7 year old lying

In My Humble Opinion
21

I think the OP doesn’t really have that much to worry about. Small children will go through these stages. As long as you react every time with no doubt at all about the consequences of lying, the kid will eventually be conditioned not to lie.

I also agree the punishments cited in the OP are WAY too severe for a child of that age. Two weeks is excessive, and taking away a birthday party doesn’t strike me as being fair. Punishment should be swift and severe - I’m not advocating beatings, but 14 days of taking away TV just won’t work, IMHO, on a 7-year-old, and could encourage more lying.

22

My boyfriend’s 8-year-old son (let’s call him “D”) has a really bad problem with lying. He uses lying for vengance. For example, one time he got caught at school writing bad words on the bathroom wall. He was grounded. My boyfriend has his kids on the weekends, so they came over and “D” was grounded from TV and video games. Well “D” didn’t like this, so at the end of the weekend, he went home to his mother’s house and told her and his stepdad that my boyfriend beats him and made up a lot of details and stories about the “abuse.” Of course, this is absolutely untrue; my boyfriend hasn’t even ever spanked them. So “D” is caught in his lie and is asked why he did it. After a few days of “I don’t knows,” he finally said it was because he was mad at his dad for enforcing his grounding while he was visiting our house.

The sad thing is that this lie especially hurt my boyfriend because he grew up in an abusive home where his stepdad beat him. And he would never lay a finger on his kids, so it was really hurtful when his son told this lie.

This is only one lie of many many lies “D” has told in the past year I have known him. It makes me very very worried…

23

This is common for the age. It’s not really lying so much as it’s making up stories. Try and encourage him to make these up when you’re NOT asking him what happened. Maybe come up with fun, impossible stories together. Four-year-olds have vivid imaginations, but still have a hard time differentiating between “lies” and “stories.”

As for the OP, it also depends on WHAT she’s lying about. Lying about brushing her teeth? Don’t punish her, say, “Now I KNOW you didn’t brush your teeth-so don’t lie to me.” Then make her brush her teeth while you watch.

Don’t give her the opportunity to lie, either. When she hasn’t done something, say upfront, “You won’t get in trouble if you just tell me the truth. You WILL be in trouble if you lie. Now, tell me, did you feed the dog?” Then, if she hasn’t, have her do it.

And your punishments are far too severe for a seven-year old.

24

I agree with the majority of the people here that 2 weeks is a bit of a stretch on the length that is meaningful to a 7 year old. This is something my wife and I talked about before giving out any of the punishments. We knew that if it went too long she wouldn’t connect the punishment with the crime and therefore it wouldn’t mean anything. We also haven’t grounded her for any of the subsequent lies because we think she should be able to go play with friends.

I also need to explain that these events aren’t the first times she lied. As my wife reminded me, she had lied 2 or 3 times prior to all this starting and at those times she was told why it was wrong without consequences.

After the first time it happened, we talked with her and told her why lying is bad and explained that not lying was always better than lying. I also told her that no one is perfect and I don’t expect her to be perfect and that no matter what she would always be loved. It seemed to click, but obviously something isn’t getting through.

We don’t intend to keep increasing the severity of the punishments, but instead continue with the ones we’ve already used, explaining again why lying is bad and how disappointed we are. We will explain to her that she is deeply loved and we don’t expect her to be perfect. We won’t ground her again, but I don’t lose any sleep taking away screens and sweets. She has turned to books and other interests so it really isn’t a bad thing.

I don’t think she is lying because she is afraid of being punished. I believe she is lying because she just doesn’t want to do these little things that she is supposed to do. To try and convince her that telling the truth and facing the consequences is better than lying, there have been several instances of things she’s done wrong over the past several weeks in which I didn’t inflict any punishment when she admitted to whatever she did wrong. I even pointed it out and said, “Thank you for telling me the truth. Now let’s go take care of <whatever needed to be taken care of>”. There wasn’t any additional punishment, we just needed to fix whatever needed fixing.

Overall, my punishment strategy is this: first few offenses, I explaining why it is wrong (a sentence or two, not a dissertation) and explain what punishment will follow if it continues. No yelling or screaming, just a word or two and move on. If it continues, a quick punishment follows. If it continues, I try to find a “natural consequence”. Annoying your sister? You get to clean her room. Throwing toys around? You lose the toys. Squirting people with water? No more water toys.

In the case of the lying, after the fourth time it happened, I explained that the next consequence would be something big, like losing a birthday party. I wanted to nip this in the bud so I tried to find something meaningful that would make her think long and hard before doing it again. Apparently it didn’t work.

