. If you go too ballistic, all they hear is the anger. If it is blatant and clear that he lied, I think withholding privileges is appropriate. Beatings are the cheap and easy way out and may even make him lie more out of fear-- kids aren't much for good logic. Respect, trust and your good example are better fathering than using fear.

I think kids should hear that they disappoint us when they do these things, but not a half-hour tirade. There's a limit to shame.

So, tell him not to lie. Tell him why. Encourage him to be honest in his dealings with people in general, and that he would want to be treated the same way. Explain the consequences of telling lies, or of any negative behaviors. This might take a few sessions-- he may not take it all in at once-- simple attention span. A few walk/talks together might help.

Ask for help! If you are religious, tap the resources your church has. There are a ton of books on the subject too. If he's really screwing up on several levels, get professional help.

I remember coming out of a mall with my son and two cops were in the process of arresting and searching a drunk transient who had been acting up. They had him handcuffed and tipped over the trunk of their car and they were turning his pockets out. My son was very interested in all this and asked why this was happening. I told him the man in the handcuffs didn't behave, and now the police were going to take him to jail to protect all the people wanted to live their lives without being bothered by this guy. On the drive home we had a good talk about people getting along and what would happen to the guy who wasn't "behaving." Actually seeing the consequences had some impact on my son and I'm thankful we had a chance to talk through that.
 
Hey Dad. I'm a Dad too. Mine is 11. She had done the same. I'm certainly not against a good butt-whooping. But what works best for me is not always the whooping, but the "sit on my lap... we need to talk".

I try my best to explain what 'character' means. That lying is wrong. Just look at the 10 Commandments.

The thing is, Dad, you are his role model. Your displeasure concerning this subject will make him think twice in time. Before you know it... he will be an upstanding young man. He will want to be like you. At his age... it really hasn't registered yet. But it will. Make sure he knows that you know... and express your great displeasure with his actions. Tell him stories about your father... your grandfather... what honest men they were. He'll get the point.
 
C.S. Graves said:
Tell him you're taking him out for pizza and ice cream...


....then tell him you lied!

"See how it feels, son?"

Alternately, hang one of those scary Balinese demon masks in a closet in your home, and for each lie, he gets a half hour in the demon mask closet. :D

p87865_1.jpg
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:thumbup:

thats so funny i almost fell out of my chair along with my GF i think this might actually be a brilliant idea. ill try it when i reproduce
 
jca21 said:
[youtube]b6J8Lwc6Qn0[/youtube]

:D

in all honesty though, a good talkin seems to work ok at a young age.
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HA! My parents saw this guy, this is hilarious.


But you should make deals with your son, give him money and toys. That always works, if it doesn't, beat 'im.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
My dad never raised his voice to us, let alone a hand. I like the idea of telling him that lying is for little kids. If he lies, he'll be treated like a baby, kept at home, given small, dumb toys to play with. Not trusted. His choice.
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Great suggestion. I have used that with success with my own 2 sons. I tell them that if they act like little kids, that's how I will treat them.

WILLIAM.M said:
He wants your approval more than ANYTHING at that age.

Tell him you are "HURT" that you are rasing a boy that "LIES" to his father.

Ask him what YOU and His MOTHER did wrong to raise a son who lies???

It puts it all ON HIM!!!!!

He has to think about how he has hurt you.and HER

...and will think long and hard before he does it again.
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Another good one. We spend so much time coddling our kids that we do them a disservice- when older, they have no coping skills.

I was spanked as a kid and I turned out just fine. I spanked my kids when they needed it and they are respectful, good boys. I was their martial arts instructor and they both did MANY, MANY pushups when naughty. Heck, I had them doing pushups in the aisle at Target for cursing at each other.
 
dont beat your kids, you may mess them up in the head. my dad used to beat me kinda badly as a kid, and it really just made everything worse.
 
J_Curd said:
Explain, rationalize, condemn, reprimand, restrict...then bust that rear end.

My father rarely spanked us, because one solid whoopin' left a standing reminder of what would happen if talking didnt work.

We weren't punished with work...manual labor was a part of being a family member, and everyone worked, even from a young age.
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Thats whats wrong with people these days---They don't understand that towing their part of the line is part of life and family. I look at my father in law who grew up in the 30s and 40s on a farm. He is a product of a different era...if you didn't do your work, the family suffered, the livestock suffered, the harvest suffered. Not to mention if he messed up he got the mule harness. I didn't have it that way as a kid, though we had to do work. I was the resident groundskeeper from eight on, I retired from that at about 20 after leveling out my parent's yard by hand 3 years after I moved out. Got my own jungle of a yard these days. But I have an appreciation for those who understand the concept that hard work is part of living, if ya do it right. :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
razorsdescent said:
thats so funny i almost fell out of my chair along with my GF i think this might actually be a brilliant idea. ill try it when i reproduce
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I dunno if you guys want to pass down the "actually finds C.S. Graves' post funny" gene to future generations! :eek:

That said... do it.
 
C.S. Graves said:
Tell him you're taking him out for pizza and ice cream...


....then tell him you lied!

"See how it feels, son?"

Alternately, hang one of those scary Balinese demon masks in a closet in your home, and for each lie, he gets a half hour in the demon mask closet. :D
p87865_1.jpg
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Having a 2½ year old son, that is just sooo wrong :D
But it did make me think, that'll teach the little sob :foot:
 
Up to a point, you have to remember immediacy- around 5 r so you can start with delayed effects for actions, but even at 7 it's still better - when possible- to have immediate effects.

Keeping that in mind, what TF and rick both said is pretty much how we handle things. I try HARD, and it can be really tough, to make every day fun and adventurous, while being willing to remove these fun things if I need to. Which I don't, mostly.

