Pretty Little Liar

Argh!!!! I'm blowing off steam but also open to suggestions regarding the habitual lying by my daughter-in-law's daughter.

This girl has been in my life since right after she turned 3 years old and she's 9 1/2 now. She is the sister of my triplet granddaughters.

She lies. She's been lying since I met her and it isn't getting any better. It affects the way that I feel about her and I hate that.

Like today, for instance - I had craft paints out on the table that the 4 and 5 year olds hadn't wreaked havoc with all day. When the 9 year old came in from school I told her to change clothes and I'd let her paint a little birdhouse. Before I could start working with her, she had managed to get into a bottle of paint and spill about half of it on the table. Did she say anything about it? Nope. She covered it over with newspaper and kept quiet. A few minutes later, when I was working with her, one of the 5 year olds came over and discovered it, getting paint all over herself. I asked the 9 year old if she'd made the mess. She sat a foot away from me, looked me dead in the eye, and lied to me about it over and over again. She even went so far as to try to blame it on the little kids.

I punished her by sending her to her room and not letting her finish painting the birdhouse. Her little sisters and her cousin have completed birdhouses but she has a half-painted birdhouse to remind her of lying to me.

This just bugs me. She is so young and is already such an accomplished liar.

 

good luck

 

Thanks, Jack.

I've been thinking some more about this and what really bugs me is that her desire to save her ass comes before everything. It worries me that if she accidentally set a fire she might walk away and not tell anyone; or if she sneaked a cookie to one of her sisters and the younger one starting choking on it she might not call for help because she wouldn't want to get in trouble.

If she'd said "Oh no! I didn't know the paint was open when I squeezed it!" "I would have said "Crap, did it get on your clothes? Go wash your hands" and that would have been the end of it.

I don't know how she learned the lying as first impulse but she sure is consistent with it.

 

Ugh.

Always know. And if you're really not sure, whatever, that's what comes with being a liar, not being trusted. Let her know why when she misses out on things that she can't be trusted to tell the truth about. Make sure to show and consistantly enforce that telling a lie will be discovered and will have the conesquences of the wrong, and extra consequences for the lie.


......Maybe the more serious ones should be for the lie, too. I hate lying though, so that's just me.

Of course you must know this all.......

 

I told her that when her lies stop being of benefit to her and the consequences catch up to her she was going to be in for some miserable times.

Her mom does things like take her t.v. away for an afternoon. I like the consequences to be related to the action...like logical consequences...things like if you didn't come for dinner when called just because you didn't want to, then dinner is over when you get there and you go hungry. I think that is learning. That's why she now has a half-painted birdhouse to look at.

 

I'm not a parent, but I'm a big sister (12-14 yrs older = the constant babysitter).

My most effective strategy for modifying my brother & sister's behavior was to make them feel like I was really cool and fun and they should want to be in my good favor.

Worked well for me (I know it's manipulative, but isn't all behavior modification). It didn't work for my mom, but she's not cool or fun, she's just borderline hateful.

Once they didn't listen, they were maybe 6 & 8 and insisted on walking on thin ice when it was over 30* out. The water couldn't have been but 18 inches deep but it scared me because I knew if I walked on it, it'd break for sure.

I told them, in front of my mom, that I couldn't babysit them anymore because they wouldn't listen to me when I needed to keep them safe.

Just about broke their little hearts and from that point on, the only time I had any trouble with them was when they fought with each other.

I guess I'm pro positive reinforcement

Maybe reward her, on an intellectual level, for honesty. Like whenever you see her being honest when she might otherwise lie, talk to her like more of an adult/equal. This will teach her that honesty earns her the *respect* of adults

 

My sister actually went through a lying phase

She would mostly make up 'facts' to support what she was saying

I would laugh it off "I know you're lying. You can't just lie to me. I know stuff."

That would bring out the truth with a giggle

If they tried to lie about something they did, I would tell them I knew what was up and I wasn't going to punish them for telling the truth (ie the consequence doesn't get *more severe* if they fess up

I can STILL get the truth out of those 2

 

We do treat her just as you described. Especially her Grandpa. He prides himself on having awesome, teaching conversations with her. He spends a lot of time sitting on the swing or couch and having straight talks with her that I overhear while I deal more with the 4 little ones.

He is so disappointed because he advocates for her. He never had any children and he took a huge shine to her as his first child/grandchild. She lived with us for several months when her mom was put to bed with the triplet pregnancy. We live next door and she'd stay with us until the weekends when my son was home to help with her. We'd take her over to see her Mom during the days but she stayed with us at night.

When things happen like her lying to us today, he feels like he got sucker punched. He thinks she makes progress but I think she just pulls the wool over his eyes.

