Nine year old daughter lying

In My Humble Opinion
1

So…I know every child goes through a phase and they lie about small things, big things…whatever. I have been there myself but it still bothers me and right now, I really don’t know what to do about it. I am failing at how to get the point across to her. I am scared the small lies are eventually going to turn into big ones and she will get in a lot of trouble.

It started with little lies here and there, which would bother me and my late husband Jesse, and we did the usual things…lectures, sit down talks, hugs, examples about why its not good to lie, other options instead of lying, spoke about our own childhood’s and how lying got us in trouble, grounding, taking away privileges…etc. But nothing seems to have worked.

She also is aware that telling the truth is appreciated in our home and she has been rewarded for telling the truth.

Of course some of you dopers also know that Jesse died recently and there has been a considerable amount of stress, anxiety, chaos, and sadness and it has been very hard on all of us, especially on Isis. So yes, of course I expect her to act out and have some unusual/attention seeking behaviors as a result of her grief. But the lying was there even before Jesse died.

To add to the mix, she also stole recently from her science lab and then lied about the stealing. And she also lied about going on the internet while at her friend’s place and going on a chat website and talking to a random stranger on the other side (who could be a child molester :() about wanting a boyfriend and wanting to have sex. She lied about it when asked and blamed it all on her friend when in fact Isis created the profile and chatted with this stranger. This happened at someone else’s home and she only gets supervised access to internet at our home. Yes, I have had the safe sex conversation with her multiple times and continue to do it every opportunity I get.

Anyway…she had a fun day today in school, but also a rough day with having to go the urgent care for a ingrown toe nail infection. Right after we came home, tired, I casually asked her if she ate her fruits during lunch today in school and she said yes. I immediately knew it was a lie. I asked her again and she still said, “yes, I ate my fruits”. And I just stared at her and she admitted that she lied and that she gave the fruits to her friend and didn’t eat it. Again…I don’t really care about the fruits, but the lying really bothers me. It’s like she doesn’t even think about it. She just lies and it has become a habit. Again, I know today’s lie does not revolve around a major issue, but it was still a lie.

And becoming a single mother abruptly and suddenly has been hard for me. I have a six month old to care for as well. So I just sent her to her room and told her that she had lost her movie privileges for tonight and she is not going to this birthday/slumber party tomorrow. She has been looking forward to this party for weeks now and tomorrow is the last day of school and her first real important social party that the girls in class have all been excited about.

What should I do? Should I still let her go the party tomorrow? I feel like I am being harsh, but I also feel like I should be firm.

Any suggestions about dealing with the lying? Nothing seems to work in terms of punishment.
Anything that worked for you guys? Any stories? Anything?

I am so tired, emotionally drained. I wish Jesse was here. Not to mention, I am so overwhelmed. :frowning:

Thanks for reading my long post.

2

Aw, sweetie. That’s tough stuff.

Is she in any grief therapy for the loss of her dad? Frankly, the sex talk is more worrisome than the lying. Fibs are age appropriate, thought shouldn’t be tolerated. Precocious sexual interest is not what I remember from my girl at that age. I’d suggest counseling. Your situation is more complex than most, I’d wager.

3

Thank you! She starts therapy either this week or early next week. It was difficult to get her in without the health insurance, but I finally found a wonderful therapist who accepts Medi Cal but waiting for the referral to go through from the county. The school therapist kept saying she would see her and then all of a sudden said no because there was only a few more weeks of school left.
I know…the sex stuff is worrisome. I just continue to have the talks and try to empower her with knowledge.
Sigh.

4

Rather than talk to her more about sex (at 9 you shouldn’t need to much in frequent conversations) perhaps the bigger issue is boundaries. How do you act at someone’s house (not be sneaky, be appropriate), who do you share private talks with (not Internet strangers!), obeying rules when no ones looking etc, who do you attach to for affection.

The sex talk seems like a symptom- its not about sex, but something else.

5

**Do NOT let your daughter go to the party. You will be rewarding bad behavior. **

I have two friends who are what I consider to be exemplary parents. Both of them employ the same techniques to keep their kids behaving.

In both cases, they don’t yell at or strike their kids, unless they’re just blind with hysteria.

What they do is withhold privileges. One friend’s kid is now grown but when he was young, he was a huge Star Trek TNG fan. He had a model Enterprise and action figures and all that stuff. When he lied, or disobeyed in other ways, he would lose privileges. Lying was the worst, and he’d lose all privileges for a month. He would get a book to read and his dad gave him a deadline to read the book and write a book report. If he missed his deadline, another week was added and a second book was added. During this time, no TV, no toys, no radio. Just his thoughts and a book in his bedroom.

