[roomformore]

We are having a real problem with lying in our 6 year old son. It has been going on for a couple of years and nothing I try gets him to understand why it is wrong. He gets so upset when I don't believe him but he lies so often that I don't know when to believe him. He mostly lies to save himself from getting in trouble and he will look you in the face and argue to the death he is telling the truth. He hit me this morning in anger(with fist)and lied up and down that he didnt do it-I mean like I wasnt there??? It is expecially frustrating for me because even as a child I had such a strong conscience that I could not lie. Even now I try my best to be very honest. My DH though swears he does not lie but I have caught him more times than I can count and he too will swear he is telling you the truth(I mean when I know he is lying). How do I get thru to my son that he needs to be honest. I have told him the story about the little boy that cried wolf and have bragged on him for telling the truth. I am not a very strict parent but do time outs when he lies to me and it is not working. Any ideas??? I am at wits end.

[brandydawn]

QUOTE]My DH though swears he does not lie [/quote]


Does your son know this? Something so very important is that the parents are united together and supporting each other on an issue, especially in the eyes of your child.

Maybe you should talk to his pediatrician, if you hadn't mentioned he has been doing this for a couple of years I would have thought maybe it was just a phase. Maybe your doctor can recommend a counsleor that can find a reason for the behavior.

My sister used to lie and then say she was "just joking" and then follow that with another lie which was supposed to be the truth after the joke. She still has an issue with telling the truth (and she is almost 30) however not to the extent she did as a child/teenager.

Regards,
Brandy

[michellemartin]

Well I was thinking you'd want to reward them for telling the truth, but then I thought wrong. For example saying Ok well you told the truth, so I wont give you a time out- that wouldnt work- I just learned this from experience! My daughter is 6. SO our plan now is when she tells the truth I do praise her for that, but she still gets a time out. When she lies, she gets a time out for lying and a time out for whatever it is that she did. So now we have a clear punishment for lying also, and so far it is working to have 2 punishments like that. Is there something he really enjoys? I have taken art away from my daughter- all she does is color- there is no point in any other toy in my home! If I were to send her to her room that would be terrible for her because she cant have markers and glue in her room, yet other kids would be fine with being sent to their room. I have taken the nightlite away at times when she was really terrible. Sorry I dont have much advice. I dont believe in spanking either, so I know how you feel being limited as to what can be done. Is there something he really doesnt like to do? Maybe have him eat a mushroom every time he lies? My daughter would probably be a saint if I threatened that!

[Jenna599]

Corbin has a wonderfull imagination, he just sometimes (okay okay constantly) uses it at the wrong times, for example, last night i was in the middle of making school lunch for today when annie (age 2) pooed all over herself... while i was giving her a bath corbin ate his deseart out of his lunch box. i asked him about it as soon as i discovered the wrapper and he tried to write it off on his sister. i sat him down and told him (all of this very calmly on my part) that i did not believe that was really what happened (we aviod using the word lie because it usually causes a tantrum) because his sister was with me the whole time, and then i asked him to think really hard and see if he could remember what really happened.... this gives him one more chance to tell the truth, he stuck to his story so we had him sit at the table to think about what really happened untill he could tell the truth, eventually he fessed up when he realized he had missed half of his tv show sitting there. he ended up missing the entire show because we sat down with him and told him that it hurts our feeligns when he doesnt tell us the truth etc etc and agreed that his punishment would be that he wouldnt not get a new deseart to put in his lunchbox (this on top of having allready missed his show). im sure it will happen agian (and agian and agian) but there was not yelling and temper tantrums this way and no one got their feelings hurt.

i look forawrd to hearing everyone elses ideas also and best of luck with your not so honest ones lol

[LilyMoon]

This article has some useful tips for helping children with lying.

http://www.deborahhage.com/lying.htm

Good luck!

[MommyofEli]

I keep a little boy sometimes(he is in fostercare and lies very often to his foster family) he is also 6 years old. He is very active! When he tells me a lie(and I know for sure it is a lie) I don't give him time to argue with me. I just say as soon as it comes out of his month...You are telling me a lie and I and not listining to it. and I put him in time out and will not let him out till he tells me the truth. I will walk by and ask him are you ready to tell me the truth and if he lies I will keep walking and say nope thats not want I want I want the truth!! He will give in and tell me the truth and I will say to him thank you for caring enough to tell the truth and I will make him correct what ever he did (like if he said he didn't spill something) Time out really hurts his feelings because I make sure I am doing something while he is in time out that I know he really wants to do....something fun. I will put on his fav. video or get out the play dough...or something like that. I has worked so far for me...he knows it is no fun to lie to me...he hardly has time to get out the lie before his in in time out missing out on everything!

[OutdoorDad]

My Family uses the Family rules system. I will give a quick explanation of it. - e-mail me if you have any questions. I check regularly.

FAMILY RULES is a system where you have a list of rules in your house, each rules has a weight next to it (a number between 1 and 50)

make a list of rules.

now, take 50 index cards and write a good habit on them, they should be chores that take at least 15 minutes or more. we have sweep drive way, vacuum house, wipe kitchen counters, take a bath, do as many jumping jacks as you can in 15 minutes, write the rules list, ect...

take 5 cards and write GRACE on them, this means the child is off the hook FOR THAT CARD ONLY
take 5 cards and write WILD on them, this means the child gets to do what ever he wants and you have to join him/her

now that you have the cards made up (you done yet)
write a number next to each rule. for LYING we have 20

that means the child has to draw 10 cards and do each of them when they lie. Leave the lights on, its 1 card, ect.

The child has 3 choices. DO THE CARDS NOW, goto his/her room and SIT on the bed, they may not sleep or do anything else, OR they may clean their room.

This will make the punishment only as long as the child wants it.

now, make another list REWARDS

each day the child is good, they get a token (I use poker chips) one color for each kid (yes they may steal from each other)
if they are good for an entire week, they get 3 extra.

now put a token value next to each reward. The kids wants a friend over 5 tokens please!

try that. e-mail me if you have any questions.
you can get more info at family-rules.com but they want you to pay, my daughters Dr gave us this system. Ti seem to work, but not as quickly as my daddy's belt did to me but then again we cant do that. and wont.

[yehudit]

Hello,
My son is also six and we are starting to deal with this too. My son has mild autism though, so it's hard for me to know if what works with him would work with "typical" kids. Actually, it's not so much that he lies as that he accuses everyone else of lying. But to him, a lie is anything that he doesn't like. So I'll say "it's time for a bath" and he'll say "you told me a lie."

So my first question is, does your son understand what a lie is? Does he understand why it's wrong to lie? Does he understand the difference between lying and using his imagination in a positive way?

I don't have any practical suggestions, but I like natural consequences. So the natural consequence of lying is that you can't trust your child. What can you do to let him know that you can't trust him, and that if he tells the truth you can? Maybe some physical symbol like a sticker on his shirt which means "I can't trust you" or the opposite, a sticker that means "I can trust you"?

Good luck,