You know, sometimes you can learn a lot from the moon. Some days it’s bright and shiny, all big and new, and some days it’s tiny as a sliver — fairly dim, but you know it’ll be back to shiny someday soon.
Conner’s going through a phase right now. It’s a lying phase. It’s happening too frequently and it’s making me so tired, so mad, so frustrated, I just want to pull both of our hair out.
Finally, we had a discussion about what his consequence would be if he lied (prior to that we had a discussion about what’d be like if I lied all the time. He realized how I couldn’t trust him and he chose the consequence of an extra job. We’ve had to inflict the consequence one time (so far), and of course it was about brushing his teeth.
I just don’t get lying about something like that. I get lying about stealing food, etc. — but brushing his teeth just drives me nuts. The only consequence to that is me telling him to go do it.
Do you guys have little liars at your house sometimes? Is it a phase, what do you do?
Phases
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Lara says
B is having the same issue recently. I finally asked her why and she just said because she’s so afraid of getting in trouble. So, to counteract it, I have really been working on not being so hard on her when she does something she shouldn’t (or doesn’t do something she should). I’m realizing that I am really hard on her most of the time, so now the main thing is that she gets in the most trouble for lying. The end.
Bringhurst Family says
Haven’t had a real phase of this. And boy would it drive me crazy. When any of my kids do fib I usually hound them on the specific subject of lying. Like if it was brushing teeth I’d ask them if they want holes in their teeth and their friends to tell them they have bad breath. But I’ve not have the priveledge of a “phase”. If faced with it I would probably set up a few well played out instances where I lie to them about something that will specifically effect them then immediatly trace out all the consequences etc. Pointing out how they can’t trust me and all that would do. Hope it’s over soon.
Amy says
We’re big on trust at our house. But usually the older ones understand that concept better.
Alex went through a lying phase so every time we caught him in a lie, we took away a privelege. This seems to work with the boys at our house. Sometimes, they end up with the only thing they can do is read in their room. After about 3-4 days of this- they’ve changed their behavior real fast. We take away computer, Wii, play dates with friends, TV, etc. until all their left with is themselves and a book. This doesn’t so much work on the girls- that is there choice of how to spend a Saturday- curled up with a good book!
Good luck!
P.S. Washing walls and baseboards and other hard labor is also a good ‘ole standby punishment- I use that one often for any age.