8 year old lies!!!

[spannerintheneck]

I am at a loss. My 8 year old daughter lies continuously, every sentence that comes out of her mouth has some sort of lie in it. I have no idea why and when she has been caught in a lie and I ask her why, she says she doesn’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ She doesn’t seem to care about the repercussions of lies. It started off with just exaggerating stories and is now escalating to complete lies, lies about her teacher at school, her friends, family it’s just so bizzare! I have tried explaining to her the implications of Lieing and she just doesn’t care. I have tried punishments for each lie, doesn’t care. I have tried offering the opportunity out to correct the lie before she gets caught, she doesn’t care. I have run out of option. Please help.

she is 8.
and has a lively imagination.
she probably wants to be a writer or a film/play director.
she is not an employee, nor able to sign contracts, so does it really matter so much?
give it a few years and it will right itself. her friends will see to that.
just go along with it; your teacher has three husbands, wow, all at once, she must be very busy, do they all live together, or does she visit each?

I've never met a child that doesn't mind punishment before. Are your punishments actually removing something that she enjoys and that she understands are tied to her lies? If not there is no point. If so then I don't believe that she doesn't care, she may just be good at hiding it (so you don't think the punishment is effective and stop it)

My DS always used to lie. Even if I had the evidence of his lie in my hand he would still continue to insist on his version.
Unfortunately he still lies now, but less.

That's pretty old to be doing that.

Any other developmental concerns?

Anything coming in from school?

Has she always done it? Children recognise lies from about the age of 3 and by the time they're 6 an NT child will know and understand why they are doing it and the effect it has.

At 8 if the child really doesn't know why they are doing it, it matters and needs further investigation. Whether that be harsher consequences because it's being done on purpose or an expert evaluation because the child literally doesn't realise they are lying depends on this particular child.
All children lie. Then they don't. If they continue, it's a sign something is awry.

Is it lies or exaggeration?

My DS9 came home today and announced that X had been bullying him again... but chatting about it more, it seems that X bashed his hand to make him drop the ball during a play time game...

Not ideal, but not bullying in my book.

Just wondering if your DD is doing similar for the effect of a good story, or because it feels like that to her, even if objectively it's not as extreme as she makes out ( whether that is extremely good or extremely bad)

Is she getting adequate attention at home?

Have you tried the 'wow that would be awful/wonderful if that had happened' approach?
Praise her wonderful imagination whilst making it clear you believe it to be make believe?
At some point something important/true will happen and she'll be upset you don't believe her and it may put a stop to it.

Read 'the boy that cried wolf'.

Give her a big thick book of lined paper and a nice pen. Tell her that this is where to write down all her stories and fibs. Stories and fibs live in her special writing book and stay there; she can read them to other people or let them read it themselves and admire how good she is at stories.

Everything else is in real life, and should stay real and true.

She'll soon work out the difference.

What kind of things is she lying about?
What are the consequences for her when she lies?
Does she get plenty of attention and praise for doing good things and not lying?

What a load of twaddle. Nonsense. She is old enough at 8. I think you need to be honest with her and tell her that people know she is lying. Break down one of her lies so that she can see how everyone else sees it. We all knew that type of kid in school who lied. Everyone knew they were liars, exaggerators and no one believed them. Don't let her be one of those.

She enjoys reading and writing stories alot so I will suggest she writes them down and see if that works.

i am so worried she is going to become that kid who lies in school and she won’t keep friends, she was talking to her 13 year old cousin who was saying she had fallen out with her friend (who is a family friend dd knows) dd then told cousin all about how the friend had been really horrible to her and was saying nasty things about cousin to her as well - she hasn’t seen this friend in months so it definitely didn’t happen but it was adding fuel to a fire dd had no part in - that’s my worry the lies are not made up fairyland sort of things, they are lies that could affect people.

when I know what has said is blatant lies, I give her an opportunity to come clean with no consequences as long as it’s the truth, and if she is found to be lying then she loses a screen/ice cream/Easter egg that’s sort of thing. She doesn’t care.

Attention wise, she has a younger sibling who isn’t school age so is home more, but she has a few clubs a week for herself, and she gets time after sibling is in bed with us and weekends we have Saturday tv night with treats and a later night just mum dad and dd. I also make sure we have a mummy daughter date day once a month I would say where we go and do whatever she wants.

i have tried boy who cried wolf and she didn’t care, I have tried the harsh route by talking to her about her friends might not want play with her if she lies to them all the time, she just doesn’t seem to care. If she does care then still nothing changes so we still don’t get anywhere.

Lying to her cousin and trying to add fuel to the fire, that is quite disturbing as she is only 8. I think call her out ok a lie. Point out how and why you know she's lying and tell her that everyone can see it too. She might care about that. Do you think this compulsive lying is getting out of hand- maybe worth exploring some counselling for her to get to the root of the issue?

This is my worry 🥺 I call her out on every single lie now and show her the implications, with the cousin situation I explained how difficult that could make cousins life at school as she acted on dd’s lie. I think I will look into counselling

I think counselling is a good call. It does seem like something else is going on. Also concerning that she doesn't seem to care. Definitely seems like there is more to it. Can you maybe think back to when this started, anything specific happened around then?