My friend who is a young father does similar things. He is very good at telling his daughter no. When she messes up, no TV, just a couple books to read. She’s too young to write a book report but that will come when she hits the second grade.

Both of these youngsters are great kids, and remember, this is coming from someone who have very little use for kids.

Consistency is everything. If they bitch and complain, ask them if they’d like to go for two weeks. As they get older, no computer except for homework, which will be supervised. No cell phone. No video games. When homework is done, the computer is taken away and shut down.

In both cases, they are not trying to be their kid’s friend, they’re being a parent. Those things, done correctly, are pretty much mutually exclusive.

6

If they EVER get so “blind with hysteria” that they hit their children without thinking, whatever they are they are not exemplary parents.

Otherwise, I generally agree with your post. Do not let your child go to the slumber party.

I would like to ask – how do you really know that your daughter is lying all these times?

Another thing I’ll add – if all it takes is a stern look from you to make her break down and confess, I’m thinking it’s really not that bad a problem. When I was a kid, you couldn’t push me off a lie with a truck.

7

Are you getting her therapy because of her dad, or because of the lying? If it’s the former, make sure you mention the lying to the therapist (and the fact that it pre-dated dad’s passing). Compulsive lying *can be *an early indicator of things like ADHD or personality disorders. But it can also indicate more simply that she’s afraid of your reaction when she tells the truth about doing something wrong.

Nobody here can tell you why your child in particular is a liar. The cause could be anywhere on the spectrum of “fault” from inconsistent parenting (yours or dad’s) to outright in-born sociopathy (hers). The sooner you can find out why she’s doing it, the sooner you can get her professional help.

8

She’s going to think she can’t go to the party because of the fruit.

I think you need to have a talk with her about how it’s affecting you and make sure to follow up on the counseling.

She’s nine. Nine year olds lie. My kid is seven and he does that. Not often, but I hate it. The other day he was telling me he had a girlfriend at four and her name was Kisimika.

It really irritates me. I recently canceled our swimming plans because he lied about his laundry, but I don’t think I’d prohibit a birthday party.

9

I would at least work with her to improve her lies. If she’s making shit up that’s ridiculously easy to disprove, then she’s doing it wrong.

I mean, we all lie once in a while. Maybe you can be more effective by teaching her about appropriate lying, and about just keeping her mouth shut instead of lying. You’ll both probably be happier. :stuck_out_tongue:

10

I will try and respond to most of the comments.
ITD: When talking about sex, of course boundaries come up and we have addressed that both within the context of sexual behaviors and outside as well. We also have talked about behaving appropriately in other people’s home, but yes…it is about other issues, not just about sex.

5f4Super: thank you for the response. I am leaning toward not sending her to that party tomorrow. But, yes, my heart also aches for her given the fact that her father just died.

Boyo Jim: Well…most of the times I just know because of the way she responds to my questions. And then she will admit right away that she lied. And then there are times when it is very obvious that she is lying. For example: she used more than half the bottle of her sister’s baby soap that sits in her bath tub one night. Nobody uses that bathroom other than her and she lied about it for a couple of minutes and even tried to blame the cat for it and then eventually admitted to her lie. Her teacher sent me a note the other day about Isis lying to her about bringing toys to class. I am probably sure she has lied to me other times and I just haven’t paid attention, but most of the times, I just know and she just admits it.

Rachelellogram: She is getting therapy mostly because of her father but also for all these issues that I will be bringing up with her therapist. She was in therapy last year for some of these issues but mostly due to academic/learning/anxiety problems. Like I said, when she has said the truth in the past, and admitted to a mistake that would normally her her in trouble, we have given her props and positively acknowledged her for it but also told her not to repeat her mistake. So she knows she can tell the truth about doing something wrong and not get in big trouble for it. She knows lying had consistently gotten her in more trouble.

Farmer Jane: Ugh…I know! Every time she gets in trouble I make sure she understands why she is in trouble so she wont repeat it again. But she doesn’t seem to get it. Also, I think she is mostly suffering through the punishment, whatever it may be, just to get it over with so she can get her privileges back. I don’t know how to get her to focus on the overall concept of how these are not good qualities to have even as a young woman. I am still leaning toward not sending her to the party at the moment. It is just hard because losing her dad was traumatic and Jesse was a single father for a few years before I came into the picture…so she was daddy’s girl and I know she is struggling, but I still don’t want her use daddy’s death as an excuse for lying and stealing.

11

Not the parents, the kids. The parents are never blind with hysteria but I have seen many children that way.

12

It is my experience that children generally lie to keep out of trouble, and to avoid disappointing the parent, for example how she told you what she felt you wanted to hear about the fruit. Maybe try to dig a little deeper on why she felt she had to lie, and consider it from her point of view.

