Bit of a story here..Yesterday, Jors came home after playing at the park with his mate Tom. He was covered head to toe in mud. he said that him and Tom were walking near the pond and 3 boys were skimming stones into the water and one of the stones sprayed mud onto him. Fair enough, could possibly be true but instinct was telling me otherwise. Turns out after we questioned him and had him backed into a corner, that he was covered because they were mucking about and there was no other boys involved. He said he lied because he thought we would get angry at him for getting muddy...true, I probably would have. But then I have always said honesty is best and that you cant get into trouble if you are honest. So with him finally coming clean, how could I get angry at him..but really I am fuming cos his uniform is trashed and its a new shirt. How do u deal with this? Do u let them get away with it because they fessed up or do you be angry because they lied to begin with and therefore that would be proving that yes, we would get angry for him getting dirty and so then that justifies why he felt he had to lie.
I have nannied all diff aged kids. I would tell them that if they did something wrong it was best to tell the truth and get into trouble for that than to lie and get into twice the trouble. When they did tell me the truth i would thank them for being honest. The punishment would be less...but if they told a lie...i would really tell them off and punish them harsh. SO like no pudding, have to writ elines out, no tv etc etc.
How old is your son? Maybe make him clean his shirt?? If he makes a huge mess in the laundry make him clean that too?? Or you could tell him thanks for telling the truth. Shame you didn't tell me straight away. Your punishment is to pay for a new shirt. That way he will know he can come to you to tell you honestly. It does work and your kids will feel they can come to you..no matter what the out come is.
If I am understanding correctly he would have gotten into trouble for messing about and getting his uniform all muddy whether he lied or not. So he is correct in his assumption.
So what could you do.
As far as getting his clothes all muddy. I don't think you should punish at all, not thinking about where your playing is life but with life there are consequences. So in this case him cleaning his clothes and having to get the stains out i.e elbow grease and scrubbing. .
But then sit him down and give him a punishment because he lied and point out to him making sure he understands that this is only occurring because he lied and if he had not he would only have to clean his clothes. This punishment should be a proper punishment that is seen as that.
You could get him to start doing his own washing so that he might be a little more careful in the future. Boys are boys, but then again, girls are just as grubby.
the incident has already passed. what i would do is have a talk about why you were upset about his lying. Warn him that in the future, punishment will be twice that of normal if he caught out lying. Explain why lying is not acceptable and give examples if you can. reward truthfulness with some leniency.
Hey! I struggle with this too - I hate lying above everything and tell my kids that if they are honest with me about what they've done they get less punishment. So, I'm with the others on this, but I just wanted to sympathise and say we have the same problem. My son is about to turn 5 and we are suddenly getting lots of "it wasn't me" and "I don't know" where he used to be so good at telling me the truth.....
I would definately punish him for lying. The mucking round and getting sure is frustarting but as kid's this will happen, it's him who has to wear the shirt to school.
Tell him you would have gotten angry at him for getting dirty and wrecking the shirt but not necessarily punished him if he'd come home and been honest and said he really didn't mean to wreck his shirt. Let him know the reason he is being punished is only because he lied.
I wrote an article on Children and lying here I hope you can get something out of it.
Give a punishment first for doing the wrong thing. Then explain that you are giving another punishment for lying about it. Ask them that they understand why they are receiving the punishment.
Explain that, if he told the truth, he'd be receiving one punishment only. Lying gives double the punishment. Also important to remind him that liars are always found out eventually & that makes things worse.
There is the fact here that he did tell the truth eventually so maybe that could help. Tell him that, because he did end up telling the truth, the punishment will be brought down a bit.
My son would get into trouble at school & lie about it. He soon learnt that lies get found out. By using methods such as I've outlined here, he has learnt to be honest. He knows that, even though he may be in trouble, he'll be in more trouble if he lies.
Personally I'd be very upset that you were lied to in the first place.
My step daughter has done this, and we have explained better to get in trouble now for what you did do, then to get into trouble later when we find out you lied to us... Not that she would get into trouble for telling the truth.
Maybe you just use this as a stepping stone and tell him that he should not lie to you, and that each time you hear a lie you lose a little trust and you don't want to be questioning every thing he tells you...
I would probably be more upset finding out the truth later, after he already thought he got away with it, then finding out straight away...
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