8 year old telling lies!

[flobot]

Hello..hope someone out there can advise! My soon to be 8 year old daughter has started telling lies. She had the free membership to club penguin and wanted to become a paying member. I repeatedly told her that the answer was no because i didn't want her to be able to 'free chat' on line with people we didn't know. I discovered on Saturday that she'd managed to change her settings and had been 'free chatting' possibly for months. I was really upset and she seemed upset too but more because I subsequently told her that there would be no more club penguin rather than that she'd let me down and lost my trust.
She has since told another lie, to my face and seemed quite accomplished at it. I'm feeling really upset as I want her to get the message that she can't lie to me and get away with it. However I'm concerned I'm going to drive her away and it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Anyone else had similar experiences? and if yes how did you solve things?
Best wishes
Em

Hello - my DS and DD are 4 and 2 respectively, so can only talk about myself at the mo' I can remember being quite a good fibber around your daughters age!! And I'm a fine up - standing member of the communit, now!! My mom tells me I was an accomplished liar!! She could never tell if I was fibbing or not.

I am tending to think she is probably very bright and has a fertile imagination, which got her into this situation in the first place, ie figuring out how to change the settings on the Penguin forum!!

If she has been free chatting with no problem for a while, could you say that because she went against your wishes, you will stop her from free chatting or 1 week say. And then may be tell her that she can do it, but that you will want to monitor it. Tell her its for safety reasons (dont want her chatting to strange grown ups). And then see how it goes.

I can understand why you are so upset but I think that some lying is natural, especially in chlidren. Everyone tells lies sometimes.

I think free chatting on club penguin is a big no-no at this age, for all the reasons you seem well aware of already! With regard to the changing settings, that is quite clever isn't it? Wouldn't she need access to your email etc? My response would be to delete the account out of hand, she needs to undersstand that free chat is a big step and will be taken seriously by you and should be by her too.

As to the lying/misleading, well, I think she is at an age where children do try this out. IMO you need to get across how she put herself at risk by going against your wishes and how she needs to be upfront with you so as you can both keep her safe together. I agree that lying needs to be dealt with but making a big laboured deal can be counter productive. Most (if not all) children try out lying, some are very good at it but it does not mean they are stuck like it forever. Gentle but firm handling is best here IMO.

HTH

BTW, my dd attempted getting on an age restricted site (16) at age 12 by lying/misleading me, so I have been somewhere similar to you and it was a big shock to me too. (As my dd would never do such a thing I had a bit of pfb syndrome I think!)

As someone who was quite accomplished at fibbing when younger, I'd say try and reign it in now while you can... I got myself into quite a lot of convoluted trouble in secondary school as it was a habit I found hard to control. Wish I'd had it stamped on before I formed the habit, tbh

(Grew out of it eventually - only prone to a bit of exaggeration now which I usually catch myself at and reign myself in )

Lying is part of natural child development, according to a couple of books I've read about kids and how they develop. The cleverer they are, the more likely they are to lie.

It takes a certain amount of nounce to lie, distasteful though it is, so though you have to take action to show how 'bad' lying is, it does show a certain creativity/wisdom.

Hope you manage to find a way to address this issue successfully.

RD, I do see what you are saying, however, do you think the op is at this stage yet? I would say that jumping on a situation before she has actually shown a tendancy to lie ergularly (rather than just trying it out a couple of times) would make the child feel a bit victimised?

No I agree - but I think it's definitely a call to keep a very close eye for a while, and also to stress that the natural consequence is that you can't trust what she says is true for at least a good while. It's a fine balancing act, I do appreciate.

I do think that the lesson to reign in your creativity and imagination when it comes to the truth is a valuable one and will be easier to learn younger than when she's older.

Thank you all so so much. It is just wonderful to not feel so alone with it!

I am comforted by the fact that it's a normal thing to do at her age. I think I'd decided it was all my fault (as you do!) and that I'd lost her (dramatic? me?!).
I think from reading the posts it seems that my best bet is to be firm about the club penguin membership cancellation but to take some time to explain about it again but not to over the top!
She is a great kid otherwise and I think from these posts what I realize is that she is normal and not going to become a social outcast!!
Many heartfelt thanks again for all your posts. It has helped me tremendously.

Em