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Syncletica
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| Posted: July 29 2012 at 10:55pm | IP Logged
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How do you deal with dishonesty and lying?
I know it is a very serious offense, that the Bible says 'thieves are better than liars although both will go to perdition' and that 'all liars go to Hell'. It's an issue that needs to get nipped in the bud.
How do you handle it?
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"Live as though your judge were to meet you today, and you will not fear Him when He does come." - St. Augustine
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: July 30 2012 at 6:11am | IP Logged
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How old is the offender? That makes a difference in how I deal with it.
There is a past thread about lying I will try to find. I recall some excellent advice including some from Angie that stuck with me. I believe she says something like, "It is your job to tell the truth and my job to believe you."
Aha, here it is
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Lindsay
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: July 30 2012 at 6:13am | IP Logged
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Here is Angie's post from that thread.
Angie Mc wrote:
I was just talking with an IRL friend about children lying. I find it to be one of the more difficult behaviors for moms, in general, to deal with. Here's something that has helped me...
I tell my children that it is their job to tell the truth and it is my job to believe them. In other words, it isn't my job to forever consider that they may be lying and to avoid looking like a fool - my job is to believe them and it is their job to practice telling the truth because they should eventually see the benefit of the truth and me believing them. Believing a child's lie isn't a sin. Lying is the problem. Over time, for some children more time than others, we work on that.
When I don't believe a child, I will tell the truth and say something like, "It is your job to tell the truth and it is my job to believe you. (pause...) I so want to believe you but I'm having a hard time. This is why...", then I point out details that just aren't adding up together. As they get older we liken this to solving a mystery, evidence, and the like.
If I have fallen for a lie, hook - line - and sinker, and the truth is found out, I will honestly say something like, "Wow, your job is to tell the truth and you didn't. I did my job and believed you. Now I feel foolish. Are you trying to make me look foolish? How would you feel if I lied to you and set you up to look foolish? I'm really sad about this. This hurts our relationship." Then I help the child to make ammends.
Oh, one more thing, I tend to give children 3 times to tell the truth. Often, a first lie will be sort of out of reflex. I'll say, "Do you need time to think about that?" (pause....) "Are you sure, sure? It's your job to tell the truth..."
There sure are all sorts of reasons that a child lies - to cover up or get out of trouble, to test boundaries, to add some drama to the moment or break boredom. Some are more inclinced by temperament or history/experience. I think its fine for a mom to not feel responsible for knowing the "why" beyond what is reasonable. She mainly needs a plan for what to do when it happens.
Hang in there, Lucy! Keep us posted on what works for you.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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| Posted: Aug 01 2012 at 9:50am | IP Logged
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Wow, that's great. I have one child who will reflexively . . . bend the truth, saying anything to get out of trouble. I recognize this particularly because *I* was that kind of child, with two basic kinds of lies that I told: 1) to get myself out of trouble, and 2) to make it seem in my own mind that things I really wished to happen had happened. I was not so good at the first kind, but very proficient at the second, all the way through middle school. So do I kind of recognize and understand the tendency to do this, and still have to work to make myself entirely truthful, especially under pressure, when I'd rather just duck out.
With regard to my own children: we had an instance recently -- and I posted about it in the prayer forum -- where some of our AHG girls had scratched their initials onto the freshly painted bathroom stalls in our church. Well, guess whose daughter was one of them. She wasn't the ringleader, for which I'm grateful -- the ringleader outright confessed -- but I had to wait for several rounds of "telling the story" before the truth of my daughter's involvement emerged from her own mouth.
At first it was "I was there, and X was doing this, and I knew it was wrong but I was too scared to say anything . . . " and this didn't ring entirely true to me. Her "memory" of things was just too hazy for someone who had been right there. Fortunately her own conscience wouldn't let up, and we talked about it in several rounds, until finally she told me something specific enough that it did ring true. l took the opportunity of talking about how our souls just won't rest easy if we're not telling the truth, and that God wants us to "come clean" for our own peace of mind. She went to Confession, ultimately, and felt much better and happier. This child is 8, by the way.
