My Son's Friend Lies

by all means sit down and talk to him...WITH HIS parent(s) present so NOTHING can be misconstrued.

Tell him your expectations...the rules of your home and if he can't abide by them - then he is no longer welcome in your home.

Nick needs to admit to the kids at school he lied...THAT will take a lot of courage to do. But really? He NEEDS to do it.

Support your son in his willingness to forgive. THAT takes a lot. I would tell Nick - fool me once, shame on me. fool me twice, shame on YOU...there will BE NO MORE CHANCES after this...

I haven't read all of the posts so I may be repeating but I think Nick is jealous of your son. You and your husband are able to provide your son with things Nick's parents can't. I would tell Nick that he can not come over or go on trips with you all until he stops lying. I would also explain to him how his lying hurts and how excluding your son was hurtful as well.

As far as talking to him I do not think you should have talked to him at school. That was not the place to talk to him about an occurance that happened outside of school. It is good that you made his mother aware of what happened. Right now limit the time Nick and your son spend together. I think that will be a good lesson learned. Good luck!

nick boy has some problems, mental ones, and unless you want to have to take your son to the emergency room because he "accidently" fell down a flight of stairs, or "accidently" got jabbed with oh, say, a knife. the best thing you can do for your son is to tell nick in no uncertain terms that he is not welcome, PERIOD.block nicks incoming calls, and when he invites himself over, tell him" i am calling social services to come pick you up, stay right where you are,"then DO IT. let me clue you in, nick wanted you to buy the knife for him so that he could intimidate your son with it, then when you call social services or the police about it, all he he has to do is play the innocent little boy card, and say that your son WALKED into the knife.and of course because you bought the knife and you are the adult it would be your fault. put some distance between your son and this kid, otherwise you are going to spending alot of time in the emergency room with your son
K. h.
i have to agree with mallory, kids like nick are not beyond claiming that an adult who didnt let them do what they wanted, harmed them in some way.
talk to the neighbors, see if the kid has befriended other neighborhood kids, only to suddenly drop them after the other kids parents refused to buy him something he wanted ( or hinted that the other kids parents abused him in some way when they refused to buy him something )once you get all your facts together, pick up the phone and call social services and demand that this nick kid gets treatment, somewhere else.

Um...I think Nick's parents already HAD a sit-down with Nick.

Sounds like they already did.

You say "Nick has apologized to my son and my son is ready to forgive him" so what's the next step? Let them work it out. As for you, live & learn.

Obviously your son needs a break from Nick. Nick needs to put his focus on someone else other than your son, until he can get a grip. But itmight hard to keep them separated.

You, as the parent, has had your trust violated. He turned on your kid in a heartbeat and he lies. Kids need to learn how to earn trust back and you could be doing him a favor now. You son needs to see you will stand behind him, support him and back him up no matter what.

Can you encourage your kid to find other kids to hang out with in the meantime? And if he does, I wouldn't let Nick in on it, b/c with some kids, hell hath no fury as a friend (paraphrase) scorned.

Your son sounds stable and kind. I hope he makes it out of this okay!

I could have written this myself about a year ago. My son met a little girl when he was in kindergarten. The lying was there and it was actually kind of funny when she was that little. As they got older, the lies got worse. It got to the point where she was making up some lies that could have gotten my son in a lot of trouble. The way she manipulates people is AMAZING. Unfortunatly her parents want to believe her and never saw the other side of the story. I started going to functions outside of the school and heard other parents talking about her and her lies. One for example, she invited her whole class over for a Halloween party. When one of the parents called her parents asking about it, because something just didnt seem right, her parents laughed and said must be another story.
I did try to encourage my son to play with other kids. He was hung up with being with this little girl. Eventually the lies have become worse and worse. We pretty much banned her from our neighborhood, because of the issues everybody has with her. She would come over and get all the kids against each other and then play peace maker. I found out this year (he is in 5th grade) that for the last 5 years she has been telling him that nobody likes him, he better play with her or she will be sad (my son wears his heart on his sleeve and does not want to hurt anybodies feelings). She then tells the school counselor that he wont leave her alone. In the mean time she is making a lunch schedule for them. It is when he is allowed to eat with her and when he is allowed to eat with other kids. We had an issue recently where she punched him in the stomach. That was the end of that friendship. I called the principal. Her parents were called in, they unfortunatly had a great lie and she changed the whole story of what happened (manipulate once again) Because her parents are involved, she is FINALLY leaving him alone.
Anyways, to make a long story short. I would not let my child play with this child again. I feel like this little girl has taken away a lot of my sons adolescense. She has told others lies about him, which has made him have less friends. She has said some horrible mean things. You may even get to see her sometime soon, because i can just about guarantee she will be on the news someday :-P

I think your son should focus on some other friends for now. Not that he shouldnt be friends with Nick, but space their time together a little more.

I get that this boy is a kid and that you were willing and able to forgive this child. Yet, it puzzles me that his parents aren't enforcing better behavior and that they did not do the right thing and make him face the fact that he is throwing your family under the bus with lies. My advice, teach your son to make better friends because this will be on going and your son will pick up his behavior. Bad company does corrupt good character and if you want your son to go the good way then he should count this as a loss. I only say this because the parents are NOT parenting and they more then likely won't later when it will mater the most.

