Pre-Teen Lying

[FONT=Times New Roman]My 11 yr old is a domestic modelӔ so she does not have the international adoption back ground that your daughter has.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]But . . .[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]A few weeks ago I had an inkling about her mathematics. She had not come to me needing help in quite a while, nor had I seen her using the tutoring cds on the computer. (Prior, she had been very trustworthy, so she was on a monthly check in schedule.) I asked her to bring me her text, the TM and her spiral notebook. She proceeded to turn white as a sheet and bursted into tears. She confessed that she hadn֒t done her math for weeks, and asked me to forgive her for not being trustworthy and for being deceitful. Then she had to go to Tata and repeat the confession.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman]Time to stake her like a tomato plant. Meaning that she is very near us while she takes care of her academic work each day.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]Since she has proven that I cant trust her to do what she says sheҒs doing (academically) she now studies at the kitchen table. No more lying on the bed in her pretty, sunny bedroom where I cant see her. We just make it impossible to repeat her previous deception. Oh Җ AND she֒s on a double load until shes back on schedule. In a few months, weҒll try to release the reins a little bit, under a watchful eye.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman](Years ago we put our younger daughter into jail modeђ moved everything out of her room but a pillow and a blanket. We made every decision for her, what to wear, what to do, how to do it, everything. As she quit acting like a criminal (also ongoing lying) she earned back the right to have her things and some choices. But she֒s also a domestic model, there was no history of neglect that could cause turmoil in managing the situation this way.)[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]Our boys, home 6 months, are getting better about lying. (For a while I was worried about having a real sociopath on our hands!) Anyway, when we KNOW they are lying, we dont even ask. We just say, ғYou just told that boy that your name is X. (They are twins and are experimenting with an occasional switcheroo.) Since you can not be honest with our friends, you need to come sit here by me. When he starts crying we ask, ԓWho made this decision? Of course he must answer, ԓI did. ԓOK, then stop crying, because you chose this, not me. The rest of his afternoon (or whatever) is ruined because heԒs watching the other children have a great time, and hes seriously unhappy because HE made this decision.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman]Same thing - they get staked like a tomato plant, and are very near us for the duration of the event, or even for days and weeks and months, depending on the behaviour and severety of the situation.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman](We donҒt ask if they are telling the truth anymore just to break their habit of them building more lies upon lies.)[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]If you can֒t be honest, you cant play with our friends. If you canҒt play nicely, you cant play with our friends. If you If I canҒt trust you on the play ground, then you cant play there.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman] [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]It makes a lot of work for the parent, to have to be completely on the ball and on the watch every moment of the day. But boy Җ the payoff is worth it and when they slip, like my daughter recently did, they come back into line a little quicker each time.[/FONT]

I am still preparing for adoption and dont have any parenting experience but I try to read lotҒs of books to get myself ready and I would recommend this book to you [url=http://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Hurt-Child-Adoptive-Families/dp/1576833143/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211294077&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Parenting the Hurt Child : Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow: Gregory Keck, Regina M. Kupecky[/url]. They address the lying issue (very common) and how to deal with it as well as what it work as punishment for the kids who come from orphanage. They claim that taking things away or making child stay in the room doesnt work. Apparently we need to be more creative with punishment. I hope this will help. This book was a good read and I feel it will help me in the future.

I would recommend this book too!!! It help us a lot!

Thank you for your replies and suggestions for the book. I have tried to give my daughter more opportunities to tell the truth (simple questions that she would have no reason to lie about) and then praised her for telling the truth. She has earned some items back into her room, and her "out of the room" privileges have been completely restored. She has even found a few more books about good behavior to read with her younger sister/brother. We are visiting my parents for five weeks this summer and I am considering having my daughter meet with a counselor. My mom knows a 30-something year old lady through church who does counseling. I've met her before, as did my kids last summer (she actually let them pet her "working dog"!). There are limited American-style counselors/psychologists here in Germany - and I have two degrees in psychology and a behavior management credential for teaching (easier with someone else's child than your own!).

This has come up a few times on the special needs boards. They are big fans of "love and Logic" disclipline tactics. Using logical consequences for behavior good and bad. For lying, a logical consequence is you no longer beleive the child. They also suggest giving them fewer chances to lie. Never ask a question that you already know the answer to. Or if you are not totally sure, you can guess and tell them you just assumed they would lie. For kids who are doing lots of it, you can do things like ask them if they want to go out for ice cream. They say yes and then you don't do it. Later when they ask, you tell them you assumed they were lying and didn't really want to go. Stuff like that. Making a point of checking things. Like instead of asking if they cleaned their room, remind them that you can't trust them to be honest, so when you are finished with what you are doing you will go check it, and they will just have to wait. Another kid, you might mention that they usually tell you the truth so you will take thier word that it's clean and they can go play, but the one who lies will have to wait till you have a free moment. For some kids the sting of not being trusted helps, others get the sting from telling the truth and not being beleived because of thier history. Some just seem to have made such a habit of it they can't stop and others actually convince themselves that they are telling the truth.

LisaArno - We are in the same boat with my now 11 year old home nearly one year (she is currently grounded for lying). Its funny at first we thought why after about 6 months are we all the sudden having this lying problem - then we realized the lying wasn't new we were just now catching on as the kids were almost exclusively speaking english around then. We cannot seem to get through to her about the lying, and the consequences always being much worse for lying than what ever happened in the first place. Her lies have so far been over stupid rediculuous things. But most recently she tried to set up her sisters by planting the evidence of her misdeed in their rooms. Resulting in the longest grounding so far, a complete loss of privledges and coming up with a way to make it up to her sisters (like doing their chores for a week). So I am also very interested in how others are addressing this - we also have done the grounding, removal of priviledges, early bed times (they really hate the early bed time) and have stripped down rooms in the past making them earn things back with postitive behavior. Of our three, we have no problem with our 7 year old (she is the rules police), a few problems with our 9 year old, and the most with our 11 year old. We bought the "Boy who cried wolf" book and read it several times, and when things have come up (like who did something) stressed what a shame it was that we cannot trust those who have lied to us say, and that we can believe E our youngest because she has our trust and has never lied to us and when she says she didn't do something we believe her. We also explain why it is so important that we can trust them especially if they have something important to tell us we need to be able to believe them. We are making progress with the 9 year old, but haven't gotten through to the 11 year old yet. Since it has been a chronic problem with our 11 year old, she is not allowed to go over to friends houses, or have friends over until she earns back some of our trust. We have explained to her that if we cannot trust her, then we certainly aren't letting her go to anyone elses house. We have also tried explaining how lying is especially bad because it makes you feel bad inside about yourself. Self esteem is still something we are working on with our oldest too. We thought we had found the key for her (swimming and guitar have both really helped her) but we are still struggling with owning up to what you did and out right lying. I do try to keep in perspective all the many things that have so greatly improved since the girls arrived and just how far they have come in a relatively short time (even though it feels like I have repeated the same things a million times). We were really working from ground zero when it comes to basic manners, being polite, speaking respectfully to others especially adults, not inflicting a physical retaliation for any percieved misdeed by a sister, basic table manners (still working on chewing with your mouth closed), and really just applying the golden rule in general.I really really cannot stand lying - I grew up with a sister who was a chronic liar so I guess I may be a little oversensitive. But also I know the teen years are right around the corner and the stakes are about to go way up so we feel like we have got to get a handle on it NOW!