How much do your teenagers lie..is it normal?!

[febel]

My 14 year old seems to lie a lot..even when it doesn't matter. I now don't know whether to believe her or not..ever. For example, she will take stuff from her sisters rooms and deny it, even when I found said clothes, makeup etc in her drawers! Yesterday I was at work and she said her trip to the cinema was cancelled and she stayed at home alone all day, but her elder sister said she told her on the phone she had a friend and boyfriend round...she hysterically denied it (and hubby thinks she has cos she was so vehmenant they DIDNT come round..and yes I coould phone their homes but don't want to make her look stupid in their eyes) She ordered a pizza she told me was £4.99, the receipt (left on the side) said £9.99...it just goes on. All her dad's xmas chocs have been eaten, and not by him..she denies eating them(must have borrowers)
I have explained I can't trust her at all cos of all her lying (and unfortunately she is a VERY good liar) and talked about how it makes it much worse when she is found out etc than if she'd told truth in first place. It scares me to be honest..what will she be like when she's an adult if she can't face the truth and feels she has to lie..or is it normal to lie so much?

[NickNacks]

Is the pope catholic?

I still lie about howich things cost to my husband or how much chocolate I've eaten, lessens the guilt ..,

[HSMM]

my dd age 12 lies dreadfully. We have told her countless times that the punishment for a lie is worse than the consequences of telling the truth. It is hard to believe anything she says now, which is sad.

[LaurieFairyCake]

We come down very hard on lying - grounding, no friends round etc for specified times. DH also does the loooooong version of an incredibly boring talk about how we're preparing her for adulthood guaranteed to upset her though he doesn't raise his voice at all.

The reasons we come down hard is because we feel we can't keep her safe if we can't trust her to tell us where she is; we also feel that she needs to learn to negotiate; and feel it's disrespectful as we don't lie to her.

I would start by disbelieving all of the above and not giving her room to lie to you, just assume she is. Start with the pizza.

"You said it was £4.99, it's £9.99 - you're now grounded for a week"

I also give her chances to come clean about stuff and time in her room to think about coming clean and I tell her the consequence will be less if she tells me the truth now. I tell her that she doesn't know if I know yet so think very hard (hard stare) about what she is going to come clean about.

I don't argue either once I believe that a lie has been told, there is no wriggle room and she doesn't get the opportunity to convince me - when dd was younger she swore til tears and blue in the face that the creme egg gift set had only come with one egg and that whoever packed it was clearly rubbish at their job. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was lying - grounded her for Easter weekend and sent her to her room immediately as she was hysterical - an hour later she comes down, says she was lying and she was sorry.

She was genuinely contrite and that's one of the things we look for.

She definitely lies less now. And now she is older I labour the disrespectful to me line, how would you like it if I lied to you etc and I give her examples that make her think.

[LaurieFairyCake]

And I'd have phoned their homes without engaging in discussion to check if they'd been there (making sure she didn't have her phone and was pre warning them).

And the chocs? I guess the difficulty with this is there is more than one child in the house - I'd have sent them both to their room until they told the truth or were both prepared to the take the consequences.

I think the problem is that we get caught up in the 'unfair' aspect if we punish when they are lying really 'well' (or occasionally not lying) - so what if they get consequences - the world isn't fair. If there's stealing in school, the whole class get kept behind until the thief takes it out their bag.

[febel]

Thing is, I daren't even leave her in the house now cos I trust her so little. Have just caught her out again...silly lie saying she 'd had breakfast when she patently hadn't. As I said to her, why lie, the fall out from the lie is worse than just saying, mum I haven't had breakfast cos I don't feel very hungry..which is fair enough..but to get involved in complicated lies (Idsihwasher was full, its in sink,washed bowl up,etc etc) is just silly. And all this only an HOUR or so after we'd had a long and involved talk about trust and NOT lying..and her promising not to and me saying I would learn to trust her, and we'd go to town later as a treat. The mind BOGGLES! Think you are right, and will come down hard..but I've already got her phone cos of lies last week. Think will have to be no trip to town and then no facebook..but then she gets even more isolated than she is and will that make things worse? God, who'd be a parent?!!!!!!!

[febel]

Also..grounding isn't that good...she doesn't really go out and meet anyone, the only places she goes are organised ones (canoeing etc)

[LaurieFairyCake]

I only used grounding as it's the currency in our house - you have to use the consequence that works for you. No Internet? Early bedtimes?

