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?

Your son is ace!

I have a kleptomaniac daughter -

I love your DS he is fantastic!

Trashcanjunkie - Can I ask why you disagree about eroding trust in the long term? I suggested it because I remember it working on me (albeit a LONG time ago) but hadn't thought of it as a particularly negative thing for my parents to have said, more as a life lesson along the lines of the boy who cried wolf.

Your ds sounds amazing.

TBH I do think all kids lie and if you get into a 'you're lying/no I'm not' confrontation then it does become all about who 'wins' that argument rather than natural consquences for the actions. I'm in the middle of this with my DS and that's what I'm working on, anyway.

So I would give a consequence that doesn't hurt DS (from now on, I look after the sweets so no-one can take anything that doesn't belong to them) and then I would give some of DD's sweets to DS (we are equal in this house so as 'someone' has taken some of DS sweets, you now have to share).

In other words, take away the temptation and make her replace the sweets, without the drama and the lying chat. Drama llamas need fuel for the fire, really. I'd just make lying really, really dull.

All children lie, so I wouldn't worry about that.
I have ENORMOUS respect for you DS though. He sounds fab!

both your kids sound fantastic and completely normal.

he will be a detective and she will be an actress.

Lol she is training for when she becomes an adult woman

Thanks all. It's not the taking the sweets that bothers me. I would have regarded that as a minor childhood offence and simply got her to replace them (maybe at 2 for 1).

What has got to me is the performance she put on. It really was amazing - comments like " I don't want to hurt you mummy, but it may damage our relationship if you don't believe me". I was stunned by it all.

This reminds me of when DSs were small. Someone had done something, I was trying to find out which, both denied it. I said right, I'll borrow the lie detector from the prison ( as if, but I did work there), DS 1: "how does it work?" "If you are lying you are nervous and it can tell." DS1: " But I would be nervous anyway". Me: "Yes but it knows that and it allows for it". DS2: "OK I did it" .
Thirty years on we still chuckle.

The things she lies about are things that she says happened during the day at school. She always has the best ideas that the teacher goes with or is the victim of someone else's terrible actions from which she emerges heroically. The thing is, there is often a grain of truth in her tales. I worry that she does it because she has low self-esteem so rather than punish her I say "that cannot possibly be true the way you told it". She then replies "I would never lie to you, don't you believe me?" If I then point out the reason her statement cannot be true she will adjust it and say "oh, I meant something slightly different".

I have told her that she does not need to be first or best or anything other than she is for me to love her. I love her for who she is.

I have not so far punished her for the sweet incident besides requiring her to replace the sweets (at 2 for 1 as I said). I really don't know what the appropriate response is.

I know! That was so manipulative!

I do think that it is important that you sit down with her and explain that the most damaging thing to a relationship is lies.

Greensleeves - we went through the same levels of admission: "I didn't understand what you were asking"; "well I just ate the small ones - not the full packet" to "oh no, I forgot, I ate them all and I just remembered - nut I wasn't lying, I really forgot".

My sister used to raid the cupboard and pinch treats,

Then hide the wrappers in my room in different places, she did eventually get caught, but if I'm honest, I am still hacked off that when my protests of innocents were met with disbelief.

I used to really want security cameras.

DoJo, I don't want to put words in Trashcanjunkie's mouth but i agree with her saying stance on not going down the road of saying that liars can't be believed.

I was in a similar position to the OP's DD when I was about 8 or 9. My mum told me about people not believing liars etc and it was horrible. I spent hours crying in our attic and I thought for years that I was a liar, nobody believed anything I said, no one would want to marry me ever (!) and that was it for me, basically.

Sounds dramatic, but lots of kids are dramatic and literal. Unless done very carefully she'll take it as "no one will trust you ever again" rather than "if you carry on in this vein eventually it'll end up like this".

The school stuff I would treat quite lightly. We all need to be the heroes of our own day, to a certain extent. I would use open questions. Like for the best ideas thing 'oooh, Jenny is usually good at ideas, isn't she? What did she suggest? Did the teacher like that idea?' which helps her gently acknowledge that other people may have made a contribution too.

The reason I suggest being so light-touch with this is that most of the women I know downplay their achievements and ideas and contribution. I actually think it's great that she has such a positive picture of herself and I wouldn't want to take it away completely, just try and show her that others have a pov and contribution as well.

