How do you punish you child when he/she lies?

Question

I caught my daughter in another lie for the second time. The first time was bad and theis time was just as bad (regarding homework not done). She thinks she can get away with it, but I always catch her in the lie? I already told her that if she lies again I would be dropping her off at the girls detention home. She is nine. Seems liek she is not phased by that threat.

Answer 1

Our son's psych said that it's the families where the parents are the most honest that the children lie the most.

We do punish when we catch our son lying, but honestly, it seems the price of doing business to him. He learns to live without TV, computer, etc. He's too big to paddle.

My sister paddled hers, and it didn't help at all. My niece continued with the behavior. Until the cell phone. She'll do anything to avoid having her cell phone taken away.

This is the problem we face as well--work. He wants to get out of working so he tells us he did it.

We sent our son to boot camp at 12 or so for lots of reasons, lying being one of them. He straightened out for quite some time after that. Right now, homecoming is on the line. If he's caught lying between now and then, no homecoming.

Best of luck. I haven't figured out how to break the cycle of lying.

TX Mom
not an expert

My son says you need to get a brochure from the girls detention home and leave it laying about so she can believe that you are serious about this.

Tell her you're going to call the teacher and make sure she got your daughter's homework. If she gets offended, you should tell her that she has nothing to worry about since she already did her homework.

TX Mom's son
also not an expert

Answer 2

She thinks she "gets away with it" because its true. Had she suffered more than a verbal lashing, she wouldn't have lied a second time.

The natural consequence to lying is not being able to be trusted. If she lies about homework than naturally, she should lose the the priviledge of being able to do her homework independently for awhile. That also means she should not be able to determine when she does her homework and should be supervised to ensure its done.

Part of the fun of getting older is being able to be independent and make your own choices. Chances are she won't necessarily like her parent(s) deciding when and where to her homework or them watching over her shoulder.

I'd also take away another priveledge. You lied twice? Okay, then that's 2 days without TV or another such priveledge AND as a parent, stick to your guns.

Demonstrating that trust is earned is vaulable lesson. First and foremost, let them feel the natural consequences. (afterall, adulthood is full of them) Secondly, add an additional priveldge restriction to drive the point home.

I would absolutely drop threats like dropping her off at the detention home. You'll give the poor child abandonment issues and she'll have to spend oodles on therapy as an adult to recover from your scary, but empty threats. Plus, it doesn't actuaully correct her behavior.

Good luck!

Answer 3

If you choose to threaten you must do whatever you said. Do not threaten and not follow through. This makes a joke of you. What does she like? Take it away from her for a specified time. Take away free time, okay, you will spend your saturday cleaning the garage? You are grounded, you cannot visit any of your friends over the weekend?
I cannot trust you to do your homework in your room, so you will do at the kitchen table and show it to me when you're done. Ask the teacher to email you assignments so you know what is for homework. No computer til I see your homework is done.
You have to do something that will get her attention. Take privileges away. Does she have her own cellphone? take it for a week. Does she get to do whatever she wants, like go out with friends, use the computer? Take the computer away, and no going out til you do your homework and stop lying to me.
Make sure it's clear what you want from her. Stop lying. Do homework. Make her earn computer time, or going to friend's homes. 5 days doing homework without lying to me and you can visit so-and-so. Miss a day and you can either start again the next week, or say, if Monday you do the homework and stop lying, you can do something special.
Make a rule and make a consequence. It's hard and that's parenting. It's hard. You have to remember what you said and do it. Dropping her off at the detention center doesn't solve much. It makes you less approachable, b/c you don't want to take control and puts you out the loop with her. You have to gain some control of her. Impose limits.
also, you need to find out WHY is she lying? Is there something going on and she's upset and feels she can't tell you? How is she doing in school? Is she doing poorly? does she need help with homework? work on your relationship with her while you set limits and boundaries.

