How to punish my preteen ?

[nightowl11]

My 10 year old has been lying to me, her dad and her nan in order to get stuff from us. She's told all 3 of us this lie in order for us to put credit on her game ! She ended up with £40 in total from us and we have only just found out that she told the same lie to us all. It's manipulative and calculated and I'm just not having it ! So she really really needs to learn a lesson. She's golden child in school and has never ever been in trouble, normally she is very good at home she just has a problem with listening she finds it hard to do as she is told (at home only 🙄) but other than that I can't complain. This recent incident though has really made me upset and mad with her !!

I've taken her tv and laptop and she isn't allowed to watch YouTube if she's watching tv on the shared TVs ... I really want to make a lasting impression to her as I know when she's a teenager and if she carries on with this lying to us she could be in danger and not want to tell me because she would rather lie than get in trouble. I need her to understand the importance of being honest to her family and how her actions were wrong.

She's my eldest so going through this age is new for me she's still a kid but she's slowly morphing into a teenager and I can see it !

Hope you can help !

[GrumpyHoonMain]

Have you asked her why she lied?

[ThePurpleMoose]

Have you asked her why she lied?

This. If you talk it through with her and encourage her to think of what she could do to make amends then whatever that is will be a direct consequence rather than an unrelated generic punishment.

For example, if you guide her to understand that you, dad and nan are upset because you work hard for your money and she tricked you all into giving it to her, perhaps a fitting way to fix it would be for her to do chores for each of you at an agreed rate e.g. £5 or £10/hr until she has 'paid back' the money.

[FishCanFly]

get the money back off her

[Frenchfancy]

Laptop should only be removed for a set period (say 1 week). The game she lied about should be removed until she has paid back the money. No other punishment is required.

[Gertrudesgarden]

Is she too young, at ten, to clean your bathrooms? I think a couple of sessions scrubbing the toilets and showers to "earn" her stolen money at a minimum wage rate would focus her attention on how hard people work for money. She's only ten so that hasn't yet sunk in, but if she experiences it herself, it'll clarify itself in her mind.

If cleaning's not appropriate, there must be some physical labour like hoovering that she'll hate to do, but will reinforce the message without harming her. I've always found with my lot that a little child labour to "pay back" focuses the mind remarkably quickly. Whining about the task increases the debt, by the way.