out of ideas!!!

[clmjmb]

I am a mum with a 7 year old son and I have a partner aswell, my son has become a very self indulgent child who won't share his toys with his friends unless they play by his rules and constantly lies about everything to the point where we cant believe him anymore and the kids on our street just won't play with him. Any ideas please?

remove the toy if he can't share properly. give one warning, then carry out threat.

reward /be pleased when he tells you the truth.

Thats the trouble, I no longer know what is truth and what is a lie

he said 5 kids on the street had punched and kicked him the other day, he was going tp let my partner go knocking on all the doors and confront the parents, except he told that many different versions of the one event we couldn't tell what exactly had gone on, other than he argued with them and came home

I wonder if he is feeling a little out of control in the company of others, and is clinging onto toys to maintain his sense of security? here is an article that has some good tips for how to deal with sharing issues.

It's mine- All about sharing

I'm not sure about the lying though as haven't experienced that, hope you get some good advice from someone who has.

Interesting read, thankyou for putting me onto it!

Can you read him some stories about lying ie boy who cried wolf and discuss them with him as he is old enough to know it is wrong. All children fib about some things but it is when it snowballs they loose control. He was prob scared at the thought of your OH knocking on doors and finding out the truth but did not know how to come clean without being in trouble for lying. Try to give him 'an out' each time so he realsies you appreciate the truth rather than believe the lie.
He will realise that he has to be adaptable with other children or they will not play with him. Try playing games where you take it in charge to be in control - follow my leader etc so he rediscovers that others can have fun ideas with games. If he really won't share toys remove him from situation but allow other child to carry on playing with toy as they should not be punished for you LO not sharing.

I don't think you can help him until you work out why he is doing it.

For example my DD2 (9) has Aspergers and is very controlling about her play. Before we realised she had it I would take her away as a punishment for not sharing but we now realise that this was counter-productive. She just became more anxious that she was going to lose control and therefore more controlling. When we discovered that she had poor theory of mind we approached the problem with social stories which helped her understand the the other child must have turns and some say in the rules in order to want to participate. She now realises (some of the time) that play isn't only about her own feelings and if she wants others to play with her they have to enjoy it too.

With the lying I would ask myself why he is doing it. Did he understand why the other boys fell out with him? Could he have made up the kicking and hitting because he was confused and frustrated about what really happened and needed to give you a story which made sense?

When he tell lies does he realise that he is lying? Does he have a very vivid imagination which means he finds it hard to differentiate between imagination and reality?

Does he lie because he's worried about your response to the truth? Could it be that he's losing his temper with these children and then feels ashamed? Could you give him some guidance about how to tell you if he has done something he knows was wrong, literally what words to use so he knows how to tell the truth at those times?

I may be very wide of the mark with my guesses of why he's doing this but a wise person once pointed out to me that all behaviour is communication. What is your DS communicating to you with this behaviour?