On Lying

Our kids lie. A lot.

Often they lie to get things they want, get out of things they don't want, or to avoid getting into trouble. I would put that into the category of "normal" childhood behavior which needs to be corrected but is not alarming in any way.

Lies are frequently used to cover activities or behaviors that they don't want us to know about. This is not the same as lying to avoid getting into trouble. This kind of lying is more pre-meditated such as a kid saying they are at a school function or a certain friend's house when really they are sneaking off somewhere else or with someone else. Often my questions of "Where are you going?" and "Who else will be there?" are met with partial truth and some convenient omissions.

I expect to be lied to. I don't like it but I know it happens every day. Often I know they that have lied even when they don't know I know. I have ways of checking up. They all rat each other out so my spies are everywhere. I know how to use MySpace. A couple of the kids have "tells" and would make horrible poker players. Often I suspect the truth even when I can't prove it. A couple of the kids like to scream at me that they are the only ones who get in trouble for lies but that is not actually true. We don't give consequences for lying. Never. We can't. For some of these kids it has been a survival skill. But in any case, we can't prevent it and we set them up to constantly fail if we try to. We do give consequences for misbehaviors that we can prove. Often we know but we can't prove it.

Now crazy lying is a whole 'nother story. One of the kids is a master at it.

At school, she's gotten good grades and lots of sympathy for writing "really honest" journal entries and essays on things that never happened.

She tells stories of something that happened to someone else as if it happened to her. She calls soccer and basketball "her sports" even though she's never played before.

A few days ago I found a note on the floor that she had been passing back and forth to a friend in class which said minimum days "suck a**" and she'd rather be in school because she has it "rough at home". Oy.

I can't tell if she believes what she spins or not. Maybe it's part of the brain disorder she has or a coping behavior from growing up in her abusive birth family.

The Boss has started spinning tales too. He makes up things and says he saw it in a movie but it is often something he has just done. I'm trying to head off any tendency towards crazy lying so I tell him that's a funny made-up story.

The truth is out there. Hopefully someday it will find it's way home.