I wouldnt leave dd alone in the house anyway, if she's lying I'd up the supervision. When she lies about breakfast so casually I'd wonder if she just expects you to believe her and in fact she just lies casually all the time?

[MaryZed]

Depends on the teenager. I assume everything ds1 says is a lie, I presume that everything dd says is the truth (I've never yet caught her lying, so either she is truthful or very good at it), and ds2 has given up telling lies as I always know when he is lying, so it's a waste of time.

In your situation it seems to have become a habit - she quite possibly doesn't even realise she is lying, she just says something, and then has to stick with it.

I think you probably need simpler instant punishments for small lies, and if you can conquer them, maybe she will change her habits. For example, you know about the pizza price, so next time you get takeaway pizza, she doesn't get any. Or if you find her sisters stuff in her room confiscate the exact same stuff from her for a week (take away her favourite jeans, her favourite makeup/hairdryer/ipod/whatever). Make it clear that the punishment is for lying, not for borrowing.

[febel]

Good idea...and I like the idea of taking away her favourite stuff etc as an instant punishment for smaller lies. I do think it has almost become a habit and one we need to break..either that or she has soome sort of personality disorder..which also would need looking at!

[EverSoLagom]

Just to offer a weird kind of reassurance - I remember very vividly lying as a teenager. This was despite being generally quite a good kid, hard worker at school, no wild partying tendencies etc - and the lies would usually be quite trivial as in the pizza thing.

I'm not sure why I used to do it but it became a habit of sorts. My parents would just pull "yeah right" faces which I found embarrassing and infuriating, but was probably the best thing they could have done as over time I realised I was making myself look like an idiot.

When I was about 16 I just stopped without even thinking about it. So it may be a strange teenage phase but probably isn't anything more sinister.

[gingeroots]

I wonder why they lie ,especially about small ,inconsequential stuff ?

I have a DS who lies ,AFAIK only about understandable stuff ( studying ,results ) and have come to think it's because of my deep concern and predictable reaction if truth is told .
Part of me thinks that the more punishment and concern expressed about the lying ( I don't think the DC will distinguish between the two acts - wrong doing and the lying about it ) the more motivitation there will be to lie .

I also think DC have short attention spans/inability to think things through ,they go for the quick fix of a lie .

[Pickgo]

I too went through a phase of lying as quite an old teenager I think in my case I felt it made me more interesting and was an attempt to get more attention and respect. May be you need to shift up a gear in terms of treating her less as a child and more as young adult?

No criticism intended, just a suggestion. (Bit defensive due to living with teenager!)

[quattrocento]

I think it depends upon the teenager. DD could lie for England - polished, professional, plausible and blardy annoying. DS on the other hand, is an amateur who on his occasional forays into lying, gives himself away instantly.

The unfortunate consequence for DD is that we automatically disbelieve most of what she says.

[Jennyjanuary]

My 14 yr old dd is same. Lies about most things-really stupid stuff. Will take my eye-liner pencil from my make-up bag and keep it for the day.I instantly know she has it,but she will deny it to the last.It will magically re-appear next day on the floor(as if to suggest I dropped it).Last time she did this I went and took mascara from her make-up bag and told her I would do this every time she took something belong to me. Has not happened since.I have explained that there is no problem if she asks but it is not acceptable to go and just take something belong to someone else. It happens all the time -silly lies.Honestly, what is wrong with them?

[bigbluebus]

I've often wondered what this lying is all about.
My DS does it frequently. Eg He will take food out of the cupboards or fridge and leave the empty packet in there. When asked if he has eaten said item he will deny it. There is only me and DH here and in all the years we've been married I've never known DH to eat something and leave empty pack in fridge - so we know it is DS. Why can't he just own up to eating said items!!!!! He's a growing teenager and not overweight - so the eating is not an issue. (except when I bought extra treats for Christmas - but they were put in fridge in garage with strict instructions that anything in that fridge was not to be touched until Christmas - which it wasn't)
He lies at school too and has had detentions for it - but still he does it!!

[noddyholder]

My ds is 17 and doesn't ever lie about serious stuff but does lie about things like empty packets who ate what leaving lights on etc. I think they do it on auto they are so keen to avoid a show down! It does get less as they get older and ds has now realised that he virtually always gets found out and has stopped it. He will still say he has brushed his teeth when he hasn't though