Time to ditch the 'gentle' approach?

[insidevoice]

My daughter is nine, she is profoundly gifted, and has Aspergers.  Overall, she's a pretty good kid but we're in the middle of a HUGE power struggle.  She does not really care about anything I ask her to do.  If I ask her to do a chore, it's fluffed off, half done or, if I can't immediately follow up to see it with my own eyes, she'll lie about having completed something.  

This morning, she had a couple small chores to do before being allowed to relax for the day.  I was in the middle of painting outside and her friend came over.  DD came out a few minutes later with her friend (after an appropriate time had passed to have done the chores) and announced that they were done- I verified this.  She and her friend headed off to play at friend's house.  I stepped inside after peeling the paint off myself and found that neither of the chores I had asked her to complete were done. 

I am frustrated as this is only one example of her trying to lie or deceive to make things into the reality she wants them to be.  "It was an accident!"  "I forgot!" "I didn't know!"  etc.. are regular refrains.  She does not want to accept responsibility for her actions. 

There are other- and more significant- worrisome behaviors, but it all comes back to the same problem, she lies. She chooses to do what she wants to instead of what she should- about LITTLE things usually.  

I am frustrated.  I am working on helping her to accept responsibility, but she doesn't take anything seriously.  She's started talking back and being 'sassy' in a way that is not ok in our family.  I was raised in a fairly authoritarian household- not abusive or even harsh, but it would never have occurred to us, as children, to behave as she is.  My parents DO however tend to shame dd, so I can't really look there for help. They did not do that with us, but they struggle to understand who she is.  She still wants to play with toys, and they think she is 'too old' and tease her for it, for example. 

We had chores to do and they were done without much fuss.  Lying was never a consideration. I find myself worried that if I don't find a way to reign this in, she'll really struggle as she is older. 

[chaimom]

Does she have consequences?  Such as she can't play with her friend tomorrow because she lied about her chores?  Or since you had to do her chores, she has to do yours and hers tomorrow? Have you asked her what she thinks her consequence should be for lying to you? Can you have her walk through the "if I do this, then you will feel x"... so she can think it through? I have twin 9 yo's and I would hold them accountable for lying about chores. 

[mamazee]

It seems like if you're aware she might lie about whether she's done chores, or lie in some other way to get out of work, the answer is to physically check everything to make sure it's done instead of asking her. If she says she's done chores and wants to go play, say, "You'll have to wait until I can check to see if they're done" and then actually look to see if they're done. I would personally just make lying a non-issue by verifying stuff.

As kids approach puberty they do get sassier. I don't know how stopping being gentle is going to help that? I have a 9-year-old too, and sassiness and not wanting to help around the house are recurring issues here too, though there has been a lot of improvement lately. I wish I could tell you what has changed, but I'm not absolutely sure. I've been trying to reframe it from "do this because I want you to" to "I need your help and this would be really useful." She does like to feel useful, but I have to engage her differently to make it feel like she's useful instead of that she's doing a chore. She voluntarily cooked most of dinner last night, and did most of the cleaning up after dinner, and has been regularly cleaning up after the toddler without much if any complaint. I can't promise it will last, as it seems at least partly like a day-by-day issue, related to mood. As for sassiness, she was not sassy yesterday and hasn't been yet today. I will knock on wood, but I think that's because I've been more careful the past couple of days with her bedtime. I'm sure there will be some sassiness. I see some as normal development, but I expect her to generally have a good disposition and it seems like diet and sleep are major contributors when her disposition isn't so great.

I'm not sure how stopping GD would help with lying either? Generally, the harsher the discipline, the more scared kids are to tell the truth, and the more they lie to avoid the harsh discipline. It sounds like your dd is lying to get out of work, so IMO the thing to do is to simply make that ineffective.

[transylvania_mom]

My answer to your question is: definitely not. I tried punisments (spanking) with my 6 y/o ONCE, out of frustration, and not only it didn't work, but it also escalated the situation. If you raised her with GD, chances are she already has a sense of self-worth, strong opinions and also accountability (at least this is my ds's situation), but you need to let HER decide what she needs to be accountable for.

If your dh asked: honey, tomorrow YOU need to shop for groceries and do the laundry, whould you be inclined to do it? But if he tells you: tomorrow WE need to go grocery shopping, do the laudry and change the oil, you might be inclined to say, "ok, I'll go shopping and do the laundry, and you can change the oil", or any combination of the above.

This is what I did with ds, I decided myself that he needs to unload the diswasher (it seemed the easiest chore); he hated it and constantly whined and complained about it. Then he suggested to do the dishes (dd's cups and everything that doesn't go in the dishwasher), which works great for me, because it's the chore I hate the most. I still have to rinse some of the dishes he washes, and wipe the floor after him, but he does a pretty good job.

Right now, he's only six, so I let him choose whatever he wanted, but in the future I plan to share all household chores with the kids, the ones they like and the ones they like less. 

Giving him control over the situation worked great for us, he recently volunteered to vacuum his room every weekend, he really wants to learn how to cook (he can make fruit salad).

HTH

Edited by transylvania_mom - 6/23/11 at 10:42am