Need Some Advise on Boys and Lieing

Updated on February 07, 2008
C.C. asks from Prosper, TX
11 answers

I am wondering what you are doing as punishment if you child lies to you. My 8 year old son has lied to me in the past and we have spanked (not a fan of it), taken away his game boy and computer game privileges and have grounded him from his friends. Nothing seems to be working. We just had another episode where I have caught him in a lie to me. I am at my wits end with what to do. Any advise would be great.

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K.G.

answers from Houston on

I have two college age children. My rule was, if something happened that I need to know about, I want to hear about it from them. I told them that being honest is about taking responsibility for what happens and setting it straight. It is also about trust. I needed to be able to trust them as they got older in order to gradually give them more privileges and freedom. The problem with punishment for lying is that once served, things are not back to normal. My trust has been violated and my trust needs to be re-earned. Trust grow when anyone, child or adult, acts honestly and consistently. No child is too young to start this concept, it must be taught from the beginning, however you cannot expect the child to understand the concept when they are really young. Stories help them understand and examples "It is like if .... said and you... and how would you feel? Would you believe ...?" I was lucky with my children, not to say that they were always honest, but we did manage to avoid many of the big problems of being teenagers.

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A.A.

answers from Dallas on

Hi. I have a 13 yr old boy that started to lie to me around 10 yrs old. I did the same as you..(took stuff away). Nothing seemed to work. Finally one day a case worker at the dr's office told me to sit him down and talk to him about how much lieing can get you in. Long story short, I just gave him examples of different senarios and told him about the boy who cried wolf story. He still lies once in a while..or trys to, but I am real calm and ask him" your telling me the truth right? I can trust you?" and he will then tell me the truth. I hope this helps a little.

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L.C.

answers from Dallas on

I am curently going throught the same thing with my 8 year old. In fact I was searching to see if anyone had any suggestions. I will tell you I am an involved parent my children attend christian school, we have family night lots of quality time and my child still chooses to lie. I say that because lying is not always a reflection of your parenting. After reading the responses I like the writing sentences he is only 8 so he is not ready for a 15 page report, but I am going to store that a way for future use.

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N.M.

answers from Houston on

I have two children, age 20 and 22. I had only ONE rule the entire time they were growing up and that was that they Always had to tell me the truth if I asked them a question about something. The consequences were: if they told me the truth, they would not get in trouble (NO MATTER WHAT), of course they would be talked to about what they had done and WHY it was wrong, using very clear examples and reasoning. IF they lied, the punishment was Double what I thought the regular punishment ought to be.

Example: if they lied about where they were going, the punishment might be two weeks grounding instead of one. Reason: I need to know where you are so if anything happens I will have a starting place to find you. If you are leaving the park and say you are going to a friends house and then you never show up at the friend's house, I can then look for you somewhere between the park and the friend's house. It then becomes a safety issue rather than a control issue.

Why would anyone want to be hitting their child!!!! Parenting should represent the safest place in the world for your child. He needs to Trust you as much as you need to Trust him. Try involving yourself in his life more by just spending time with him- those games can be sooo anti-social. Play cards, teach him chess, go to the movies or just sit down with him and watch a movie together- everybody, the whole family. And please, let him know that you love him, no matter what. No truth is so awful that the world is going to fall apart. Let him know that you are there as his protector, that you can handle any truth.

One tactic I remember using was when my daughter started to tell me a lie and I knew it was a lie, I said to her, "that story doesn't make any sense, why don't you start over and tell me something I can believe." She immediately stopped and told me the truth. Her younger brother reminded her, "you know J___, Mom is really smart."

I have heard some things that I surprised me or even disappointed me, but they both know that I am there for THEM.

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J.T.

answers from Dallas on

you could make him write sentences. I would make it a long sentence like (I will not lie to my mom and dad or anyone else again.) and make him write it several times (50 times). Don't allow him to play or watch tv or have any free time til his sentences are done. My mom used to make us write sentences when we did wrong and we hated it.

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A.R.

answers from Dallas on

My son is a little younger,but we've dealt with the lying issue by having two distinct punishments.

The first punishment is for the infraction he lied about. If he broke a glass he has to pay for the glass, etc.

The second punishment is for the lying. We have a reward chart system. If he lies he'll lose stamps. Or we'll take away his WII for a week. It's something not related to the original infraction and something that hurts (emotionally) - and we stress that the punishment is for lying, if he had told the truth he wouldn't have gotten the punishment.

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S.S.

answers from Dallas on

Watch him like a hawk and follow him where ever he goes. This is his punishment. He gets ZERO privacy. Then you explain to him that lieing will eventually cause him to loose everyone that he loves. One by one they will all go away, because of his lies.

And then get the Valuetales book "The story of Confucious" The vaule of Honesty. Great book...nice and long, too. Sit down and read it to them. You can get it on Amazon. My daughter has not lied since her lying streak.

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A.C.

answers from Dallas on

When I was in 7th grade I forged my mom's signature on a progress report and got busted later for it. Mom made me pull out the dictionary and define what forgery is, and lying. I had to do a FULL report, with a bibliography included on what it was (forgery, which is a type of lying), why is it wrong, what are the penalties for it, give examples from periodicals about it, and then what the Bible says about lying, examples of lying in the Bible, what the penalties are, and what do I think now that I've done this report. It was something crazy like 15 pages TYPED. I'm now 32 and have NEVER signed anyone's name to ANYTHING, and I sure don't lie to mom!

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E.D.

answers from Dallas on

I like the hot sauce on the tongue (just a dab will do) or washing mouth out with soap... (dab your finger on your favorite bar of soap, and put your finger on his tonque... it will GAG him, but not hurt him).
I know these will not be popular, but they work.

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J.B.

answers from Amarillo on

Good Luck. I don't mean that to sound tacky, but my normally well behaved, well meaning stepson, who's 9, got on a lying streak. He was lying to everyone: his mom, his stepdad, me, his dad, his grandparents, teachers and even the principal. He's had his possessions taken away, he's been spanked, he's been grounded, and he's had his mouth washed out with soap. Nothing seems to phase this kid. We finally resorted to taking ALL of his possessions out of his room leaving him with a book, his bed, and his dresser with his clothes. As of right now, we seem to be in the clear. We are making his "buy" back all of his stuff by doing chores and earning points to buy back his stuff. Maybe then he will value the things that he has and will think twice before telling more lies.

Also, I just think that he's just at that age. Everyone that I've talked to who has boys either at his age or older said that they've gone through the same thing. Mt husband and I've got an 11 month old son together, so at least this first son is preparing us for what might come with the younger one.

If you find anything that really works for you, I'd be interested in hearing about it should the need arise again for us. Have a great day and good luck finding a solution that works for you.

~J.

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T.B.

answers from Dallas on

Okay, I definitely feel for you. We have two boys 7 and 6 and a baby (who has not developed the habit, yet). Both of my boys have lied on occasion. The younger being the worst. I started telling them that God knows when they tell the truth and it makes Him very sad when we lie. I will ask my boys "Are you telling God's truth or your truth?" The older boy will always tell the truth when asked that. The younger one seemed to enjoy lying and would never fess up. We then started to tell him that we didn't believe anything he said anymore because he always lied. After some consistency with this remark and quite some time later, I feel he now tells the truth most of the time. It was beginning to really frustrate him that we chose not to believe anything he said. I hope this helps. I was clueless, too, and at my wits end with him.

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