AIBU Constant Lies

[ZillahBarnes]

DC13. Lies / fibs all the time. Lies about brushing teeth / changing pants. Lies about where they’ve been (I have tracking app on phone - they say they’ve been somewhere this morning but I can see they’ve stood in the same place for 8 minutes). Little white lies which wouldn’t make an ounce of difference if they told the truth. I’m fearful these are so frequent, and so natural / easy, in future they will become far bigger and perhaps even more dangerous.

Bigger examples: (1) lied about direct messaging with strangers through Roblox. (2) Found out in January DC promised to pay for something for a school friend (who I have never met) in December. “Friend” was chasing in late January, I found messages on DCs phone and challenged them. They said it was in-game currency worth around £20, I responded to the friend and arranged to repay them by a certain date - turns out it was worth £40! Specific game has now been removed. Went to a school sport event yesterday evening and asked to meet this friend - was told immediately they didn’t attend this particular sport - whereas this is how they met and friend “has always been at training…” - this concerns me greatly as I now think this was another online “friend”.

What can I do? Child’s father is an alternate weekend / throws money at them kind of parent, but without his input here I don’t think this will be quashed.

I’m struggling.

Is it a boy by any chance? My DS would bare face lie to my face when he was a teen, and he’d continue the lie while I had evidence in my hand!
I just called him out every time, and he suffered the consequences.
Unfortunately he’s like his dad, lies far too easily just to get out of strife.

Hi Dusty - yes - boy. His dad is exactly the same. We divorced over lies (gambling addiction - I just didn’t find out for 9 years…)

I feel so lost.

I feel your pain. I feel so bad that I married a liar, and that has been passed on to my child.

Not all boys lie.
My ex would lie to a stone in the road but my boys don't.

My other boy is a truth teller. Very rule oriented, straight as a die. They are chalk and cheese.

I feel like if I raise this with dad, he will manipulate the situation to his advantage, and exacerbate it.

What consequences does he currently face for lying?

My son was like this for a bit.

would lie he had had a shower when his hair wasn’t wet.

mostly just couldn’t be arsed doing stuff.

we pointed out to him there was no point in lying if the person you are lying to can immediately tell.

he did then start getting in the shower.
we also enforced watching him during teeth brushing time.

with the friends, I’d be a bit worried he is being exploited/bullied.

I’ll probably take a different tack from others, but you need to learn to let go. He’s growing up, making some good decision, making some poor decisions - as long as he’s not doing anything life changing, you need to leave him to deal with the consequences of the bad decisions. He’s too old to have you patrolling his teeth brushing, if he wants to stay in one place .. so what.

Are you joking? Brushing your teeth and wearing clean underwear is non-negotiable. He's old enough to know that and if he refuses then he will have to be treated like a toddler, because that's how he's behaving.

I think owing random strangers money online is pretty serious. It's concerning that you'd allow him to crack on.

Removal of devices and / or Apps. Limited screen time / TV. More chores. Total ban on Roblox.

The white lies about personal hygiene are one thing.

It’s the bigger picture here though. What those white lies are leading to.

He literally swore blind that he had not stayed in one place, and had walked directly into school. He was in the same place for 8 minutes. Why lie? I called him out on it. There’s literally no point in him lying, none at all. He said he had been in to school to check something, and then returned to the waiting place. Clearly, he had not moved, otherwise I would have seen the return journey on the App. There’s literally no point in fibbing about it.

If you don’t think having a debt of around £60 equivalent in real money is serious for a 13 year old, I’m not quite sure we are on the same page!

…and how long are you planning to police teeth brushing and underwear changing for? At some point you have to let go .. teeth now brushed - breath stinks .. they learn.

For as long as it takes, obviously. Do you not think personal hygiene is important?

…depends on what sort of a relationship you want with your child as they become a young adult. How often are you tracking him? Why does it matter if he stayed in one place or moved ? All seems very controlling.

I think the way you are behaving will cause him to hide more things from you as he grows up, he’ll just get better at hiding it.

