to be flabergasted at this level of deceit from dd?

[GooseyLoosey]

I had left the kids' halloween sweets in their buckets in a cupboard.

ds (10) has complained for the last week that his were going missing.

Initially, I dimissed this but then ds found a bag with empty sweet wrappers behind a cushion in the play room. There was also a wrapper from a snack only dd (9) eats.

I confronted them both and said I wanted to know who had eaten the sweets. Ds points out that it can't be him because (a) they were his and he would hardly have complained if he had eaten them and (b) there were wrappers there from things he does not eat.

Dd insists that it was not her. She would never do something like that - either take the sweets without asking or steal from her brother. She would never lie to me. If I truely love her, how can I not trust her. In the same position she would trust me as she loves me. This was all very empassioned with tears streaming down her face.

Then ds is inspired and says he can use his fingerprint kit to prove it was not dd. She goes nuts claiming that she will not submit to this as it shows we do not love or trust her. When I say it sounds like a good idea and would vindicate her, she finally says she had forgotten she had eaten them.

This all sounds trivial I know, but you had to hear the performance to believe it. I am also concerned that it forms part of a pattern of hehavious and she lies a lot about small things (just to make herself look better).

AIBU to think this is beyond normal childish deceit? If so, what, if anything should I do?

I do think kids lie like this, but I think the way your son handled it was GENIUS!

I think it is something kids do. I remember my brother eating his and then mine one year!

Could tell.bee she will buy her brother some sweets back out of pocket money?

Could tell her**

When I was a teen I would nick mums vodka and fill it with water. How she laughed when I tried it one time to find out it was pure water anyway. She had worked it what I was doing and tricked me

I think you need to have a serious chat with your daughter about how bad it is to tell lies and attempt to manipulate people in the way she did.

Sounds normal to me.

Where can I get a fingerprint kit?

The ds will be a crime scene investigation officer when he grows up.

I would make dd buy him Some sweets and would say no pocket money for a week or two and a serious chat about lying

Wow she put on a performance as well. I would have a serious chat as the speech she have you seemed to be manipulative. She seemed to know exactly what to say to get you to believe her too.

Not sure really - taking sweets and hiding the wrappers sounds like fairly common childish behaviour to me. Obviously your dd needs to be told this is wrong - can some of her sweets be given to her brother as she has eaten his?

Her reaction does seem very extreme from what you have written. You mention she lies about other things as well? What sorts of things? What are the consequences of these lies?

It sounds like you need to talk with her and explain that telling lies is wrong and people will find it hard to trust her if she does this. I don't have children of this age but would a story like 'the boy who cried wolf' help?

I also think she needs reassurance that you do love her but you don't like the lies.

Could something be bothering her at school perhaps?

Kids lie.

Sometimes to make the world the way they wish it would be but mostly to stay out of trouble.

Maybe sit down with her and say that once someone has been proven to tell lies, it makes it very hard to believe them and you are worried that one day she will be telling the truth about something but you won't believe her?

or something. worded in a better way

And perhaps talk about what she is afraid of and agree how to handle things? Is there something that happens re punishment that she is particularly afraid of?

I tell mine that the biggest punishment they will get from me is for lying.

oh, meant to say too that they act on impulse and then the regret and fear of consequence kicks in!

It sounds like it could be normal childish fibbing but it is worth making it clear that you consider it completely unacceptable. She needs to understand that in the short term, there is more trouble to be had from lying than from the bad behaviour on its own, not to mention that the long terms effects if she is caught lying mean you will always find it hard to trust her. Maybe separate her punishments into one more minor one for the eating of the sweets and a more substantial punishment for the lying so that she really understands the point.

I think it's a fairly normal thing to do

But the 'If you loved me' manipulation is not something I've ever experienced.

YANBU to think this is beyond normal childish deceit.

Sure all kids do it but they still shouldn't get away with it.
I am very hot on lying tbh. To me the lying is worse than the crime of nicking the sweets, especially the emotional blackmail ... if you loved me... stuff and trying to pass the blame to her brother.
I would make her buy her brother some sweets and take her sweets and treats away for a week.
But then I am very mean !!!

I think it is very normal, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't tell your DD it is unacceptable and to give her some consequences for her actions (stealing and lying).

Although I'm not sure I'd have the willpower to leave a bucket of sweets untouched in a cupboard for several weeks.

well ds had pulled off some of the most amazing performances for things we KNOW he has done.

