DD12 lies and hides things every time she's asked to do anything

[drspouse]

Whenever DD is asked to put away clothes she hides them - in one of the many cupboards we have e.g. where I keep my out of season clothes, under her bed, in the attic, many places, too many to search.
She has form for this with every task she's asked to do yes I've done it but she's walked out the room with something she's supposed to put away and she leaves it on the floor.
She's doing it at school as well, her first instinct seems to be to lie rather than actually do the job.
Screen time is a privilege not a right but she doesn't seem to care if she gets it, and usually lies about having done her jobs around the house. We can watch her if she's hoovering etc but we can't search every cupboard every time she has clothes to put away!
Full story here is that she's 12, she has done this ever since she worked out how to lie, she's been diagnosed with ADHD and we're on a waiting list for medication.

and regardless of the rights or wrongs of her doing her own laundry, vacuuming and cooking, I think the point here is that it's clearly too much for HER right NOW

My dd has for doing this, also stealing snacks and hiding the evidence. Drives older dc mad. Dd is immature for her age but we are making progress. Just when I think I'm going to lose it she does something really well. Keep giving your dd consequences, keep up the expectations but help as well until she can do it on her own. It will get better.

Does she have PDA?

i don’t think you’ve got the hang of this parenting lark. I would help my DC to get clean clothes and underwear out the night before school, to make it easier in the morning, just as I do for myself for work. I never needed to sniff their pants, because I kept an eye on their laundry and helped them with their clothes. We had a visual timetable to help with the morning routine, and I helped them to pack their bag. I still help with this stuff sometimes now, despite their reaching adulthood (and doing very well in all areas). My dear old mum does the same for me, as does my husband, and I do for him. “Here’s your charger! Where’s your work pass?” etc. It’s how a loving, supportive family works. Maybe give it a go and see how it feels?

Sorry for not tagging people - I'm getting a bit lost!

To those saying it's all too much for her - a lot of this is things she's done for years, mainly well, but if she doesn't want to do something she just lies. Anything she could easily say "haven't done it yet" or "I forgot" or "later" but she lies and says she's done it. Usually it's MUCH more effort to not do it and find a new hiding place for her clean clothes, than do what she's supposed to do.
At school they aren't supposed to buy food for other children and she's done this a couple of times and been seen doing it and denied it. School told us and then finally she was seen again and admitted it and school told her how proud they were. But she never does that with us. For the school friends it's obvious she's trying to make them like her. But

We actually think the glasses thing is not wanting to look different, or stand out, she tried a glasses strap and told us that was really uncomfortable so we think she'd say about the glasses. Homework is the same - she has a group of friends who all just chat at break and it seems like they all hand in their homework late and get a detention and she thinks it's a badge of honour. She told me about one boy who has about 20 detentions owing for lateness and she seemed to think this was somehow really amazing (in a good way!).

To those asking about her early life, she came to us at 6 weeks having been with the same FC as DS, from the hospital. Let's just say birth mum couldn't have her where she was. We are working through her feelings about the need to be adopted, just about to see if PAS can actually give us anything helpful, and her birth mum's behaviour but it was behaviour with her older siblings and other things in her life - not anything she was exposed to.

I'm a research scientist by training and have read pretty much all the research on adopted children and ADHD parenting. So forgive me if I ignore some of the theoretical stuff where there's no evidence to back it up. I don't see the point in arguing the toss when I know what the research says.

I agree about the wait for medication, it's ridiculous. It's helped DS so much so it's even more frustrating to see her struggle now we know we were right about the ADHD. It's obviously going to be more expensive for the education system to pick up the pieces than for the NHS to give children the medication they need. Don't get me started.

DH now does all the things like go to parent support groups in the daytime, take DS to school, go to school events, do the housework, be at home when the DCs get home, do the shopping, fill in forms. He's not filling his time with hobbies any more than a SAHM of, say, a child in nursery at a school setting would be. But it is true that we can't work out how we both had time to work!

There's no good evidence PDA is an actual disorder. Everyone hates being demanded to do things, some more than others. We don't shout at her or, unless it's actually true, say "you MUST do this". We give her choices and try and make her have some agency. But she needs to learn to comply with straightforward and practical things without lying about them. She isn't going to have anyone at school saying "oh would you like to do this or shall I do it for you".

Regarding the homework, I.think that sometimes at some points you do have to let it go (and I say that as a teacher). My DD strongly resists homework and always has. We try to make it as easy for her as possible but now once we've reminded, provided materials, checked if there are instructions or resources...if she doesn't do it she just has to get the detention or whatever. It's HER homework. We used to end up doing it for her at primary and honestly, what is the point?!

@Bambalama if we get out her clothes (which she was able to do when she was 4) she'd get up and make a den all over her room, losing the clean clothes for the next day, or throw all the clothes at her brother, and then be left not able to find the clothes in the morning.
Or we try to find her clean clothes in the evening, she claims to have no clean pants or tells you the ones she's just taken off are clean, or leaves her socks on in bed and then leaves them on the next morning too and that carries on all week.

