Dd and lies.

[Disneyfan18]

Help please mumsnet!

My 2 year old dd won't stop telling lies about everyone. She keeps telling me that various people are hitting her even when she hasn't seen them!

So far she's accused mil, my dad and my best friend of hitting her but I KNOW this isn't true because I have been present each time she is with any of them and I can hand on heart say nobody has so much as laid a finger on her or even really told her off for anything. A couple days ago she told dh that I stood on her finger even though I didn't and was actually upstairs.

She's also started blaming others for things she has done. She destroyed a book and blamed her older cousin even though I saw her do it.

How do I stop her from doing this?

Years ago when mine were little, a friend recommended Toddler Taming by Christopher Green. I don't agree with everything, but some of it is brilliant. He explains that toddlers crave attention. If they can't get "good" attention, "bad" will do. Your DD has somehow worked out that by lying, she gets your attention. Now you need to modify that behaviour.

I think I would try lots of praise for seemingly innocuous things: "well done for watching TV so nicely so mummy could drink her tea in peace" sort of comment. That way, she gets the attention she craves but for positive reasons. When she does lie blatantly, the best thing to do is to give her no attention at all, so just ignore it completely. She will soon realise that it doesn't work; she is getting her mummy-fix for good things and you will have an easier time (til the next phase comes along...!)

This also works on older kids as I'm now doing some primary teaching after 25 years of secondary work. The Head's advice is "love-bombing" and it really seems to work on naughty year 4s.

We do the whole ‘love bombing’ at intervals on ours and although it seems a counterintuitive thing to do to a ‘naughty’ child the results are amazing!

It’s a normal phase, both mine did it. They both accused their preschool teacher of hitting them- one said she punched him in the teeth and knocked some out. Clearly, a lie

If you know it's a lie then just ignore it.
As pp have said, make a huge fuss of anything positive she does even if it's just walking nicely along the street with you.
My 2yo has just started pretending he needs a poo at bedtime so I think they are experimenting with 'story telling' at this age.

Completely normal developmental phase. Ignore it if you know it's definitely a lie.

My nephew did this in the midst of Sister and BIL's contentious divorce. Kept telling dad that mum was beating him and vice versa. Funny now, not so much at the time. It only lasted a few months.

Naughty corner

Not hitting but I once asked my son how he had made a hole in his trousers and he said Captain Hook did it.

I agree it’s a totally normal development phase for a two year old. I wouldn’t punish but I would say ‘we know that’s not true don’t we?’ Or ask her to tell a bit more of the story. They often get quite elaborate

Oh yes she will elaborate she will even point to a place on her arm and say that's where she was hit or if she has the tiniest scratch from just general play she will make up something about how she got the scratch sometimes its quite funny although I dont let on to her but I'm just a bit concerned about the pre school im afraid she will go in and say she's being hit and il get called in to explain or worse have ss round.

Its really hard because I dont want to tell her off for saying she's being hit as id always want to know of that was the case but I just want her to stop making up things about people that aren't true.

Talk to nursery about it proactively, and ask how they tackle it. They will have ideas and will have tackled it many times.

Totally normal part of cognitive development. Nursery should know this. They also know what signs of actual abuse/harm to look for, plus she's likely doing same there and they know "X can't have hit her they weren't even here that day!"

It requires intelligence & imagination to lie.

BUT that doesn't mean you don't employ behaviour modification to teach her not to.

Ignore the lies, praise the good behaviour very obviously.

Totally normal part of development, and necessary too.

How many times a day do you tell her a story? (or other people do) How many times do you tell her about things she may not see, just hear from you? How do you think she knows which one happened and which one is real? She's trying to work out the difference between telling a story (good!) and telling a lie (bad!).

If you tell her that a talking bear went to play in the wood with his best friend, a piglet, that's good storytelling. But if she tells you she played with grandma, who hit, suddenly she's in trouble.

Talk to her - lots, over a period of months, about stories and telling the truth about real people.

One final comment, though. Why do you think she's so concerned about hitting? IS she worried she will be hit? Has she seen other children hitting? Does she get more attention if she talks about hitting? It's just that normally children's stories vary quite a bit more.

Also - trying to shift blame is a positive developmental stage. You don't want it to last forever, but she does need to go through this phase.

She has witnessed other children hitting and dd has been known to take a swipe others including dh and i. Each time we chat to her and tell her how we won't let her hit us. I will just keep chatting with her and talking her the difference between good stories and bad stories (lies) I have to say for her age her role playing and imagination is great I quite often observe her at okay and she gets really into it lovely to watch. My dh is taking her to pre school today so he is going to mention it to them and see what they have in place for this kind of thing.