How do you deal with your teen lying?

DD, 14, lied to my face the other day. She was late home from school. I knew there was something up but her lie was plausible. I told her I thought she was lying. She said she wasn't. Turns out she had wagged school for the day with her friends. They were busted today by the school. She narrowly escaped suspension. Her year co-ordinator rang me. She was so surprised she would be making the call as she considered DD to be one of the good kids. DD is on monitoring till the end of this term. She thinks DD has learnt her lesson as she says DD was mortified, then fell apart when told that the school had to notify me. I don't think she has. She came home blaming her friends saying they told her it was ok to leave school. I asked her to clarify that her friends told her it was ok to leave school and go to the beach for the day? She quickly changed her story. She admitted that they had wagged school 3 days this week as a group.

I'm so furious with her. She has put herself in a position where she is going to be expelled from an excellence programme that she worked hard to get in to but also she lied right to my face. Then kept on lying. I'm struggling to even look at her because I'm so disappointed. I thought more of her than that. I'm also doing my very best not to go off my nut at her. That's what she was expecting.

My ex isn't in the picture so there is no opinion from him.

I think that you have handle yourself really well so far keeping your cool. Maybe sleep on it tonight and then come up with a suitable punishment tomorrow?

Sorry not much more advice to give my oldest is 3.5 yrs and has already started to lie a bit lately!?!?!?! so I must admit I am a bit at a loss what to say to her

I have a DS 15, who has also taken to lying on occasion. You have handle yourself well not to go off at you DD.

I have found going off my tree does not help. I generaly take the road of letting my DS know just how dissappointed I am in him. I have found this can work and not yelling can be effective.

If this is a sudden change in you DS behaviour, maybe try asking her what has changed at school and are there any issues with her friends that she felt the need to leave school (to be in and not on the outer).

This site has some excellent articles about behaviour in general but in particular lying:
http://www.empoweringparents.com/articles.php

(e.g. esp. this one: http://www.empoweringparents.com/What-to-D...?&key=Lying )

hope that helps; the main thing I have found it not to take the lying personally - its just a simplistic way of getting what they want, its nothing to do with hurting you.

This almost exact same scenario happened to me this week. My son is a well behaved, quiet, bright student and yet wagged school twice this week with all the same stuff as described above.

My question is: Do you let the other parents know that their kids wagged too? I was the only one to find out, I told one of the parents as she is a long term friend. What about the others? The school? Is it my place to tell everyone?

Aside from the issue of her lying I'd be wanting to know how the school weren't aware that they were missing multiple kids for multiple days! They should be contacting parents by mid morning at the latest to find out why they aren't at school.

It is legally in their best interests to do this. I know this is alarmist/unlikely etc but what if a kid gets abducted walking to school and the school doesn't even notice they are not there and it isn't until late afternoon that a parent finds out they are missing?

Often being a 'good kid' is part of why they will deceive, kids at this age generally don't like any part of who they are to be taken for granted. They're trying to figure out why they are and that means trying out things others consider them 'not to be' - most particularly adults.

Unfortunately, I have a long history with a child prone to lying - his is impulse and anxiety related (my eldest), so it's part of a condition, however, it is never excused because of that. He may have to work harder than others to control his impulses, but he doesn't need to lie when caught doing stuff he should be doing. There have been many, many disappointments along the way. I keep telling him he's smarter than that.

Natural consequences work the best in our house - if the consequence is directly as a result of his behaviour, he's more like to pay attention to it rather than if it is only set to 'make him suffer'.

This is something I worry about as I was one of those 'good kids' that Sif mentioned. I was a good student at school but used to do all sorts of things and lie about them and never get caught whereas my brother just couldn't lie convincingly and was always getting busted. So far my daughter seems to tell me most things (certainly a lot more than I did at her age) and I am hopeful that this will continue as she hits the 'danger years'. I can already see that my son is going to be a worry as he already lies about the simplest things like whether he has homework, whether he has cleaned his teeth etc. None of this is earth shattering now but it is an extremely bad habit that I would like to break before he gets to high school. (Should probably post this in the younger age forum - as he is only 9yo at the moment).