Answer 4

Personally, if she lied about finishing homework when she hadn't done it, I would set a consequence that since I can't trust her right now to tell the truth about homework, she now has to do all homework under my supervision at the kitchen table and show me the finished product and not go play until I checked that she did her best on all of it. If she's lying about that, she will catch natural consequences at school, too.

Then I would talk to her about integrity, how it was something my family valued immensely, how it takes a long time for people to trust you and lying even once can make hard-earned trust go away.

Then I would make sure that my punishments for things other than dishonesty were not so unreasonably harsh that she was felt like she had to lie to protect herself.

And finally, I wouldn't threaten anything I wasn't prepared to follow through on. She'll never take you seriously again, even when you do mean it! Besides, though I'm sure you didn't think of it this way, weren't you modeling dishonesty by saying something like that??? It's hard to teach honesty as a value unless your kids see you being honest, as well.

Answer 5

So what has your threat told your daughter is simply that you don't want her. That's a great thing to tell a girl who is probably going through puberty. Why should she be phased by that threat? You have admited that you don't want her...NOW you want her to respect you? So her homework wasn't done...at her age her homework should be her responsiblity and if she does it fine, great, if she doesn't do it fine, she won't be graded for work not done and she will have to face the consequences at the end of the year. Instead you've told her you don't want her and are going to send her away. Congratulations on making the problem so much worse.

Answer 6

I * your question because I am often having this problem too. You seem to get more attention to a problem when it's been * and probably a lot of parents should see the answers to help them out.
My son is almost seven, this works somewhat for me, but he is younger than yours. When I know he is lying I make him go to bed to rethink whatever is he's been telling me. That way I'm not outright calling him a liar but I still get the idea across to him that it doesn't sound completely true. I call him out of his room and ask him questions..
"If you didn't hit the other kid on the bus then why would your friend tell me that you hit that boy? "
He might say " My friend just wants to get me in trouble".
Then I would ask why would his friend want to get him in trouble and make him go back to bed until he can answer that.
He eventually fesses up to some sort of a tale that is mostly the truth that I can deal with by making his little butt stand in the corner or do schoolwork until bedtime.

Answer 7

here is a question I have dealt with myself with my now 12 year old daughter and I think it's working

Lying is something that leads me as a parent to believe I can't trust my child so here is how we handled the homework issue my daughter had to get the teachers signature in her agenda each day to say that she had the correct homework written down and that she had handed in the correct homework. She then had to come home and do her homework at the kitchen table and then at the end of the evening I had to sign in her agenda that I saw it was done this helped not only from the she's lying possibility but also from the she was just forgetful enough she didn't intend to lie but the coincidence was too great. The act of having everything signed one makes sure she just isn't forgetting but also may embarrass her just enough to have to do in front of her friends that her memory and honesty improved as a result.

hope that helps

Answer 8

Oh boy - do I have expererience in this area! For the first 6 days of school, I encountered a lie every day.

Most kids lie because they are afraid that mom or dad will get really angry if they find out the truth - somehow they think we are stupid and were never kids ourselves!

What is working for us is letting our daughter know that lying can get you hurt. And of course, telling the truth is always better, and will not get you very harsh punishment. We praise her for telling the truth, but if it's something that she could have prevented she will still get a warning for punishment, or punishment - it depends on the infraction.

Don't threaten her when she lies, your right, it won't phase her.

Answer 9

Personally I would punish with chores and grounding or taking away the phone if she uses it yet.

Another effective method is lie to her, if she wants to go somewhere say yes and then (one time only) say no and then tell her well I figure if you lie to me I can lie to you. It is not nice but sometimes they need to experience how it feels to be let down by a lie.

And then stress to her the importance of being able to trust her. If she continues on and something big happens at school or anywhere how would you be able to know if what she is saying is true.

Answer 10

My 6 year old is getting in to this habit and I do not know what to do. She will lie and when I catch her right away she will say "I was joking" it is never big lies but a lie is a lie is a lie in my book if you find a good answer please pass it along to me, I was thinking that the next time I catch her I am going to use soap in her mouth and/or a spanking as well as no TV for 2 days.