If I can try to summarize what I’m hearing from others:

Two weeks is a bit of stretch for the length of time a meaningful punishment for a 7 year old. Instead, I need to do something quick and hopefully meaningful. I’ve tried to “explain” why lying is bad, but that isn’t clicking. I’ll keep trying, though.
I need to be consistent in the punishment and not escalate it. We’ll explain to her why lying is bad and try to make a point of showing her how it can hurt her.
There is no way I’m going to go around and have everyone call her “Ms. Liar”. That is just cruel.
I don’t necessarily agree that I should let her get away with stuff by telling her if she tells the truth she won’t be punished. Pretty soon she’ll figure out that she won’t need to do anything. If she gets caught, she’ll just figure that telling the truth will mean no punishment. If she doesn’t get caught, well, she gets away with it.

25

BZZZZZT!!! Totally wrong answer.

There is never an excuse for lying. There isn’t a reason not good enough to tell the truth. Lying only makes a situation worse, because as soon as you are found out (and you will be), then others lose trust in you and you never, ever it back.

26

Most children do start pushing the “lying to parents” button at around the age of 7 or 8. It’s pretty much a normal part of development, and at least in my opinion, relates to figuring out how the world works, and how far they can push their limits before getting caught. Childhood in general is all about pushing limits, this is just a more advanced version.

In my family, we try generally to fit the punishment to the crime, which from what what you’ve written above, sounds similar to your general approach.
For us, lying is a breech of trust… therefore, if someone lies, then their trust level within the family goes down (which generally results in them being treated like a much younger child until they “prove themselves” and earn back trust).

To use feeding the dog as an example, our response would be somthing like:
<summon child to dog bowl> " child I specifically asked you not ten minutes ago if you had fed the dog, you said that you had, when clearly you had not. I thought you were old enough to be trusted to handle this responsibility on your own, but since you apparently are not, you will feed the dog immediately after dinner every night, and an adult must watch you do it."
The observation would generally continue until the child has managed to establish a pattern of feeding the dog in the presence of an adult for at least one week with absolutely no reminders from adults, and absolutely no whining.
Same type of thing for teeth brushing, if kid can’t be trusted to brush teeth, then kid must come find a grown-up and brush her teeth in the presence of a grown-up until she has “proven herself”.
And yes, this is annoying for all concerned, kids and adults alike… but someone had to supervise such tasks when the kids were younger, so it is possible to work it in.
I always hated being treated like “a baby” when I was a kid, and the kids in my family still hate this type of thing… but looking back, it does fit the crime… being trusted to take care of things oneself is a sign of “growing up” and when one fails to “live up” to that trust, it should be taken away.
Oh, and this whole thing was never desribed as a punishment so to speak… more as simply a matter of fact (usually with a parental “sigh” I thought you were old enough to handle things like this)

27

I remember my youngest brother being like this when he was younger. He told us stories about crocodiles getting loose in his school. It wasn’t deliberate lying and my parents would have been ridiculous to punish him as if it were. Whether it’s because of my parents or other factors, he’s a bad liar and never gets away with anything.

I hate to second-guess a parent, since I don’t have kids, but, jeez. Big embarrassments or threats of embarrassment seem really inappropriate for the age level here.

That simply isn’t true. Maybe it’d be a simpler world if it was, and I don’t know what you’d want to teach a small child about it, but there are plenty of situations in which you can lie with zero consequences. I hate doing it and I consider myself very forthright, but you don’t always get caught, it doesn’t always matter, and it’s not always the worst course of action where others are concerned. Teaching kids to act like they appreciate gifts they don’t like is a perfect example.

28

Have you disbelieved her when she might have been telling the truth? Or punished her for something you thought she did but possibly didn’t? Because if so, she might be figuring that it doesn’t matter what she tells you.

29

I disagree. I don’t believe that I am naive, it is just that if I can manage to make it through life without lying about things, then so can everyone else. I think lying is one of the worst things someone can do to another.

30

I think that the child described in the OP doesn’t really benefit from a 2 week repremand. When I was a kid, I knew damn well that the penalty for lying was a slap in the face, plus whatever else you were going to get for the thing you were actually lying about. So it was like:

TD does dumb thing

TD lies about it

TD gets slapped in the face

TD gets punishment for whatever dumb thing TD did, it is usually much less severe than the slap deserving lie.
I was about 8 or 9 when I pulled the lying about making the bed, then the dog must have messed it up because I made it…
I never really lied much after getting slapped a few times. I am not advocating slapping your kids, but it is that sharp quick punishment.

Then again I always knew I was getting slapped because I had lied, not because I didn’t make the bed. I guess it would be different if you couldn’t be sure if the child didn’t know for what they were getting punished for.

31

Yeah, ditto: part of it is the fable-spinning, the other part, as WhyNot said, is realising that Mum and Dad aren’t omniscient, and seeing what he can get away with. Most of it’s pretty inconsequential: “What are you doing?” “Nothing! Don’t come in!” or “Did you brush your teeth?” “Yes.” It’s actually quite funny, since 4 year olds are appalling at lying, and we usually just let it slide for the minor stuff: “Well, go back and brush them properly, please.”

