12yr old lying

[Parentingishard3]

My 12 yr old has started to lie about things and we both feel we cant trust anything hes saying. He was in trouble last wk part of which was lying and he denied for about an hr tben truth came out and then it happened again tonight over something so stupid , i just new he was lying n I was not giving in and then i caught him out. We dont know what to do now, we sat him down last week and chatted to him and hes just not getting it and we dont know what to do now. Can anyone offer some advice please, hes the oldest of 3 so this is all new to us. Thanks

My son would bare face lie to me when he was a teen, and even if I had the evidence in my hand he would continue. It’s a phase, but I continued to call him out every time.
He will mature, eventually !

Let's say he did something wrong and then lied about it. Which would you punish more? The original crime or the lie?

Odd as it seems, if you punish lying v hard, that can just teach kids to lie better and get away with it.

I'd focus on punishing the original crime and (almost) ignore the lie.

I agree with @parietal. As adults we tend to react strongly against lying, but it's pretty normal for kids to go through a dishonest phase and it's often better not to make it into too much of a big deal.

Ok, thanks guys. I suppose i would punish both hard, i dont want the lying to escalate and not be able to trust him as time goes on. I know they go through a phase of lying and I'll try not to make a deal of it but will talk to him about it. Thanks for the advice, parenting is started to get hard 😭😊