Praise team work and collaboration as much as you can at home too. Not by saying 'good team work' (up there with 'good sharing' in my book) but by saying things like 'wow, since you and DS pulled together to clear up the kitchen we've got time for an extra story tonight (or whatever)'.

Thanks WilsonFrickett, I think you are right, she has a real need to see herself as the hero in her life and that is just fine. It is just the degree she goes to.

I may have said to her that if she carries on, no one will ever believe a word she says, so I think I need to address that somehow. She places a great deal of store on whether I believe her and is always asking if I do. However, because of the level of manipulation that went on over sweetgate, I think I will struggle to believe her in the future. How can I believe anything she says when she swore on the foundations of everything that she holds important that she was telling the truth?

When she was finally caught out and admitted that she had eaten them (albeit that she had forgotten this previously) she was rocking to and fro hitting herself saying "how could I be so stupid?" The whole time, I had not raised my voice or said anything other than I wanted the truth and I was having problems believing her side of the story as there really was no one who could have eaten them other than her! As I say, I am taken aback by the whole thing - her reactions were so extreme.

She sounds like a little drama llama. I would keep very calm, apply the chosen consequence and not get drawn into pandering to the histrionics or any self-immolatory tactics aimed at garnering sympathy/worry/drawing attention away from the actual misdemeanor. But that's my children, obv I don't know yours!

I sympathise Goosey - very difficult to not make her feel like she's awful, but still get across to her that she can't carry on lying.

To put it in perspective, almost anyone who thinks they are going to lose everything (again, dramatic, but probably how she felt when she realised she'd stolen and lied!) will lie. Criminals, cheating partners, etc. Not that I am in anyway comparing your DD to them, you understand! Just pointing out that I think we sometimes expect a lot from children. A lot of (most?) adults would react in the same way she did if they felt they had everything to gain by it.

Is this the first 'big' lie? I think a lot would hang on that for me.

I actual lol'd at your son and his finger print kit!

As everyone alse has said, kids tell fibs. I have always placed huge importance on the truth and they've always known they will get into more trouble for lies than an actual misdemeanour; I think it's helped though that there have been a couple of occasions where I have had to go into bat for them and I have been able to make the point that I can only do this because I know I can 100% trust their version of events(IYSWIM).

My niece sounds a bit like your dd actually, really lovely girl with a heart of gold, but always has to be the 'hero' in a situation or the best at everything in the re-telling of something. She is super bright and ahead for her age with a really vivid imagination, and she runs rings round my youngest boy (same age as her) because he is just so damned straightforward and retaliates out in the open, which she doesn't.

I hope she enjoyed the sweets though!

Tbh op the more you describe her behaviour it seems very worrying. When she was hitting herself was she in a conversation with herself, also the level of manipulation is so extreme for her age.
How would you believe her when she really is in trouble one day. I wouldn't down play this behaviour. It does seem quite for her age.

Schokolade I agree that one instance doesn't make a child an irredeemable liar, but I do think that children should be aware of the wider consequences of their actions. There must be some middle ground where you can explain to a child that repeated lying does lead to a breakdown in trust eventually without it being a devastating event.

Apart from anything, it is just a matter of fact - children know they find it hard to believe a friend who has repeatedly lied to them, so it's not such a great leap to understanding that the effect is the same when they do it. it sounds as though your experience of this sort of situation may have coloured your views, but mine was quite a positive one so hopefully the OP can strike a balance between scarring her daughter for life by going too far either way .

Greensleeves - I think you are right - she has always been overly dramatic. Dh is good with this and said to her "I can see what you are trying to do and it just won't work" and left it at that. I tried to leave it at "calm down". Thing is, she doesn't and can go on and on and on for hours.

Honest to God we never told her off in anyway at the time and just said we would discuss it later. Her performance started at about 7.00pm and she was still wailing and gnashing her teeth at 10.00 (although she went to bed at 8.30).

This is the first enormous lie - the only one that has left me thinking WTF?

I agree a middle ground is the way to go DoJo, especially given that she's at an age where her friends won't be at all discreet if they smell a lie!

What I've never understood is why they hide the wrappers inside the house - and at quite advanced ages as well. They're bound to be discovered so why not even put them in the bin outside?

We have plenty of sweet snitching.
And a lock on the biscuit cupboard.