DS3 lying alot - how to deal with it

[Birthdaybeetroot]

Ds3, gorgeous, bright, very introverted. As a youngster would be happy playing alone for hours. He is 9

It has come to my attention that the has been lying and taking things (from school - silly things like pens from teachers) - to me, to school, to choir.

He has been caught out once to many time, blatently lying about silly things - but it has become pretty serious now.

I am taking him own his own to talk to him about it.

How do I deal with this

[Marina]

Bumping for you beety as I am not sure I can help much.
If in this position I think I'd combine emphasising to him that his place at school might be in jeopardy, with encouraging him to try to talk honestly about why he thinks he might be doing this.
It can't be because he actively wants the things he is taking?
How are the school responding? Do they see this as an indication that he may not be happy there, or are they dealing with it as theft

[Birthdaybeetroot]

The school are being really good. They realise something must be wrong and they want to help him.

The lying is a problem ofr everyone - he is getting his brothers into trouble and has been doing for some time. he might do something to a child and then deny it, - thorw cake crumbs over him for example.

It is all calm - and I will be very calm with him

[Marina]

Thank goodness the school are on-side at least. Poor you and poor little guy, it sounds almost like a compulsion

[Birthdaybeetroot]

yes - that is what is so worrying - I don't know why.

My mum said that often children lie if they don't feel in-control of their life - the lying is the one thing that they have control of

[Marina]

I think that is a very shrewd point beety.
Do you think possibly that even though he loves it and is good at it, the choir aspect of his life is subconsciously too much for him. Choral singing is such a team activity and from what you say he might find the long hours of enforced togetherness difficult?

[Bugsy2]

Could he have just been a bit slow to come to the lying stage Beety?
I had this with DS last year when he was just rising 7. It seemed to be a phase that has tailed off now. He got horribly unstuck too, in that one day something quite serious happened & no one believed him - was a massive wake up call for him.
Has anything happened recently that could have made him "wobble" a bit?

[Bugsy2]

Just re-read - don't mean slow, but late.

[Bink]

This is on my mind too as my ds (8 in April) is going through a lying stage (in his case constant nearly-plausible self-aggrandising stuff - eg results of a test, getting a prize for "kindness" at school, etc). Seems petty but it's a problem simply because there's so much of it - you end up distrusting everything he says, which is horrid.

I haven't yet decided quite how to deal with it (apart from working on helping him tell the difference between stories and reality - which your ds may not have any problem with) but I'll come back with anything more I can think of.

(I like the idea that it is to do with being a bit out of your depth, though.)

[Birthdaybeetroot]

we had a long chat. He has sort of admitted to some lying, not to others. We talked about why - and he didn't really know - but he did realsie that lying would be found out and he would get into worse trouble.

I asked him about choir and school. He loves school. better than the last one - which is a relief. He said he likes choir as well (which surprised me) Isaid if he was really unhappy he could leave but he does not want to.

We talked about how lying let alot of people down.

I guess Ihave ot see what happens now.

his teacher is coming round for a drink today and we are all going to talk to ds3 about it again.

His look on his face is so tragic it makes me want to cry

[Marina]

Oh beety, ds has that face sometimes when we have to have a serious chat. It is heartrending isn't it.
Hope the drinks go well and help your ds through this sticky patch.

[singersgirl]

Bink, we've said before our DSs are similar in some ways - DS1 (8 last August) tells those kind of lies constantly. They all seem quite harmless, and are usually elaborations on what happened at school. We have had a chat with him and said that we can't ever believe him since so much of what he says is not true.

He was mortified by that as I don't think he thinks he's lying; it's more 'story-telling'.

Hope your chat has a positive effect, Beetroot.

[Birthdaybeetroot]

chatr went well and chat with teacher went well. Now ehave to se what happens

[Bink]

beetroot, look forward to hearing how things are going ... He does sound as if he's taking you seriously, which is such a good sign.

singersgirl, thank you for that: interesting! I've been thinking some more about it, and I think it might be a "next stage" in ds's lurchy development - ie a new and a bit more sophisticated version of the blocking-out-of-reality he used to do by singing/daydreaming - now he's creating a different reality (& using words) rather than just blocking the ordinary one out in a mindless way. Not happy about this, though - it's doing him even fewer favours than the daydreaming did. And he's doing it particularly to dh, who's always been his staunchest supporter - so this evening dh & I did what I think we've never done yet, which is give him a serious talk both of us together. We'll see where that goes.

[Sorry beetroot for hijack element]