A really good book that I've used for this age group and younger -- I use it as an introduction to Confession with my FHC class -- is Dare Wright's Mr. Bear and Edith. The story deals with a character who breaks something, lies to cover it up, and then experiences alienation from everyone else until she tells the truth. It's quite a sweet, funny, *true* story, and for a younger child inclined not to tell the truth, it's a good resource.
We've had more trouble with lying/evading the truth in this age range and younger than we have with our older children, and I do think it's part and parcel of that run-up to attaining the age of reason. I emphasize *trust* with all my kids, and I love how Angie phrases it with hers. (going away now to practice that whole conversation in the mirror!)
For myself, as a parent, I don't want to live in an atmosphere of mistrust, not knowing whether what a child says to me is true; I don't think my children want to live in an atmosphere where their parents don't trust them, because to be trustworthy is to have freedoms and privileges and respect (I have to stress this to my 10yo son a lot, as he's jealous of all the things his older brother has earned the right to do). This, I think, is one reason why the Bible speaks so seriously about lying -- God takes breaches of trust seriously, because they strike at the heart of the family's unity, which mirrors the unity of the Trinity.
So -- and none of this is a practical suggestion, I realize, just thinking aloud about the issue -- I'm seeing issues of truthfulness as part of a sort of holistic picture of the family's life as an echo of the life of the Trinity. Lying is a bad *behavior*; on the other hand, my intuition is that ultimately, especially for an older child who can understand these things, the solution lies in emphasizing how we live together with other people, and how we want to be trusted and respected. That's the kind of relationship God means for us to live in, where we don't even feel the need to hide any part of ourselves. We have, as a default mode, trusted our older children (now 18 and 14) to tell the truth and be, in general, trustworthy people, and that means a lot to them, both because it means they get to have a lot of freedom and because, especially as they mature, being that kind of person means something to them, too, in and of itself.
In general, lying creates its own consequences: you eventually get found out, and then people know you've lied and trust you less. I think I'd build any consequences of my own design (to deal with a particular lie I had found out) on Angie's model: you've betrayed my trust, I feel foolish for believing you, this hurts our relationship, how can you make amends and earn back my trust? Or, if they've lied to someone else: now that person won't trust you as much, until you have demonstrated, maybe over a long period of time, that you can be trusted.
In my own experience, though, the person who has lied (or otherwise even thinks he/she might have betrayed my trust in some way -- sometimes my kids have been actually over-scrupulous about this) punishes him/herself pretty thoroughly, internally. My little initial-scratcher was *miserable* and wanted me to punish her, because that would actually have been easier than confessing (sacramentally or in the ordinary everyday way) to Fr. and her other AHG leaders than she had done something wrong.
OK, this is enough ruminating! And it's not actual advice, just how I've thought about and experienced this particular issue. Mostly, though, I just love Angie's framing of it, and I really am going to memorize those lines!
Sally
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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: Aug 01 2012 at 2:21pm | IP Logged
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I would try to figure out the reason for the lying. As a child I lied all the time. I was aloud to get away with it for one thing! But, I was also a very shy child and I lied to save myself from being uncomfortable. And in hindsight it never helped once! Once as a child we were at a family friend's house and they gave the kids popsicles. We were suppose to take the wrapper off, throw it away, and then go outside to eat it. I accidentally dropped mine in the trash in the process. I was so embarrassed and didn't want anyone to know what I did. I did nothing wrong and I should have just asked for help. But, most adults scared me and I was too scared and just went outside and said I finished it already. When the adult in charge found it she made me eat it! This is why I have never forgot about this.  But, my whole childhood is full of situations just like this! My parents never could figure out or corrected it. I so wish they had done something and saved me from all the humiliation that I endured. So, please figure out why the child is lying and go from there to fix it.
I notice this same behavior in my youngest and I am trying to figure out how to fix it. I guess it is genetic.  Lying is not a problem for me as an adult and my honesty usually gets me in trouble.  So, people do change and still hope for the future of this child.
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4Real Forums : Mothering and Family Life
Topic: Lying