I'm really torn on this one. The boy seems to do well in the immediate corrective stage when he's reprimanded and performs the apologies as expected. He's engaging in a lot of typical 11 year old boy behavior but he's stretching it out and exaggerating it. It's like when he's in these social situations with other boys, he's doing whatever he can to be liked by whoever he's playing with. And like any boy his age he doesn't want to be in trouble so he's lying to try to get out of it.

I think that perhaps one reason he's lying is because he's not getting any sort of real consequences for it at home. Simply apologizing isn't enough. Yes, it's difficult to apologize genuinely but some people are able to just apologize to get it over with (me, I can't apologize until I mean it). I'm guessing he only gets "talks" about lying being bad, but doesn't have any of the natural consequences from lying nor a loss of privileges.

Perhaps.

The next time he lies and you catch him, don't call it a "stretcher." A lie is a lie is a lie when it comes to kids. It's not a social nicety where he's trying to spare hurting feelings or sugar coating in order to remain polite. He's lying. And when you catch him lying next, don't just call him on it. Let his mother know, let her know it seems to be a habit, and the boys need a break from each other for a week. If his lie has emotional consequences to someone else, let him feel the repercussions of someone else being upset with him. Don't smooth it over. Encourage your child to tell him that they're upset with him for lying or excluding other kids or whatever it is he's doing that's upsetting. The kids need to learn to work these things out and they're at a great age to do this.

It also sounds like his home like might not be great. By any chance is he the youngest child of several siblings? It's almost like he's begging for attention or he's trying to control and create something different than what he has at home.

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
After Nick's behavior on the trip and afterward, I'd never have him over again.
I honestly don't care what his reasons are for behaving this way, he's no friend to your son.
The head games he's playing are dangerous to everyone around him.
I feel for his parents, but he's their problem, not yours.
This is not something you can fix.
You need to get your son involved in some activities where he can cultivate some other friendships and then have no available time to see Nick.

Nick reminds me of an adult man I used to know - I knew him and his parents & siblings. The guy was ... manipulative, but very clever. He had traits of a personality disorder. He lied, but got very very good at hiding it and manipulating people through it. He was abusive in his relationships, always starting out exactly like the woman thought she wanted, and he'd slowly tear her down. He was... narcissistic? Even his own mother saw through him. I felt very bad for his friends and lovers, all of whom he hurt over the years. He was never my "friend" - I just knew him through family since he was a teenager.

Emotionally abusive relationships are not constrained to people that are living with each other. It can be between co-workers, boss-employee, school mates, family members and "friends."

On the other hand, these are **children** we are talking about, and Nick has a lot of learning and growing to do, and I would not just ditch him unless things got worse - and continued. What I would do is try to help my son recognize what is going on and know in advance that he may need to walk away from this "friend" because no one needs emotional turmoil.

As for lying in general, it is so pervasive in middle school, I was astounded. My younger daughter had some differences growing up and did not lie, which is actually developmentally "abnormal" according to some specialists. She knew friends lied. She said it was a survival technique they had in school and became so second nature. It escalates it seems, around 11 years old, before it gets back under control a couple years later - at least from my observation of it.

Except in cases like that person I was describing at the beginning. For him, he just honed his skills to near perfection.

I don't think I would try to have a big sit down to address Nick's lying, trying to force him to admit to it, and such. You already talked to his parents, it's really up to them to sit down with Nick and deal with his issues. Personally, I just wouldn't invite Nick out with your family for any more outings, period. He and his family ought to understand why no more invites are coming his way, and maybe that it what it will take for him to get how seriously annoying his behavior has been. I don't repeat inviting kids out who demonstrate really bad behavior. I also find it really poor manners that he calls to invite himself to your house. If he's calling, he should be doing the inviting. I would let the relationship between your son and Nick run its natural course. If your son really wants to initiate inviting Nick over to play, I would probably still allow it, but watch them carefully. And make sure your son knows he has options and choices regarding who he invites over. I would gently steer him in the direction of other friends and activities that do not include Nick.

Sounds like this nick kid is always going to be a trouble maker. If I were you I would stop it now. Your son is a good boy im guessing and you dont want a bad influence around him.

Kids today are so bold. I could never imagine getting mad a friends mom when I was younger. My son has a friend who talks back to be and always asks for be to buy him things like I owe him something and never says please or thank you. My husband and I are so fed up with him we no longer want him at out house. Does your son have other friends that come over? Incorage him to invite them to do things more. Your son knows this boy is a liar so just warn him to be careful about what he does and says with this friend. He will probably eventually stop hanging out with him. Nick will always have new friends because of his lies so tell your son not to feel bad if he really doesn't want to hang out with him anymore. I don't know if you can make someone not lie. My SIL is a stretcher also and there is no way to stop it of course her stretches don't hurt anyone so we all just kinda ignore them and ask my BIL whats really up. I also had a friend who was a stretcher and his life sucked compared to everyone elses(in his eyes) so I think that was the root of it and he is 32 years old and even now I see him every great while and its another crazy story (I ususlly confirm them with a mutual friend we both still have contact with and they are all lies) Good luck it would be so much easier if we coould just pick our kids frends and make all their decisions wouldn't it?