Can't trust 14 yr old ds

[mymadworld]

My 14 year-old DS has always been one for telling half-truths, lying by omission or twisting the answer to avoid the truth with quite often silly and pointless things and we've got into a ridiculous pattern of me checking up on him or quizzing him in things that really don't matter to see if he will answer honestly. eg goes to town after school and buys a Big Mac meal then when he's not interested in dinner & I ask he'll deny having anything or going to meet a friend in the park if I ask if they went back to his (pre lockdown I should add) he'll say no then I bump into the mum a week later and have to pretend hat I knew he spent the afternoon at theirs and thank her for feeding him .

He's nearly 15 I want to be able to give him some freedom I want to be able to trust him but he's got so used to lying it's almost as if he struggles to just tell the truth. How can we get out of this pattern as it's not good for our relationship and he's (rightly) feeling controlled at an age where he wants some freedom.

Start simple. Explain he needs to earn trust. If he's truthful he can do more stuff but also involve him in the process of deciding how this works. Sit him down and tell him he is growing up and you think he should be able to do more but that you need to know where he is and to trust he will be back when he says he will. You don't always need to know what he's doing. Just ' going to town, back at 5' should do. Let him come up with what happens if he's late without asking/ lies about where he is. If he is part of the solution he is more likely to stick to it. Better to give him the freedom now with guidelines. Soon enough he will just take it...

You're absolutely right and I wish it were that simple but we've had that conversation about wanting to give him more freedom and earning trust a million times - he just doesn't seem bothered and is almost resigned to the status quo.

What do you do when you catch him in a lie? Are there consequences?

I want him to tell the truth but I guess the only way of knowing for sure is asking him questions I know he'll typically lie about (usually his whereabouts or what he's eating as he's a huge snacker/junk food fan). I think I need to take a step back from it and let him make his own mistakes and less control might mean less reason to lie.

I think you're reaching the right decision on your own there, OP. Less questioning means less reason to lie, which in turn means less time he is thinking of himself as a liar or of lying as something he does. You don't actually need to know what he has eaten. Or in any great detail where he has been. I would start scaling back gradually. Think of other reactions you could have if he turns out not to be hungry. Often no reaction at all is as good as any. Or a simple "oh well, you can have some if you get hungry later".

And as Redwine said, at this age, knowing when he'll be back and a very vague general description of going to town should be quite enough. Not telling you more is not a breakdown of trust or a sign of evasion, it's just a normal need for privacy.

Mine didn't lie to me at that age (I don't think), but they did when they were younger and I found that the more I insisted on the truth, the more I kept going on about truth being the only thing that mattered- the more they lied.