She may be trying to find out what she can get away with, which stars out like a game, but may turn bad in that she is underestimating the intelligence of other people. A sort of -look how easy it is to fool them- attitude can get worse over time if it becomes a habit or part of her character, but she is at an age where it can turn around.

Another thing about children who lie to avoid upsetting the parent or to avoid punishment is that when the parent reacts a bit overboard with anger or drama, it seems to reinforce to the child why they should lie next time, or justify to them why they lied in the first place, so the whole thing can be really crazy making.

My family had alot of stories and example like “the boy who cried wolf…” to teach us as kids, but my daughter shared with me her bad experience resulting from a silly lie she told to impress someone. The lie began to grow it’s own legs and became more difficult and troublesome for her to hold together in an effort to save face. Apparently she learned the hard way from this experience that it is way easier and far less stressful to tell the truth.

And remember age nine is very difficult in terms of adjusting to change, and suffering the loss of Jesse was no doubt traumatic and overwhelming for her also, especially if she was working on showing the brave front to you. It is possible that she let herself down, in that she was expecting too much from herself.

Maybe she feels disappointed in herself, or maybe she is seeking attention when she tells lies, but acting out with the sex thing is super dangerous, and protecting her without Jesse by your side has to be an enormous challenge, so your work is cut out for you. I get the impression that you are a very brave and strong lady who is not afraid to reach out for the help you will need, and that you will not let either one of your children down.

13

As mentioned by **florez, **she was probably afraid that she would get in trouble and make you unhappy if you knew the truth about the fruit. You made it clear you knew she was lying (even though there was no reason you should know, or could know, but you just knew.) At that point she must have felt like she was going to get in trouble and make you unhappy if she continued to lie. Finally she told you the truth. IMHO that is the thing to focus on most in your response to this one particular exchange.

One day pretty soon she will have a much better ability to see through “I know you aren’t telling me the truth” and call your bluff if she knows that there is no way you could know. If your goal is to convince her that she can tell you anything no matter how bad she thinks things are, this might not be the right moment to declare that this was the last straw and you are going to impose a hefty punishment. She probably won’t accept that it’s about the big picture and pattern, and will blame missing the party squarely on the fruit incident which is one occasion she did do the right thing in the end. It might be better to remind her that while lying about this was wrong, telling the truth was right and you are very happy that she did. Another way to look at it: let’s say she said yes I ate my fruit, and you believed her, and that was it. And then that night she came to your room with a sad face and wanted to tell you she hadn’t told the truth, she didn’t eat her fruit but she was afraid of how you might react. At that moment, would you tell her she is missing the biggest party of the year or would you hug her and thank her and reinforce that she can always tell you the truth about anything? By the time she’s a teenager the stakes will be much higher than fruit.

14

One thing to keep in mind is that she knows you’re sad too.

So things happen in a chain:
She does something bad because she’s feeling sad
She lies to you because the truth would make you sad
She gets caught and it all falls apart.

The problem is that at 9 she doesn’t think ahead to step 3 while she’s at either 1 or 2. The real key to stopping the lies is to give her the tools to think ahead and hopefully that’s what the therapist will help both of you with.

15

She’s in trouble over fruit. If she had not eaten her fruit, she would’ve gotten in trouble and made you upset. She didn’t eat the fruit, so she tried to cover.

She’s going through a rough time, too. I don’t think she’s using it as an excuse. Lying is part of normal development in kids. And because she’s under a lot of pressure, it’s no shock she’s lying to you more.

You told her to tell you the truth. She did. Then she was punished.

16

About the sex thing which would scare the crap out of any parent, the fact it happened at her friend’s house suggests to me it was probably a dare and she was egged into it and is taking the fall.

I’m a guy but I could so see myself at nine faux-cybering with some perv while my friend sniggered over my shoulder watching every word, assuming the internet existed when I was nine.

17

You’ve already told her she can’t go to the birthday party. If you changed your mind now, it would send a very clear message that you won’t follow through with your punishments, and only encourage bad behavior. Maybe it is overly harsh, but you’re entitled to make mistakes. Going back on this one would be a bigger problem in the long run.

I know your family is going through a hard time right now, but there should be consistent consequences for her actions. In fact, I would argue that clear expectations and structure are paramount for her right now, because she needs a sense of stability and security. It would be best if you could make those consequences clear even before the next lie. As far as lying about being on the internet talking to strangers about sex, that’s not a little lie to me… that’s a big lie. And a concerning one.

I think 5f4super’s friends are brilliant.

18

I disagree. If she made a mistake, she should own up to it.

eta: Is she not your biological daughter?

19

Is she grounded for the sex chat or for the fruit lie? It’s not clear to me.

20

“Sex Chat or Fruit Lie” sounds like something TV’s Craig Ferguson would ask his guests at the end of their interview…