I believe the OP should not overlook this. Her instincts are probably right and she needs to help her dd soonest.

Sherried ,I'm sorry about your daughter and i hope she gets over it. I have a sister like that and it's very disturbing.She's 22 years old now. What bothers me most is that she seems to believe her own lies and will never accept they're lies. I think she needs a professional and it's not too late to get one for your dd too. I also have an Uncle and an Aunt like that. Could it be hereditary? Anyone else in your family like that?

Hi All. It's my first time posting here. After reading the diverse opinions I must say that I fear trouble in the future for the little liar. Our own little liar (lovingly called a pathamagical liar for most of her childhood) has grown into a 19 year old compulsive liar. She will lie about anything! All the childhood stories we told her in order to promote honesty clearly did not have the desired effect. Over these many years we've tried every approach you can imagine. No consequence ever worked for very long. If I had it to do over again I would engage the services of a professional (counselor/ therapist) early on. This can be a much bigger problem than many parents care to admit. The lies told by our young adult now have the potential to cause great harm and she has assured us repeatedly that she "gets it" and will stop. Hasn't happened yet!!

mrsruffallo, why do you call them emotionally blackmailing type games? wouldn't you act the same in the adults world? if a friend lies to you, you simply don't give him/her your trust anymore. it's not a game, it's just how life is (teaddybear or real person).
i fully agree with you about kids avoiding the inevitable telling off but they do need to start learning to take account for their own actions (i.e. lies are bad and we all need to be able to admit our bad deeds). do you think it would be better to postpone this learning for later? how late?

... oh, and i make sure i do admit my own mistakes in front of DD! i try to explain them in front of her in order for her to understand that it's ok to be wrong, to do mistakes but it is the right thing to do to admit them. she takes great pleasure in talking about it over and over again afterwards, which is damn annoying, but at least she learns that admiting things is the right thing to do.

God, joburg, sorry but I can't stand those kind of emotionally blackmailing type games with kids.

I don't find lying that shocking. Little kids are still working stuff out. They live in the moment and want to avoid the inevitable telling off, so they lie to get out of it.

I try to ask in either a big jokey way or make it a general question.

I knew and old and very experienced teacher (much loved by her pupils and parents) who convinced all her little charges that she would know whether they were lying by looking at their tongues, which would turn black.

She was very successful in getting the truth out of children!

I think you should place alot of value on telling the truth - praise and even reward her when she tells the truth, even if telling the truth could get her into trouble.

I also think that leaving a packet of chocolate brioches out, even in sight, is too much temptation for most five-year-olds [

Jix, i read through this thread and i can say i don't agree with many of the things written here. I think i know what you mean when you were shocked about the convincing face she gave to you while teling the lie. I do agree a kid on her age will certainly take the cookie and eat it if left on the counter, or even go searching through the drawers for one, but i also expect our DD to admit it if she did such a thing. lies are smth i just can't take easily.
we used to have the same issue with our daughter for more than a year and i am proud to say, she starts to realise what trust means and starts to show guilt on her face when telling a lie. she still does it from time to time but she has now learnt the guilt of such an act, so it's so much easier to spot it on her face, while previously, when she was just 'running for her life' after doing a naughty thing, she felt no remorse so she was indeed very convincing in her lieing. i think it's just about teaching the principle of truth, and the one of loosing trust.
i was desperate at one time, about a year ago, when she started with all the lies (most of the time, probably, just trying to test our limits) but then one day, when she crossed the line pretty badly, i told her i am not talking to her anymore as long as she is not telling the truth. i just don't want to talk to people who lie to me! i would rather talk to gloria (her teddybear) instead, because gloria never lies to me. then i left the room. she came after me and i insisted that i don't trust her for now and if she has something to tell me, better tell gloria, so gloria can tell it to me. it made a huge impact on DD. a few days later she lied again. i told her i know about it (didn't make a joke of it, on the contrary, i was very serious and explained that in our family we DON'T lie to eachother), then she lied again, then again. the next time she came to me (i knew she was telling the truth this time) i refused to listen to her and told her i can't trust her anymore for today (i made sure i set a time limit, and don't make her feel like she is a lier for ever!) she went back to her room. it didn't take her more than 10 minutes to come back and appologies for her lies. and she was really feeling guilty and sorry for what she did.
it won't stop here, i know it, but at least DD is learning that trust is smth valuable and worth working for and lies should not be taken easily. hope this helped a bit.

Just to clarify -- I'd left the brioche in the bread bin... She's the one who left it on the table!!!
And yes of course I don't mind accidents.
I think the reason I was shocked is because the lie was Sooooooooooooo much more convincing than I would have expected.

pmsl - i was thinking about it - i was conjuring up elaborate work related conferences that took a whole week

but fuck it never mind

aww - that sucks about the not going

going with Rhubarb next year sounds good though.

<<<<<<<<would have just gone on both and ignored DH's comments>>>>>>>>>