I come from a family where hitting went too far too often, and I'm honestly scared of repeating the cycle, so I don't spank. I rarely, maybe once a week, have to use timeout. Talking works well. We often talk things out, why a lie is bad, why littering is bad, why picking up the dog poop is good. If Leif (Astrid is 2 and we DO talk things out, but it's a bit limited) gets upset about something and is really entrenched, we'll often talk it out until I can see WHY he's so upset. It often has nothing to do with the particular thing I'm saying no to.

Sounds wimpy? Anything but. I've been called soft because I listen to my kids- but they listen to me.

It's amazingly successful with him. He's smart, he can understand if he can't crawl under the car to change oil with me, if *I* am smart enough to understand that it's important to him to find some way to help, I can give him something to do. (I had him shake the oil once, just because I could find anything else for him to do). I save the loud DI voice and HELL NO for when it matters. And boy, he REACTS to that. He knows if I really shout like that there's a safety issue or something really important. And that increases my piece of mind when we go out hiking or shooting.

I've got friends who do spank, and yell a lot and are always in headbutting disagreement (without listening) with their younger kids. MY 5 year old can safely walk a trail with me with a bb gun and shoot at an appropriate target without a leash, dammit.


okay, rant off. Lying is probably the most difficult issue. Enforcing rewards and punishments and engineering reward situations is the best thing you cna do, regardless fo your choice for rewards. Timeout is immediate and useful to a point- but with anything, if it stops working you have to find something else. And that might be listening to what's going on in the kid's head.
 
I don't have kids of my own quite yet, but I can tell you what worked on me. My parents spanked me some when I was little, but never anything too terrible, and always on the butt. I have always had a high tolerance for pain, so the spankings never really bothered me too incredibly much.

Here is what was effective for my brother and I:

-Follow through on your threats. I'll never forget when my dad said "I'm going to turn this car around if you kids don't behave" and then he actually did. We were on our way to Six Flags or somewhere similar that was a huge deal for us kids, so you can be dang sure that we payed attention to his threats in the future. I see parents all the time tell their kids to stop, and then there are no consequences for stopping. Why would they respond to threats that they KNOW you will not follow through on?
-Express disappointment in their actions. Still to this day, the worst feeling I can think of is disappointing my father. He worked his ass off to provide for our family, and then I can't show him the proper respect? Telling them you are disappointed in them and wonder what what you did wrong to make them act irresponsibly can be an extremely effective way to make your kids feel like crap and get in line, assuming they do actually respect you.
-Send kids to YOUR room. This one might have been the worst. Acting up during the summer and getting sent to a room that basically consisted of a bed and dressers was about the worst thing in the world for an active kid. There was literally nothing to do in there other than just sit on the bed. I still shudder thinking about it.

Of course, some kids are just wired to be bad kids. Sure, there are environmental influences that can heavily affect a person's actions, but some people have chemical imbalances or other severe psychological issues that were with them from birth and not the result of anything the parents or anyone else did. A few lies are obviously not indicative of this, but just keep in mind that the kid might not be able to control their actions.
 
I am a believer in the power of the spank. Not beating, just an attention getter. Doesn't happen very often luckily but he hasn't hit the teens yet :) I live by the rule of I am a Father, not a friend. I teach, he learns. I don't allow much to get in the way of that. Of course I am happy that my son responds well and still likes me but if I have to trade his friendship for his discipline.............I am good with that. Of course I don't hold a grudge against him after he messes up but I stay on him with reminders when I see bad behavior starting. One mistake I have seen and even done it myself is to slack off on punishment. If you say they are grounded for "X" days, I don't care if the kid cures cancer, do NOT repeal the grounding before "X" days have passed. Kids see it as weakness and it will come back to haunt you. Another punishment idea is to figure out what the kids REALLY like and make that the target of the grounding. Doesn't do em any good to send a kid to a room full of toys to "think about what they've done". For my wife and I we discoved our son hates doing nothing, so a long sit in a chair with nothing to do gets his attention :) Let your kids know when they mess up and stick to your guns. You will be sending them off in to a tough world soon enough. The ones with proper discipline will be able to stand up to the world.
 
vetkaw63 said:
Why does your son feel that, he can lie to you? You should look at yourself first.
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I think that is unfair - at least in part. Every person I know lied to their parents at one time or another - no matter who they were. In fact, when my son first lied to me, I realized it was a part of the growth process. They start to gain power for themselves - and they test that power. In fact, boys test that power with their father - essentially they start butting their heads against their fathers head until they can knock him out. It is simply what goes on in all animals.

Our jobs as fathers, I think, is to make sure they can knock us out - then they are adults. Until then, they HAVE to listen to us because we can still knock them out when butting heads - and they are still kids. Let's be honest - our children will 'kill' us in effect when they turn 18-20 or so. They have to - to become men.

Now - had the OP said 'My son ALWAYS lies to me' - then I think he should take a look in the mirror. Twice is still very much testing - and the OP is doing the right thing. He is trying to bring the hammer down and nip that behavior.

I want to be clear, and honest, here. I had a stealing problem when I was a kid. My mother didn't take away ENOUGH the first time I did it - and I continued. It wasn't until I was arrested as a teen and terrified, and then helped by a good cop and judge (who made me work it off but clear my record) that I took it seriously. I am still grateful for that 2nd chance - and I will NEVER forget that tour of the jail. Burning to death, and JAIL are probably my only two fears today! ;)

That makes me think - I wonder if a good idea might not be a tour of the jail and a discussion on how slippery the slope can be if he decided to do it again might not be effective. I have a cop buddy - and I am reserving an 'arrest' if needed in my future.

TF
 
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