[Carmen02]

What would your punishment be for lying?? Im so over it, DD lies so much, we take away ipad time, take away her PSP and ipod and she earns them back and goes straight back to lying. She is in grade 5 this year and is doing everything in her power not to do homework, she has a quiet place away from her two brothers to do homework but she continues to play around or avoid it..I sit down with her to help she doesnt want it..DH tries..and she plays around on DH so he goes away.

Last night she came home and told me her teacher had her homework book and diary (where she has to record her reading which she has to do everyday) and i thought it was unusual but when i get a chance to seek a look in her bag i see nothing so i left it...till this morning they went off to school and i was picking up clothes from her room to discover her homework book and diary under her bed!!!!! Lying has always been a huge no from me..Ive had it to much growing up people close to me I have zero tolerance for it..but Im at a loss what to do when she gets home...

[Soprano-Cat]

Find out why she's lying, for a start.

* Avoiding something because it's too hard?
* Trying to get attention because she (feels) neglected?
* Trying to avoid getting into trouble because she feels like she'll get punished unfairly?

The third one in particular is why *I* used to lie as a teen - I felt like my parents had NFI who I was as a person and they didn't tailor their rules/consequences/rewards appropriately, so I lied to try and get the minimum punishment for whatever it was they deemed I'd done wrong.

[sedawson]

Hmm, okay.
So she is lying about homework particularly. Is this the major subject about which she is dishonest or does she also lie about other things?
If it is mostly about homework then dig deeper to find out why she's not doing it. It's unlikely to be sheer laziness. What are her academic abilities like overall? Is she having trouble reading or recognising numbers or something like that?
I do have lots of suggestions about how to help her understand that we can't be dishonest with one another but my gut is that it's something more specific than general lying that needs to be uncovered.
Sometimes kids lie because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that there'll be some kind of rejection if they tell the truth.

[Jetay]

I've also stressed over my 8yr old DD telling lies. I've tried all kinds of methods to get her to stop, speaking calmly, getting cross, punishing etc nothing seems to work. When I was venting to my mum about this she told me "Believe me do not make a big deal out of it, we did with your brother and we regret it so much now " my brother was shocking for telling lies too and my parents came down hard on him for it just trying to get him to stop. Nothing worked and he eventually grew out of it but both my parents deeply regret how hard they were on him now, because they see now it was something they simply had to wait for him to out grow. My cousin was also the same. So what I do now, when say an argument starts between DD and her brother, I simply say "Sorry DD but because you tell me lies from time to time, I just don't know when i can believe you" She gets devastated when i say that and hey presto the amount of lies are decreasing. As for the homework I would just keep in close communication with her teacher, do you have a communication book even? And explain the situation to the teacher, ask that some consequences be handed out at school if homework is not completed eg. staying in at play time etc. I know this can be an extremely frustrating subject and it drives me nuts too! But I'm sure it will come to an end in good time