How do you deal with this as it seems like you either punish an innocent child or let off one who has lied?

[FabIsGoingToGetFit]

Not sure what to do.

DD said DS1 got his willy out and did a wee in the garden. DS1 shouted that he did not. They have had several chances to tell the truth. Still do not know what it is.

We even reminded them of the other day when DS1 swore to me he wasn't lying, he shouted in my face he was telling the truth and then half an hour later admitted he had done what his sister said he had.

Similar situation now that he has shouted and she is crying but I can't assume it is the same result - him lying, her not.

I said when I went to bed I wanted to find a note telling me the truth. I thought that would be a good way of them feeling able to admit it.

(He has brought me a note saying - Mummy why won't you believe me. I never lie to get (his sister's name) into trouble. She always gets me in it.)

I know a lot of children lie but I would like to know the truth.

what's wrong with ds doing a wee in the garden (onless he's 12 obviously ?

what age are they both?

When this happens in my house I get offending dc's to sit together on bench and tell them they must stay there until someone owns up. If time passes, (ie half hour) without someone cracking, (only happened once) I say I will give 5 mins then take a privalage from each and same every 5 mins, gradually getting more serious each 5 mins

also, I say how disappointed I am that I am being lied to, if they own up the punishment will be less.

Does it really matter that someone may have done a wee in the garden? Is he frightened of the punishment and what would the punishment be??

If I had to sit on a bench and be punished with someone who had lied about me to an authority figure (whether "he did X" or "He's lying about me doing X") I'd be VERY resentful.

I'd be tempted to punish the one with a track record and read that child the story of the boy who cried wolf.

And I'm with Fab, yes it matters that someone who has a younger sister old enough to grass him up has done a wee in the garden. Toilet trained people should use toilets.

pronia it has happened only once when it took more than 10 mins, tis very effective but my dc's are 6,12 and 15. Don't use this this with 5 and 3 yr olds.

I have to say the weeing in garden becomes less of an issue than being lied to imo. (although agree with those who say at an age when they are able to use loo then they should unless caught very short)

wow, what a mountain out of a molehill... your dcs are only young iirc, not nice peeing in the garden but hardly worth more than a simple 'please don't do that X' (and i'm a fairly strict parent but there's no way could i waste a whole day argueing about something so trivial!)

dd lies alot and ds1 rarely does... the upshot is we don't believe her very often but usually take wwhat he says at face value, consequently she's actually started to tell the truth more often as she wants to be believed. think it depends on the child though, some would take that approach as an excuse to lie more on the grounds that 'ye never believe me anyway so why tell the truth'

Well, it matters to me as I would prefer my children not to wee in the garden.

He is 9, she is 6.

They are not frightened of anything.

I tell them they get themselves into more trouble - once for what they have done and again for lying.

I am not talking beatings, they might miss watching Doctor Who or have to go to bed a bit earlier. All depends.

Tulips - I am not making a mountain out of a molehill, nor have I spent all day on this .

I have no shame in saying my children have not been brought up to piss in the garden especially when thew toilet is about 6 paces away. The lying has made it a bigger issue for me.

just about every time I post on here to ask how to deal with something I get told I am doing it all wrong, over reacting, etc etc.

fab I would take what people say on here with a bit of a pinch of salt sometimes tbh.

What have you done about it btw

The issue for me is lying.

If he had said he had done it I would have said not to do it again and that would have been it.

Mine went through a phase where they did this sort of thing a lot and tbh I never found I got anywhere by concentrating resources on trying to find out exactly who had lied or talking about how bad lying was: the more I did it, the more they stepped up on the lying, I found I was just painting myself into corners.

Liahgen's approach did not work for us: they could go on for hours, even days, getting more upset all the time and after a while I found they both started doing the kind of thing that the problem was about in the first place because everybody was just getting so stressed and the innocent one started feeling there was no point in being good if you're going to get punished anyway.

Eventually, I backed away and took an approach more like Mildmannered's and thge problem stopped: don't know if it was because of my altered approach or whether they just grew out of it.

What I would not do would be use Pronoia's approach and punish the one with a track record: when I did eventually catch somebody red handed I was surprised to find it was not the child with the track record: in fact, as far as I can make out in hindsight, it was probably a case of six of one and half a dozen of the other. And if you punish someone just for having been in trouble in the past, there is absolutely no incentive for that child to stay out of trouble next time; they know they're going to get it in the neck anyway.

Fwiw I would feel the same, maybe another chat tonight saying if there's no confession then x will be the punishment they will both suffer.

You are certainly not overreacting more than I was, Fab, but I did find a calmer approach worked better for us when I could bring myself to actually do it.

agree with cory re punishing one with track record

I find it hard to get worked up about someone having a pee in their own garden, but if I thought it was important, this would have been a perfect time for my famous double whammy.

"X, don't pee in the garden, Y, don't tell tales. Now go away, the pair of you - I don't want to hear any more about it"

End of story.

Oh to be so wise at the time.

But that only works if he has weed and she has told tales.

Again, it is the lying I am annoyed by.

I totally get how bad the lying is - for me it's worse than the act. I think they should be given a chance to own up and then if neither admits they aren't telling the truth then I would send them to their rooms til one did.

once I'd checked that ds hadn't pretended to do it to annoy his sister - leaving it to be true that he didn't do it but her not lying either as she thought he had (being 6).

Let it go but say pointedly I know one of you is lying and now I may find it hard to trust either you. I hope you talk about this and decide to tell me the truth

give them both an amnesty - this time

Tell them both - not at the same time, in private - that this one time, you will not get angry. Truth is better and you will appreciate the truth and you promise to leave it and not mention it again. If son is lying and he comes to you, thank him for being honest, tell him that although peeing in the garden isn't nice, lying just makes you more angry. Same if daughter fesses up, telling tales not the issue etc

I have always told mine I will not punish for small things but I will every time for lying. They are all large teens and each one tells me the truth about important issues (when I suspected smoking for example)

I would do what TMMJ said. Otherwise it becomes a Big Deal, and the lies will become entrenched while they fight their corner.

If he had weed in the garden I would have been really surprised as none of them has ever done it before but I would have told him not to do it again.

I hate the lying.

I will go and have a talk with them both.

Thanks.