My 14yr. old lied "again"
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| Mon, 11-06-2006 - 11:29am |
My 14 yr. old ds lied again. He's been doing this for a couple of
years now. His real father died and it started shortly after that.
He's not real good at it because he's gotten caught so many times.
However, he's obviously gotten away with something because he con-
tinues to do it.
I am so frustrated and aggravated with him. I thought we were finally
on the right road but we aren't. He lies about such stupid stuff, a
few weeks ago it was about doing his homework. He had not turned in
math homework for 7 weeks. His teacher called to tell me. When I went
home and questioned him he continued to lie to 15 or 20 minutes telling
us he had done his work and turned it all in. We told him we were ALL
going to confront his teacher and we wanted to see this work he said he'd
been doing all along. He finally confessed he'd been lying.
This time it was about a library book we told him to return over a month
ago. He told us he'd turned it in and we found it in his closet buried
underneath a box yesterday while rearranging his room. His excuse was
that he'd turned it in but rechecked it out again. Then he got upset
because we said we didn't believe him and that we were going to call the
library to find out. He said but what if she made a mistake and it doesn't
show I checked it out a second time? We knew he was lying again. I of
course called the library and it's been continuously checked out by him.
NO RETURNS!
What do I do now? Any advice would be helpful. Years ago, I stripped his
room of everything and he had to earn stuff back. Maybe, I need to do it
again. Yes, we have him in family counseling also.
Thanks,
SC

I guess I would use the counselling as an opportunity to find out why your DS lies. Again, it is for pretty minor things (although I would not consider not handing hw for 7 weeks a minor thing--not handing it in once is minor). I don't think the answer to this is taking away all his privileges. Considering the "minor things" he is lying about, it seems pretty extreme. I think you have to get the message into his head that you need to be able to trust him and that if he doesn't tell the truth about these stupid things, how will you be able to trust him when he is older about important things like where he is going, who he is going with, etc.
My DSD (age 16) lies a lot and I'm not implying that you do this, but I think the reason she does it is that she is afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. Her DF gets very angry at stuff that isn't that big a deal, so she has probably learned that not getting caught is better. However, she's not a great liar either. For ex., she got in trouble before about being on the phone late at night when she was supposed to be sleeping. We could hear her talking cause our bedroom is right next to hers. Then when her DF would go in and say "why are you on the phone?" she would deny it. That was kind of stupid, since we could hear her talking. Plus on a cellphone, you can just look at the history right on the phone and see what time a call was made.
Anyway, I would make my effort about learning why your DS feels he needs to lie and asking him if he wants to be a person who can be trusted or a person who has a rep in the family as someone who doesn't tell the truth, which means that you will always be doubting his word and checking up on him, which will probably be a lot more annoying to him in the future.
Thanks for the advice! I am so at my wits end with him. I agree that
getting to the bottom of it is the best answer. We don't know why he
does it. He's a good kid with an enormously bad habit. We do feel he's
lying to dodge consequences also.
We've talked to him about lying and how important it is being able to
trust him. He knows that in our household lying is the worst thing he
can possibly do. We've sat him down and explained to him times we were
lied to as adults and what the consequences were because of those lies.
We've told him we want him to become a responsible adult and that right
now his lies is a bad start to a lousy adult life if it continues.
Basically, we've talked to him until we are blue in the face. It seems
like nothing is getting thru to him.
We will continue couseling. This is just so frustrating.
SC
sc
My DD lied quite alot. I learned in therapy that this was her way of coping when she didn't have the skills to handle the consequences of the truth. Apparently we had sort of taught her this b/c DH is an alcoholic (sober 6 years now) and by us living a lie and pretending everything was "normal" this is what we taught her. Understanding the why of it all helped me some. Plus it gave me something to work with. She and I started talking more openly about her dad and his drinking. This seems to have helped a little bit.
