Lying

My 6th grader does it but just with school work. Kids are going to lie. I would lie to my parents but when they started to get more harsh with punishments I would think twice before I would do it again. The reason kids lie is because they don't want to do what you are asking them to do. If he is lying about brushing his teeth then he just doesn't want to do it same with school work. I am still trying to teach my son that there are things you don't want to do but it's a part of life. I liked what one mom on here said once, she said that she and her husband flipped the breaker switch to the house and it turned off the lights and when her child asked about it she said that she didn't want to pay the light bill.

I haven't figured out how to handle this with my son and his school work but now he doesn't lie about other stuff anymore. If I find out what to do with the school work situation I'll let you know and vs versa...Try and start making punishment little more harsh for lying then it might not be as bad.

Elizabeth is a discussion leader for arizonamoms she writes about everything from her needing mommy advice to crazy and silly stuff that happens. She lives in the West Valley with her husband and 3 children.

Maybe he is using the "I'm stupid" to avoid a consequence. I would let him know that you love him, but that telling lies is grounds for punishment (lack of a better word) and then ground him or take something away.

Maybe you can use the fact that he's getting ready to go to high school as leverage. Ninth grade means more independence and more opportunities, but it also means more responsibility. Tell him that you're concerned that he isn't going to be mature enough to be in the ninth grade if he can't even brush his teeth without being told.

Once you've got his attention, break it down. For example, missing homework means sitting down without television, music, or computer for two hours per night cracking the books -- for, say, a week. (If he doesn't have homework, he can read). Missing homework and lying about it makes that two weeks.

Similarly, not doing chores on his own schedule means a week of doing (more) chores on your schedule. Not brushing his teeth means no sweets for a week. Again, lying doubles the consequence.

It could be that there's something else going on with him, but if this is a smokescreen, you'll need to get it out of the way. If, in fact, it's a maturity issue, you'll want to address it before next fall. The good parts about doing this are that a) he's in control and b) the consequences have already been lined out: you don't have to decide what you're going to do on a case by case basis. He's likely to test you, but I'll bet you see a pretty quick turnaround.

I remember lying at length, about everything as a kid. And I remember getting horrible punishments. But I still always took the risk, because sometimes, rarely, I got away with it. And that was a form of power, knowing I hadn't given my parents the truth.

Also, this may sound simplistic but no one ever broke it down for me that telling the truth separated good people from bad people. Telling the truth meant you had good character, people could trust you. Telling the truth was also hard, much harder than lying, hence people thought more of you. Lying was lazy, therefore people thought less of you. I probably would have heard this better coming from someone other than my parents because as a teenager, we weren't very close. I wish my older sister that I really looked up to, had given me this speech.

Lying became a bad habit that I had to consciously break. I had to set small goals, like one week, in order to break the habit. I think it's awesome that you are conscious of it and are looking for help for your kid. I wish you the best of luck.