How do you deal with lying?

[supercalifragilous]

DD just committed her 2nd lie yesterday. Lied to the teacher, no less! I talked to her teacher this morning and she was almost to tears - she was so hurt that DD would lie to her, esp. when they have such a special relationship. Apparently the teacher gave her 3 chances to come clean and she lied through all of them.

I'm not opposed to the soap/hot sauce method but I don't want it to escalate (being that it's her 2nd time). The first time, I had her write "I will not lie" 30 times and she lost all entertainment privileges for 2 weeks but obviously that didn't work.

Anybody have any experience with this? DD isn't necessarily strong willed so I was surprised at how stubborn she was at releasing the truth.

[o_mom]

How old is she?

[MamaMolly]

Wow. Only the second time? I think you are doing well. DD has bold faced lied about poopy diapers from the time she started talking. Still does! :)

Ok, all kidding aside I think it would be worth it to talk to your DD about being trustworthy, and to let her know that lies hurt feelings. Maybe she ought to know that her teacher knew she was lying, and was giving her a chance to do the right thing.

I don't know if she'll learn anything from the soap/hotsauce. Focus on the results you want and go forward from there. I would be sure to let her know how disappointed you are about
what she did, and that once trust is lost it is hard to earn back.

Good luck with this, mama. It is a tough call.

[Sillygirl]

Agree with o_mom - how old is she? Developmentally, children under six still use magical thinking. If she wanted badly enough to believe it, to her it WAS true. You may be asking too much of her.

[brittone2]

Agree with o_mom - how old is she? Developmentally, children under six still use magical thinking. If she wanted badly enough to believe it, to her it WAS true. You may be asking too much of her.

ITA. Fantasy=reality to little ones. Making too big of a deal of it IMO can also set them up to feel badly about themselves for doing something they can't yet developmentally control 100% (depending on age).

I've also read the recommendation for kids in general that if you *know* what happened, don't phrase it in such a way to tempt them to lie. Just tell them what you know vs. trying to "catch" them in a lie.

[Fairy]

Depending on the lie, it's heavily disciplined. Time outs, loss of privileges. We never ever withhold food or wubies, and we don't believe in spanking or soap/hotsauce. But telling DS how disappointed I am or not letting him have TV with his breathing treatment, or sitting in time out for four minutes is devastating to him.

Depends on the lie. Some are developmental behaviors, like lying about the poopy diaper. That's very different than hitting a friend and saying he didn't. We're very lucky, DS doesn't lie much. We feel like this approach to discplining egregious infractions works for us.