Doing dangerous things and then lying about it

Naomi Aldort

Why and what to do with an 8yo boy (not in school) does dangerous things and loughs about it when we don't look (or thinks we don't see) and even makes our younger children do some dangerous things and then when the younger ones come and tell us, he will lie about it making fun of them and saying ''what are you saying? I never did that!''. The last thing was he was walking on wet and high wooden beams around our house and was saying “Look I walk on it its dangerous, you want to do it?” He also won’t stop when he passes with his bicycle and hit others and say he never did it or never saw the other child.

I have great difficulty to not get angry because I can't stand his lying and that my other kids can be scared of him being dangerous or them being hurt because of him.

Thanks for your help.

Dear parent,

Your child cannot control his behavior any more than you can control your anger. His actions are an unconscious emotional healing mechanism combined with love for risks. Most likely, he is trying to heal himself from a sense of helplessness (he wouldn’t know it though.) Please read the section in my book on Power Games for helping a child recover from feeling helpless. In addition, you will have to find why he feels so helpless so you can stop the cause. The cause could be jealousy, fear of your anger or disproval etc. When he stops feeling helpless, he won’t need to feel powerful by scaring you and endangering himself. But, if he loves danger, you may need to look for ways to meet his need by providing rock climbing classes or other rush giving activities.

I suggest that he cannot have a bicycle in the yard because he is not able to handle it responsibly. But his father or someone else can take him to ride his bike on trails in the park with supervision and do other exciting activities away from his siblings. He needs attention by himself with his parents. Once the need for power is healed, he will be able to ride in the yard and be caring of others.

As for lying, when a child lies it means he does not feel safe to tell the truth. It is not his fault. We are responsible for making it safe for him to tell the truth. Look at why he must lie and remove the cause. Reading my book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, will be of great help to you. If you sign up for my newsletter, you will get, among others, an older newsletter with my article on lying: http://naomialdort.com/newsletter.html

If you need more guidance, please book yourself a phone session with me:

http://naomialdort.com/guidance.html

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Doing dangerous things and then lying about it

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