From reading more of your other posts @drspouse I think it may be more than ADHD. Is she deliberately hiding homework and glasses? Or is she just getting distracted in putting them in her bag? Which one do you think it is? Both would need different approaches to support what is happening. She may be lying because she doesn’t want to feel shame, or get told off, or feel other negative emotions over not doing what was expected. People with ADHD can experience rejection sensitivity dysphoria so be aware of that too.

@Phineyj she isn't paying attention or doing any class work in some lessons (basically all of English Maths and Science) and homework is the only work she gets actually checked she's doing AFAICS so she absolutely needs to do it.
It's harder to lie about doing that (though she does tell us she hasn't got any when we can see she has). It's more the handing it in and taking it to school that she doesn't do or lies about. Like I say, she seems to like getting a detention because all her friends do.

She lies to you because you make her feel ashamed op. You are shaming her for not being neurotypical. You are going to destroy this poor child's mental health.

36 with ADHD and putting away laundry is impossible!

If she has previously been able to do all of this no problem then clearly it isn’t the adhd.

it isn’t clear from your posts whether this is the case.

you say she isn’t interested in screen time so that won’t motivate.
is she reaching the point of teenage rebellion?

your post says she’s in with a group at school who see detentions as a badge of honour and don’t do homework so I’d be concerned about that.

I posted and didn’t see your latest post. So wanting to fit in with peers is also coming into play here. Hormones too. Loads going on for her really.

@Octavia64 we are worried about it - we've spoken to school as you can see up thread, it is definitely partly due to hormones/teenage rebellion as it is worse than it was.

But it's also like, why bother when we know what you've actually done? It's so obvious she's not done what she says she has. She's such a poor liar, because everything she lies about is so easy to check.

I think it's more if she struggled with something in the past she would say she can't do it, or even just refuse, which at least is open and honest! Now she just lies that she's done it and hides things.

@SlightlyTerrifiedButPolite sorry to hear that, but like I say it's not so much the not doing it, it's the lying about it!

@Allmarbleslost thanks for that incredibly helpful and insightful post. So positive and affirming.
If she tells us she can't do things we help her (or, if she's lying on the floor screaming I CAN'T DO IT I HATE YOU NOBODY LIKES YOU we walk out and leave her to calm down and then help her when she's calmed down).
It's the lying that's the problem. Not the inability to do things. And some of them were things she could do when she was younger.

@Sugarnspicenallthingsnaice when you've found the extra capacity store, do let us all know, I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd liked to know the trick.

Anyway I'm exhausted after not sleeping well last night (unrelated to this) so I'm going to watch HPI, have a bath, and check again in the morning.

It doesn’t matter what she has been able to do previously or what her brother can do. At this point in her life for whatever reason (very good reasons - adoption and ND) she just needs you to help her out. The ‘teaching’ required is you showing her that you support her, are trying to understand her, and do not prioritise her doing chores above these things.

There’s obviously a reason for the lying that she probably herself doesn’t understand. So help her.

Yeah my DS did the lying thing.

he’d lie that he’d brushed his teeth and we’d go in and the toothbrush would be dry and so we did some social stories with him to try to show him that lying was pointless if the other person could instantly check.

he got a bit more creative with the lying (eg turned the shower on to get the tray wet but didn’t get himself wet) so we gave up on that one and just supervised tooth brushing, checked his hair was wet after shower etc.

he grew out of it.

he’s nt

Totally agree with this. She will be sensing your frustration at her (which is very understandable) and this may be reinforcing her urge to lie. Systemic family therapy might help all of you if you haven't had it already. Your expectations sound quite rigid. I relate to you as im in a similar field and I think knowing all the research can be a double edged sword as it can fuel frustration when all the knowledge doesnt translate to life being easier with one's own particular child. Individual therapy also helped me to let go of a lot of unhelpful standards and expectations I was holding for my ND child.

For those saying it’s ADHD that causes this, why does ADHD cause someone to do the opposite of an immediate instruction?

”put these in your bag” becomes leave them lying in another random place?

why?

I’m not sure why you posted OP since you already know everything 🙄

I have a 13 yo who I suspect has ADHD and she also hides clothes rather than put them away (although only in the back of the wardrobe) and is insanely messy.

I wouldn’t dream of expecting her to do laundry or hoovering. Yes she could do these things, but it would involve yet more nagging and reminding and would create yet more demands on her. I want her to use her brain space and relatively limited self discipline capabilities for the more basic things she really needs to be able to do at her age - like not lose her school stuff, get her homework done, not miss the school bus, and not lose her rag - rather than trying to master a laundry and hoovering routine which even NT people mostly don’t do until much older.

I think you are overloading her and expecting too much and I think the lying is related. It is simply easier for her in the immediate term to pretend she has done what you asked so you leave her alone for once.

Because the person goes and gets the thing and forgets/gets distracted/doesn’t manage the next step. They don’t do it on purpose.

Great advice ! And not only for ND kids.

So they take the thing that clearly doesn’t belong in a certain place and hide it there? The ADHD makes them stuff it in random places so it’s hidden?

It’s laziness. My youngest was similar, and admits it now.