Owing money .. again, needs to learn the consequences of behaviour. You might want to ask yourself why he didn’t come to you for help.

I think it’s important that young adults take over the day to day management of these things. You can’t be stood staring at a 16/17 year old in the bathroom, or checking thier underwear.

No wonder young people have no resilience, and are unable to make decisions with that level of helicopter parenting

I had an ex like this, and I think the root cause of his lies was that he wanted to do what he wanted to do without any responsibility, judgement or consequences. He was extremely sensitive to anything he perceived as criticism.
If one of his deals went wrong (and they often did), he'd lie to that person. He frequently demanded money from me and not want to explain why he needed it.
You might find that making him face the consequences of his actions doesn't change his behaviour, he won't learn anything from it because the cause is more deep rooted, and in your shoes I'd be looking at therapy to try to get to the bottom of it.
For therapy to work he'd have to co-operate so I'm not sure how helpful that suggestion really is.

Edit; I've also just remembered that he had a hard time thinking ahead to potential consequences of his actions, he couldn't map out a flow chart, and that seemed to be genuine.

No child of mine would be walking around stinking. If a 17 year old boy really needed his mother to stand and make him brush his teeth then so be it.

What you're supposing is the complete opposite to teaching resilience. You want people to let their kids do whatever they want, and you think that's going to bring them up to be responsible adults?

Ah yes. Just be a complete negligent parent to your teenage boy! What could go wrong? Are you joking?

We all have Life360. We can see where everyone is.

I didn’t want to have to go into the details of this as it’s irrelevant, however you seem to have an axe to grind:

Child was taken to usual drop off point for school in car.
Child left football in the car.
Child texted family group chat to ask Parent A to return with football, Parent A was driving so didn’t see text.
Parent B suggested there will be other footballs available in school.
Child said “I’ve been in and checked, nobody has their footballs today.”
Parent B suggested Child couldn’t know this as there hadn’t been enough time for Child to race into school, check with all of his mates, and race back down to drop off point (8 minutes, when the walk to school is 5 from the drop off point).
Child swore blind they had done this.
Child 2 confirmed they had not walked into school together.

There is literally no point in lying about this situation. None at all.

With the Robux situation, he was already on thin ice due to conversations with strangers, so we banned it in our home. Dad didn’t. When the white lies keep stacking up, they can get bigger and bigger, and now we are at the point where money is involved.

How would you have managed this differently, across two households?

The consequence for lying needs to be worse than the consequence for the thing he's lying about. He needs a warning (might take a few occasions) that x will happen if you lie about this, but if you tell the truth I'll let it slide/more minor sanction (depending how severe the behaviour is).

He's growing up and his brain is still developing, but at some point it'll click that he's making the conscious choice to lie, or not lie. I know far too many adults that lie as a knee-jerk reaction, and it's so ingrained they barely have a chance to think about it. If you insert an extra step that causes him to think 'do I want x to happen or y to happen' it can help a lot at this age.

Thank you Psycho - what sanctions would you recommend?

I hate Life 360. It’s invasive of privacy, and I do agree with the other PP who suggested you are over-using it and being controlling.

Handling that scenario differently? When the text arrives about the forgotten football, a simple ‘ah, well, you’ll cope’ should have been the response.
Give your child a bit more independence (stop checking up on them over trivial matters) and then let them live with their own trivial mistakes.

I think I’d divide it.
Lies about teeth brushing, changing clothes etc I’d tackle as you’re doing. Have a firm rule you don’t clean your teeth = you lose x. Lying about where you are = you lose y. And so on. Same sanction each time.
The online lending/ sending money is very worrying and I’d get dad onboard with just that. Blocking people/ losing screen time has to be consistent . The consequences can be serious. Owe money to the wrong person……..

If you say there will be a sanction or punishment for something, please stick 100% to it, tough as it will be.

A good job you mentioned his father's behaviour, spared me asking if his dad was Boris Johnson.

I'd get him seen by a psychologist ASAP.