aibu to cancel birthday party?

[kabocha]

DS is soon to be ten. He was writing party invitations today.

When I went to pour squash at dinner, thad premade jug chilling in the fridge was empty. I asked who had finished it as they should have refilled it rather than return an empty jug. Much lying, but it had to be him as DH out and DD can't reach. Not a huge deal but we discussed the importance of not lying.

Roll on to clean up. I'm dishing up dessert when I can hear DD laughing/crying. Return to see table COVERED in pepper. DD can't work the mill, so it had to have been DS. He lied and lied. I told him to go and get ready for bed. He then reluctantly said it had been him.

I've explained there will be no party while I can't trust him. It was to be a sleepover. I don't see how I can have other kids here while DS can't be trusted. What if something happened and he lied?

There is a niggle though that I'm being harsh. AIBU?

Life is just too, too short for this. Seriously, dh had a friend who’s mum was like this. As soon as he got old enough he moved away and hasn’t spoken to her since.

Way too harsh. Choose your battles OP.

Too harsh.

Agree with the others - way too harsh.

He's probably too scared to tell you the truth if you're going to react like this with something so minor.

Oh OP you're getting quite a time on here. The punishment is too harsh but I think you know that really or you wouldn't have posted. It's a great learning moment for both of you though. Just sit him down and say look, I was frustrated by the lying and I overreacted. Cancelling your party isn't fair. Instead, X is going to be the consequence - maybe loss of a device or something he likes for a time limited period. E.g. if he's allowed to use s console for an hour tell him it'll only be 40 minutes tomorrow or something.

You will be modelling to him so many good things - how to repair a rupture in a relationship, how to admit when you're wrong, how to apologise, humility etc. There's nothing wrong with backing down if you make a mistake and it's a good thing for kids to learn.

Maybe give him a chance to redeem himself and if he doesn’t then say it’s indefinitely postponed until he does.

Maybe sit down with him alone quietly and explain your reasoning, not when he’s just wound you up in the moment.

I don’t personally like saying xyz is off the going ahead anyway,, my husband does this and he never follows through with his cancellation of anything.

Someone call the cops! Hardly crimes of the century OP. Poor kid is scared of you

Talk to him. I know it must be frustrating that he's ignored you and then lied, but please don't cancel his party. It might cause problems with his behaviour and your relationship with him.
Maybe it's time to rethink how you deal with stuff. It's ok to give him jobs/ responsibilities but not great to issue punishments for what sound like a bit of laziness, silliness. Definitely continue to talk to him about the lying.

I agree, way too harsh. Punishment doesn't fit the crime.

This reminds me of my own Mum. I lied because I was scared of her reaction if I told the truth. She'd get really cross with us for accidentally spilling a drink or genuine kid type behaviour.

With my kids, I might say with a sigh "Oh kids? Who did this? Why didn't you refill the jug?" But no more than that. My kids very rarely lie because I don't sweat the small stuff. 10 is still quite a young kid.

Chill out I would hate to see you with real problems .

I'm guessing from your second post that this happens regularly, you've reached the end of your tether and thought this might shock him into finally listening? The trouble is the consequence (no party) is too far ahead for it to really have any effect other than your son forever remembering when his mean mum cancelled his party.

Maybe you could try the therapeutic parenting approach and use a natural consequence instead. "The pepper is all over the table? That's a shame because now you (DS) have to clean it up. Here's a cloth." "No juice in the fridge? No juice for you until you fill the juice jug back up again. Here it is and off you go."

I agree with pps. He’s probably lying so much because he’s scared of your over reactions

Lying is my zero tolerance thing too. I would seriously consider downgrading the party unless the lying and silly behaviour stops. Make it clear you understand forgetfulness etc but if you ask ‘who’s done it’ he needs to come clean.

You’re punishing the incorrect matters.
They should not be having squash; that solves issue of refilling a jug.
It’s supper not dinner - so no problem with pepper being spilled on a dinner table.
Poor lad. Start enjoying your children. Being unkind is miserable for everyone. It certainly doesn’t help behaviour.

I think you're getting good advice here. To me discipline is not about punishment, as punishment breeds fear, and fear results in unpalatable avoidance responses (such as lying/ manipulation/ inaction etc.). Discipline is just about training and/or habit reprogramming.

For me, effective discipline is a balancing act between ensuring that the response is not so severe that the child reacts in fear in order to avoid the threatened consequences of their actions (i.e. lying), but not so mild that it doesn't affect the child in any way at all.

