I don't know what to do. My 5 year old son has in the last month started lying about everything, if he thinks he is going to get in trouble. He doesn't listen to us anymore and I don't know what happened. Nothing seems to work. We tried everything to try and correct the problem and I am at my wits end and am completely out of ideas. Any help or advise would be more than appreciated.
Did your son recently start school? My son will be 5 Nov. 28th and he started preK this year. He comes home from school and tells me some of the most vivid tales of what has been going on there....and when I ask the teacher about the things he's telling me she tells me that there are parts of it true and some of it he has added.
Well I'm hoping it is just a stage. I have 5 yr old B&G twins. They recently started lying and saying the other one or a neighbor kid did it. But usually I can tell if they are lying and I use different approaches. Sometimes I use the "Now you know God says its bad to lie. And he knows if you are. So I hope you are telling me the truth and not disobeying God." That one got my daughter spilling her guts. Also if they tell me they did it. I thank them for telling me the truth and tell them that was very brave to admitt it. And then I explain what they did was wrong and why. Then I tell them that to make up for it they had to do some chore. Now if they lie then I find out the truth and then they confess. Then I tell them that lying is a bad thing the devil makes us do. And since he didn't tell me the truth he gets something taken away for the day and has to sit in the corner for 5 minutes and think about why lying is bad. It usually works pretty good. Otherwise, if he is becoming like a habitual lier, you may want to seek professional help to find out why. Hope this helps and good luck!
Hi C.!
One of my biggest problems when my oldest girls were young, is that I had a real problem with consistency. My girls didn't listen, because they never knew what to expect, and I usually never followed through with what I said. What I would do is to explain to him that not telling the truth is bad, because then people never know if they can trust what he says, and that telling the truth is always best, because otherwise he's just making a bad situation worse. I would set some rules as to what he can expect if he lies, or misbehaves, and stick to it every time, like time out. Let him think about it in time out for 5-10 minutes, or until he wants to tell you the truth. He'll respect you, and feel more secure if he knows what the consequences are for his actions.
OMG, We went through the same thing. My husband(sons stepdad) and I did the same thing, but we found that taking his favorite things from him helped him understand not to do it. Cause if you don't nip it now it's only going to get worse. You need to explain to him what he's doing, lying only makes punishment worse. Please feel free to contact me I could take probably an entire page with a response, I'd like for other to have a chance to respond. HAHA... :)
Yes, they go through a phase where everything is blamed on someone else, even the cat! I would just keep talking to him about what lying is and how lying makes the punishment worse! Teaching first grade, that was one thing I told my kids upfront. Don't lie, b/c I will always find out who did it... (I have eyes in the back of my head :) LOL) I make sure they understand that if they just tell the truth in the first place (especially if it was just an accident--which they have to understand what that is as well), then the punishment will be small (if any at all). Just keep trying to explain. I strongly believe this is just a phase, but if you don't "nip it in the bud" now, then it can definitely carry over as he gets older.