The more serious stuff, we sit him down and have a talk about lying. For example, one of the neighbours gave him an old pair of sunglasses, which he came in proudly sporting. We didn’t know where they’d come from, and were concerned that someone had lost them and he’d picked them up. “Where did you get those?” “Don’t know.” “C’mon, I’m not angry, I just want to know where they came from - did you find them?” “Yes” “OK, where did you find them?” “In the tree”.

We checked with the neighbours that no-one had lost a pair, and found out that the lady next door had given them to him. Time for a talk about telling the truth: we sat him down and explained the consequences of lying - that we weren’t going to get angry if he’d done nothing wrong, and that we wanted to believe that he was telling the truth - but if we found that he was lying, Mum and Dad would be sad and upset because we wouldn’t know when to believe him when he was telling the truth, and we wanted to have a little boy that we could talk to and believe all the time.

Mind you, he still saw pirates at the beach with his grandparents the other day.

32

How would you handle the scenarios in post #18 without telling a child to lie? (I’m not trying to be snarky here - if you can present some safe alternatives which are acceptable and don’t involve lying, I’d love to use them with my daughter.)

33

Heh. reminds me of being seven or eight or something. I’d had a fight with my younger brother (he was probably four at the time), so I’d grabbed a pebble from the driveway that I was going to throw at his head. Basic sibling stuff.

As I sauntered back inside, rock in hand, my dad said, “Hey, wait a minute, where are you going with that?”

“Nowhere!” I answered, and hurried past him–but he grabbed my arm and sat me down.

They tried everything. The questioned me. They threatened me. They reasoned with me (“You don’t just carry a rock in from outside for no reason!”)

And the more they pried, the angrier and sadder I got. I stuck to my story: maybe it was ridiculous, but it was simple, and by God, I wasn’t going to stray!

Eventually I got punished for it, I’m sure: all I remember is being furious that they’d not believe me when I said I wasn’t going anywhere with a rock in my fist.

Kids don’t think like us.
Daniel

34

Tell Grandma you like the present she gave you.: I used to thank grandma for her presents even though she had no idea what I actually wanted. She would often give me christian propaganda (books, usually, which I would suffer through) , and when she asked if I liked them I would respond with something like, “I love reading”.

Thank Mrs. Smith for baby sitting you while Mommy and Daddy went to the movie.: I’ve never been in this situation, but thanking someone for helping your parents isn’t lying. “Thank you, I enjoyed your company” would be, if you didn’t.

I have never been in these situations. But there is a big difference in comparing lying when it is “required in the workplace” and social interactions and comparing lying to avoid danger. If it is the lesser of two evils in a situation, then yes, it is useful, but I guess that all depends on how “evil” you think lying is. I have not gotten into a situation where it was the lesser evil. Any time I have lied, I have regretted it, and felt like a coward. I do not do it often.
I don’t believe that “Lying is a valuable life skill that will take her far.”

35

From the little girl in me, I thank you for avoiding this cruelty. My dad said once when I lied to him - “There’s nothing I hate more than liars, and right now that’s you.” As a girl’s father you can cut her to the bone w/o realizing it. I lied for fear of the repercussions of telling the disappointing truth. My dad was one for grounding for weeks on end as well, and I have little recollection of my periods of ‘ungrounding’, especially during the school year. (Though when school was out, I could count on being grounded often for things like stacking the dishes wrong in the drainer, or a day for each minute late back from a friend’s house. To my dad, if you were mistaken it was as bad as a lie.)

36

If your goal was to get her to believe that you liked the present, then you intended for her to draw a false conclusion from your words. That may not technically be a lie, but I see little ethical difference.

Daniel

37

The calling card of a poor liar. A good liar knows not only how to lie convincingly, but when to lie. A good liar surveys the situation, identifies the areas where the truth is a shaky, unconvincing thing, and takes advantage of those areas. And of course, a good liar understands the value of honesty.

38

*Tell Grandma you like the present she gave you. * All you have to say is “It was so kind of you to go to the effort to get this for me. I can tell you put a lot of thought into it.” Maybe a stretch for a little kid but if as adults we can’t honestly say that we appreciate another person’s thought and effort then we have larger problems to address than just lying.

I don’t have any problem with lying in the right situations and for the right reasons - including saying “I love it” for a gift I really hate instead of saying the slippery phrases I wrote above. I just know avoiding lies can be done if you really want to.

39

I didn’t say "lying is a vlauable life skill that will “take her far”. I simply said “lying is a valuable life skill and she is practising it”.

For example- the discussion of how to thank grandma for the present you didn’t care for. A seven year old is unlikely to be able to think up “I enjoy reading” or “thank you for your thoughtfulness” or “thank you for your company” to the babysitter without some practice.

That’s what the practising is all about. The OP daughter is just at the very beginning of the practise.

40

Did she ever wet the bed? Did you threaten to make her wear a diaper outside her school clothes and have her wear a sign around her neck that said “I WET MY BED”?

Yep. Nothin’ like a little psychological terror to make the little bastards toe the line, eh?

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

  • Philip Larkin