So far as punishment went, we assigned her chores to do. For instance, if she lied to me three times about something, she was assigned three major chores - washing windows, cleaning the garage, polishing great-granda's silver. We would work right along with her. We didn't talk about the lying. I also rarely punished her for what she was actually lying about but focused more on the lying itself. I wanted her to understand that we could and would deal with whatever she had done but that lying was not acceptable.
She still occassionally lies. I accept that most people do tell little lies from time to time but when its her lying to me I still get very upset - something I need to work on b/c now she's a whole lot more honest with me than most 18 y/o are with their parents.
This will take a lot of time and patience for you to work through.
Good Luck!
Thanks Tobylady for posting. This has been the hardest thing to deal
with. I think my ds has some deep issues that needs to be dealt with.
His real father passed away in 2004. He was not a nice man and he made
our lives miserable. He was also sick with a heart condition and that
just magnified everything 20 times over. Anyway, I don't think my ds
has really dealt with these issues yet. He never wants to talk about
his dad. I tried to talk to him and tell him that we deserve to be
happy now when I mentioned his dad making us miserable he got upset and
didn't remember any of the bad things, he could only remember the good.
I guess in a way that's good. We have another counseling session tonite
and it can't come quick enough for me. I just don't think this stuff
with his dad has been dealt with properly. He started the lying right
after his dad died. These are all signs that this is what this is about.
I am now remarried and he is having issues with his SD now. I think it's
a combination, not dealing with the old stuff, don't know how to deal with
the new stuff.
We went home and questioned him about this whole library book and he
continued to lie to us. The lies are just getting so elaborate now. The
good thing is, the more elaborate he makes them, the less they make sense.
He finally confessed that he's been lying to us for 2 days. We confronted
him and didn't back down and he didn't have a choice but to come clean. It's
so very sad. In a way it's like he's self-destructing, but it's affecting
all of us, not just him.
We've just moved into a new house so there aren't a lot of chores to do. I
am going to impose some community service on him. He's going to start picking
up garbage that has blown into our subdivision. There is lots of construction
going on so there is a lot of trash everywhere. I've also thought about taking
him to the local cemetary and letting him pick up trash there also. I want him
to know he's not getting off scott free here but taking things away doesn't
work anymore. I like the idea of the chores.
Thanks for talking with me. I am not feeling good about any of this anymore.
God grant me the wisdom and strength to get thru and beyond this.
SC
sc
The chores definitely worked with DD. Plus I became so suspicious of anything and everything she told that I started checking up on alot of things and caught even more lies. Once she began to realize that she was going to get caught and that she was going to have to work it off, she slowly quit the lying. I'm also positive that my talking about her dad's alcoholism and it's effect on us helped her. Once I quit living a lie, she was taught how to be honest. For instance, one night we saw a movie on TV where the wife was alcoholic. It showed all the negative effects on the DH and the kids. I just offhandely commented - I learned the hard way, that man needs to get his kids and get far, far away. I was wrong to put you girls through that. She didn't comment one way or the other but I know she heard. After a while of little things like that, she started to comment back. Just simply one liners but it was a start. Counseling didn't get her to open up either. It was time and my honesty that eventually got her there. Her dad really didn't like this approach b/c it reminded him of his problems and everytime he heard one of these comments, it hurt him. I understood that but he hurt us for many, many years and he just had to bear with it.
If you make him do community service type chores, please be sure and work with him. I found that working with DD built her trust in me. We wouldn't talk about her lying or whatever it was but we would talk about the job we were doing or something that happened at school. It didn't matter what - she just needed to know that I wasn't going away. Also be sure to praise him for doing a good job. One of the reasons some kids lie is b/c they have low self-esteem. They feel the true them isn't interesting. Doing the work and getting the praise (especially after you've fussed at them for lying) helps to raise their self-esteem.
Please keep in mind it took 14 years for DS to develop into who he is today. He's not going to change overnight. It will take some time and consistency on your part.
Good Luck!