So. Sick. Of. The. Lying.

[MommaFox]

So, DS1 has been caught in several lies lately. We've tried room-time, we've tried lines, we've tried telling him how much it hurts us (more like makes us livid beyond belief). Of course we're trying to do this gently, but I'm running out of ideas. We've told him the importance of truth. I even made him do The Boy WHo Cried Wolf as copywork once. It's not sinking in.
This morning when I went to give him his medicine, he told me "The cup is melted" I said "What?"
"The lamp is too hot. The cup floated up and the bulb melted it."
"I don't believe for a second the cup floated up and melted itself to the lamp."
"It did! Come and see."
"I don't believe it."
"Ooops. Sorry."
"Do you know how seriously you could have been hurt if the platic had dripped onto your hand?"
"I'm sorry I lied."
"You should have told the truth to begin with. I'm taking your lamp. You could have stared a fire."
So now, it's like it didn't even phase him. He's bouncing and laughing, and I don't think he understands the gravity of the situation. I'm upset about the lying, and grateful that there was no fire last night. Anyone have a better idea than I do?

[trinity6232000]

This helped when my dd (now 8yo) was telling fibs. I took those magnetic letters, and spelled out the word "trust" on the refrigerator. When she lied to me I would take down a letter. She also gained letters when I felt she had been trustworthy.

Most times there was no blame, no discussion of the fib, I simply took down a letter. It helped to show that trust isn't this imaginary thing. It was a example she could see of how our trust was broken.

When she would ask to do something, I would look at the fridge, and I would have to explain that what she was asking to do required my trust and right now our trust was broken. So my answer would be no.

Even though I haven't used the letters in a long time, I still have them on the fridge. I sometimes bring it up to dd, and tell her it makes me feel so good that we're honest with each other. She likes the fact that it's all spelled out and hasn't been touched in a long time.

[zeldamomma]

I read your example, and I'm having trouble understanding why you're so angry. Was he doing something dangerous, or just imagining something dangerous, and talking about it? I have kid who lies, and while I don't like it when she lies about whether or not she has done something I asked her to do, if she tells me something absurd, I try to make a joke out of it.

I heard an interesting piece on the radio about a study some neurologists did on lying, and it turns out that how often a person lies has more to do with how creative they are than how moral they are in other ways. In other words, there are good people who lie because they can think of a lie when it's expedient to lie, and there are horribly immoral people who never lie because they can't think of a lie.

We're still working on getting my dd to curb her impulse to lie, but I think it may be something she's always inclined to do, so more important than the lying itself is making sure she has a solid moral foundation so that she isn't inclined to use lying to do anything really bad. I also encourage her to make up stories just for fun, to help "get it out of her system" in a more appropriate way, IYKWIM.

ZM

[CathMac]

Originally Posted by trinity6232000

This helped when my dd (now 8yo) was telling fibs. I took those magnetic letters, and spelled out the word "trust" on the refrigerator. When she lied to me I would take down a letter. She also gained letters when I felt she had been trustworthy.

Most times there was no blame, no discussion of the fib, I simply took down a letter. It helped to show that trust isn't this imaginary thing. It was a example she could see of how our trust was broken.

When she would ask to do something, I would look at the fridge, and I would have to explain that what she was asking to do required my trust and right now our trust was broken. So my answer would be no.
...

trinity6232000,
NAK.

Great idea. We don't have a real problem but if it were to develop into one I hope I remember this.
~Cath

[MommaFox]

Originally Posted by zeldamomma

I read your example, and I'm having trouble understanding why you're so angry. Was he doing something dangerous, or just imagining something dangerous, and talking about it?

He melted a plastic cup to the lightbulb. I found the plastic stuck to the lightbulb. I later found the melted cup burried in the trash. He was doing something dangerous and lying about it. So he wouldn't get in trouble. So now, he's lost his lamp for melting the cup to it, and had to do lines for lying to us. Could've just lost the lamp.
Yes, Danny is a brilliantly creative child. He has a delightful imagination and terrific sense of humor. I have no problem with him telling creative stories. I encourage creative stories. Outright lies about things he has done that he knows are outside the bounds of rules and safety I really can't deal with.
P.S. We're starting the "TRUST" Letters idea. I really like it.

[anamama]

My 6 1/2 yo ds is lying, and it is causing some problems in our family. Does anyone have any book suggestions for dealing with this?

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by anamama

My 6 1/2 yo ds is lying, and it is causing some problems in our family. Does anyone have any book suggestions for dealing with this?

Yes, I highly recommend the approach taken by Heather T Forbes in Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control.

[lucysmom]

OP, I hope you don't mind this comment, but if your example is typical of the problem you are having, I would say the big issue is not lying but safety (or maybe other issues in other instances). His story about the cup floating up is kind of funny & not what I would consider a "lie" since it is entirely absurd. The big problem is that he thought it was OK to put a plastic cup on a lamp. But in confronting him about that & trying to teach about that, it seems like your message got kind of confused -- part about the danger, part about the story about the cup floating up.

Talking about the importance of honesty, I think, is better done without the extra anxiety and urgency brought on by actual worry about a kid's safety. Just a thought.

[MommaFox]

Yeah, it was a safety issue. It was also about telling the truth. He understod it was dangerous, because he was refusing to use the lamp because the plastic was posing a hazard. I asked him why he couldn't use the lamp, and that's how the original conversation happened. He knew that melting a cup to the lamp wasn't OK, and came up with a "funny" story to get out of trouble. If he'd have said "I put the cup by the bulb to see what would happen." We would have taken the lamp for a while.
He doesn't usually lie about dangerous things. He usually lies about getting in the book at school (kind of the new, no-embarrassment PC version of the name on the board we grew up with). Or lying about having done or not done something so he won't get in trouble. I don't think his story was funny, either. But then I'm not looking at it from the outside.
At any rate, We're working on it. We're trying the trust thing, but it's only been a few days and I'm not sure he gets it yet.

[Materfamilias]

We have issues with this too.
The OP's problem does seem to be twofold: one, ds is doing dangerous "experiments" in his room and two, he is lying to avoid getting into trouble.
Taking away the lamp because he's being dangerous with it seems appropriate to me. The lying about it I would have more trouble with, because it is so hard to make them see at this age why it's a problem.
Probably because it's worked for 'em.
Someone on mdc once made the point that it really helps to avoid asking questions that will set the child up to lie. With my ds, it's asking things like "Did you brush your teeth?" His instant reaction is to lie about it. So I've stopped asking and just tell him to do it.
The thing I'm having problems with right now are getting him to explain why he did something he knew he shouldn't do. It's like he doesn't understand the question. He'll tell me what he shouldn't do, what he should do, what happened, but not why. It makes me think that perhaps at this age he's cognitively incapable of answering...