I know it's learned behavior from her early years before she was in our family. I just wish it wasn't so ingrained. I'm afraid it's going to cause her great trouble the longer it goes on.

 

Did you have a straight talk about This Lie?

Tell her you are on her side, you know the spill was an accident and she covered it up because she was embarassed

Tell her you understand her feelings and if she'd just tell the truth, she'd see that you love her and wouldn't punish her for an accident

 

I don't think she is really afraid of the consequences when she lies. I am pretty sure that, in her short life, lying has been of benefit to her. She attempts to be very manipulative with her lying and I think somewhere along the line it is/has paid off for her.

 

I'm getting some great answers here...

I honestly think it's because her parents lie and she sees it as tool commonly used when attempting to take the heat off your own ass and/or to manipulate others.

 

Coming back to think of this thread......

She may have issues understanding time or comprehending later as being as important as the present. In this case she might have a disorder.

Or,

She may have self image problems that originally created the problem to change her image. It could have been a reaction to unfair punishment, maybe one or a few times, even.

Anyway, enforce that lieing reduces her self worth, and explain the value of the truth, and how it's worth hardships just to tell it, etc......

*edit* or that a combination of what you said at the top of this page-probably no one reason.

 

I know her life prior to us meeting her was challenging. I don't know what the little thing endured. I know her mom used to "spank" her alot when she was really little and I put a stop to that. It's just frustrating that her coping mechanisms have created this insecure personality that seems so deeply ingrained. I hate it when people mess up kids.

 

Ahh yes, that would explain it.

Well....... All you can do is be very consistent and logical in dealing with it, I suppose.

 

My twin sister is a perpetual liar, lying about big things and small things and she has even been known to go out of her way, completely out of the blue to just make up a lie that has nothing to do with anything. Everyone knows when she is lying, but she refuses to give in and admit to it. There were consequences when we were younger, but we are 20 now and it is something she has never grown out of. She has lost a lot of friends and respect due to it and now lives a pretty solitary life (work & school, but no real friends) living in our basement with her boyfriend, also a perpetual liar and definite douchebag. Hopefully your family member grows out of it, because mine never did. None of the rest of us are liars like that, we were always open and honest with our mother because she made us comfortable, and we were okay being truthful to her. I think what started it with my sister is the attention she received from lying (albeit negative attention) and was a habit she never broke. It's extremely annoying and hard to deal with at times.

 

This girl worries me. She just doesn't have that innocence that kids are supposed to have.

Besides the lying, she's been kind of violent to some other family kids. She bit the toe of one of her triplet sisters when they were only about 2 months old. She broke the skin and it bled alot. Then with her male cousin, who was only about 4 or 5 at the time, she grabbed his testicles and squeezed so hard that he had to go to the emergency room.

 

My twin sister has landed all of us in the emergency room multiple times for violence. Just me, I've been in for a concussion, fingers broken twice and hand broken once. My sister never had innocence and was always manipulative, destructive, and only concerned for herself. She's calmed down with the fighting mostly, I'm sure for a fear of greater consequences than a good ass-whooping from my mom, but she's still a manipulative, lying bitch all the same.

She's also what I'd like to call a 'perpetual one-upper'. She has never had it bad in her life, with anything- one of my younger sisters has a learning disorder, took her much longer than everyone else to learn to read and write, growing up was hard for her. My other little sister is, as much as I feel bad saying it, extremely unattractive, she was bullied constantly and growing up was hard for her. I was abused my our father, and I am the only one who was, and I also have a lot of health disorders. My twin sister was daddy's baby and got everything she wanted, no matter what, whenever she wanted. But when it comes to any hardship in life, (not saying she never had any) she will do or say anything to make it seem like she's had it harder or had a more terrifying experience (which very very often includes lying).

When we got older, she also started to do whatever she could to get anyone in trouble, even getting them in trouble for things she did herself. She would snoop through out rooms and belongings and find any evidence she could to take to our mom. She caught me with weed, one of my sisters with cigarettes, my little sister with razor blades, all just one instance each. When we finally got smart enough and caught on to her, she would 'plant' evidence. I've talked about it a few times on the forum. She is VERY hypocritical.

 

Seized, I'm concerned that this little girl is headed down that same path and I'm just worried that nothing is going to change for the better.

 

I'd say just watch for the signs that she is becoming my sister, because I honestly don't know how to change a path like that. We were all raised exactly the same, and we all turned out to be good women (for the most part, some of us have mental disorders and is hard to sometimes be a fully functional member of society but good people nonetheless). If she doesn't stop I'd probably say therapy where you or another adult who sees these problems can attend and point out the issues (because a child will lie in therapy and say nothing is wrong), but in the end I can't say this will help or cause resentment from the child.