The balance I've found is natural inconvenience- i.e. child snatches a toy, natural inconvenience is to give the snatched toy back to the other child. Too mild would be just to comment, "don't snatch X", too severe might be to take the child away from the play setting permanently altogether.

In your jug scenario, as pp have commented, a better response would have been to ask your child to refill the jug before he gets more drink/ goes to play/ watches TV. In the mess scenario, asking him to clean up the mess would have been the natural resulting inconvenience for his actions.

So for those reasons, I agree with pp that threatening to cancel the birthday party is far too severe for either of those situations you described. I would also look inwardly and evaluate whether your son's lying is because of your behaviour (because that's often the case when children lie).

You need to think about why he is lying to you.

If you come down so harshly over spilling pepper/making a mess with it, or a jug not being refilled...
Maybe try more positive parenting. Keep a record and try to catch him doing 10 good things a day - and it is your responsibility to spot those positive things (and find them however annoying he is being). Praise him if he owns up to something. Be a safe person he can talk to even if he's got something wrong.

Most people lie because they are scared of telling the truth - encourage truth telling by rewarding it.

Bllimey. I thought I was a fairly strict parent.

As others have said, he's going to lie even more because he's scared of you. I was that child. I was a really good kid, but my mum's over-reactions to things turned me into a kid who lied a lot, out of fear. Please don't be my mum. Our relationship (what little there is of it) us crap.

And I thought that children were harshly treated in the dim and distant past.
I am worried that you are overreacting with DS in place of something or someone else. You need to look at why you are acting so strongly over minor issues. Is there someone else who is messing in your life and you are taking it out on a child.
Be kind to the children. You dont have to be this horrible.

Bloody hell op you sound harsh! I probably wouldn’t even think anything of an empty juice jug a kids forgot to fill up, just do it yourself and a quick reminder to him asking to try and remember to fill it himself next time. As for the pepper I would of just got him to clean up the mess he made and made sure he done it properly, to a 10 year old that’s a bad enough punishment having to clean! These are very minor things op and all kids will lie about things you just need to remind them it’s wrong to lie and tell them why, it’s not like he lied over anything serious it was juice and pepper. A friend of mine from school had a very strict mum like you op and I can tell you now it did their relationship no good because I’m still friends with her and she hardly has any contact with her mum because she says her mum ruined the relationship years ago so be careful op you and you son do t end up like my friend and her mum.

Cancel it. You are not being too harsh IMO.

I think it seems a bit harsh for what he’s done. I don’t think it warrants cancelling his party. Maybe another kind of punishment, like taking away a favourite toy for a while or no computer games/tv?

Tbh, while I agree with most posters that YABU for making a mountain out of a mole hill, what stood out most to me was this bit:

I asked who had finished it as they should have refilled it rather than return an empty jug. Much lying, but it had to be him as DH out and DD can't reach.

Why ask in the first place if it "had to be him"? Why not ask/state directly "DS, did you forget/you forgot to refill the squash when you finished it. Can you so it now please?". This is probably why he lied - the second he said it wasnt him he was trapped in an impossible choice and he was going to be punished either way.

My mother used to do this, ask a general question to my siblings and I, we would all deny doing the (usually minor) transgression either because we didn't do it or had forgotten about it. She would then accuse one of us, "knowing" it was us for XYZ reason. That child would then double down on the lies because they felt trapped and cornered because either way they were now in trouble - they get in trouble for lying if they continue and if they own up they get in trouble for the original offence and for the initial lies with no concession made for the truth being told under duress. In the end we didn't become more truthful, just whenever my mother asked "Who did ABC?" we would take it in turns to "take one for the team" and just own up, even if it wasnt us that did it.

I have issues with anxiety that was diagnosed in my teens and I know personally, these kind of situations when I was trapped in a lie and knew it was going to spiral out of control, were one of the contributing factors and even now, I still struggle when I'm asked about something I am responsible for as I'm waiting for it to turn into a blame/lie spiral.

Please dont turn small things into bigger issues, just let the small things go or at least make sure the punishment is proportional to the crime.

Holy Fucking Shit OP, way to harsh, I’m actually upset for your DS that he’s got you a mum. He’s going to be massively fucked up if he isn’t already. You’d cancel his party for “lying” about fucking squash and messing around with pepper? You’re a bloody bully!

And he’s scared of you...well done!

And he’s only 10! Jesus!