My Mum always says that the more they think they will get a punishment the more likely they are to lie.
No advice really, just think it is a normal thing.
We deal with it by concentrating on the lying not the action.

Constant refrain in our house. ''For the crime it is x (very small deal) for the lying it is XXXX. Learn the lesson''

(he still does it though!)

oh god we had something so similar recently with DD(5) and a missing party bag of sweets, bag found empty under a piece of furniture. There were tears, hysterics, impassioned speeches declaring innocence.

Once a full moratorium on any punishment was put into place, & it was clearly explained that there would be no fall out, she admitted it. Long lesson in telling the truth being the right thing. And we gave other DD of the missing party bag sweets some fruit pastilles or something, so she wasn't out of pocket.

Kids try all sorts of things, and often trip themselves up in the process.

I LOVE the way your son dealt with it.

I must say that you have reminded me of my eldest daughter when she was about 6 (she's 18 and at uni now). She had been at school just over a year, and could write a fair bit by then. I went into her bedroom one day and saw that she had penned her name on the wall (over the emulsion). I pointed it out to her when she got home from school, and she absolutely insisted that her younger sister (who was then barely 3 years old and still couldn't write at all) had done it. I pointed out to my eldest that it could ONLY be her because she was the only one of them who could write, and anyway, she had actually written her name. It took the wind right out of her sail and she ended up helping me scrub it off as much as we could.

We still laugh about it now, although I was cross/amused with her at the time.

My DS of 11 is a bit like this, it is very hard for me to believe him sometimes, as I literally caught him with his hands in the change-jar a few weeks ago.

He has also once taken a five pound note that his brother, who is hopelessly untidy, left lying on his floor. When I ordered him to open his own savings jar…it was there.

Other than keeping an eye out, and having talks/sanctions ….I don't know what to do.

sorry, that is probably not helpful at all

I was a habitual liar as a child, about tiny things to make myself look better, or things like, 'no I didn't drink the last of the milk" etc. Couldn't help myself. I came from a very abusive family however (totally not saying this is your situation) As a mother of three I have never yet had a problem with the dc's fibbing (they are 17 and twins are 8) and I put this down to never putting them in a situation where they feel backed into a corner. We've had other issues, obviously - the seventeen year old has tested me mightily - but if I was in your position, I would possibly have worked out for myself that dd was scoffing the sweeties, when ds noticed they had been disappearing, and instead of confronting her, I'd have moved the sweets somewhere else, and then the kids would have had to come and get them off me. If they'd asked why, I'd have said simply, the sweets were going missing. It really doesn't mean she's a bad person, just that she needs extra support to make the right choices. It clearly is distressing to see the performances, I used to do the same. It was an indication of how much I wanted to be seen as good, but ultimately 'knew' I was a bad girl.

Yes kids do this but I think you need to come down hard on them to make sure they don't continue to do it. That is your job so they don't end up like my SIL who at 40 still refuses to take responsibility for anything and lies and cries at the drop of a hat to get out of trouble because her parents never once believed she could be telling lies, not their little angel.

My 9yo has done similar, including the "I'm NOT lying, you should be able to SEE IN MY EYES that I am not lying"

then the sudden tearful blurting out that ok, well, I might have been partly lying, a bit, but I forgot, and I'm not sure, and it might have been me but HE TOLD ME TO etc etc

the best one was when he was about 6 and I'd spent ages making really intricate little Christmas pudding truffles with holly and berries on top and left them out in the kitchen for the icing to set

I came back later to find 8 missing out of the 24 I'd made

FOUR HOURS of "it really honestly I promise definitely it wasn't me I would never do that"

then a tearful confession of "But they just looked so nice, and my body couldn't stop itself"

the little bugger had taken one, then another, and kept going back because he just couldn't resist them

kids

Your ds sounds brilliant

Also, I disagree with the idea of telling her that once she's proven to be a liar people find it hard to trust her. In fact go the opposite way and assure her that you will completely trust her if she makes a promise not to do it ever again, and then really try not to put her in a situation where she feels she must lie.

If I know it has to be one, I don't give a chance for lies. I just say, I know you did it, and this is the consequence. I don't see the point in getting them to own up if you know they did it.

Dd2 wrote on the ceiling above her bed (high bed) her name. I told her I knew she'd done it and removed (I thought) all her pens from her room. I obviously left one as the next day the words "written by ds" appeared next to her name. I still wasn't having any of it as ds was under 2yo at the time. . I said "nice try"....

aaah greensleeves we are pissing ourselves at your dc. Classic