DD constant lying | Imamother

amother

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 4:22 pm

DD is 10 and diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety. She’s always told small impulsive lies to avoid things she doesn't want (she might say she has no hw, didn’t hit her brother, didn’t have a snack yet, etc.). Though not great, those were relatively harmless and we were working with a therapist as to how to respond and when.

Recently though, it has gotten more extreme and less harmless. She will get into a small argument with a friend and then start making up details that never happened. She told me how a neighbor was mad and stepped on her foot and then cut her hair - except it was very obvious no hair was cut! Or she will say a girl ruined her class project, but then I will see it hanging on her bulletin board. The list goes on…

I’m really struggling with what to do from here. If we believe her, she gets all this attention for something untrue and reinforces that she should continue lying. If we call her out on it, she starts angrily answering “fine! Do t believe me!” I’m worrying that we are going to destroy our relationships with her, and as she gets older she won’t feel comfortable coming to us when she needs.

Please please advise! (She has her own therapist that she is seeing and is medicated for ADHD.)

amother

NeonBlue

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 4:50 pm

behappy2 wrote:

Ask her therapist. Didn't worry that you are ruining your relationship. Call her out. She will respect you for it.

A respected parenting expert told me to "not notice" my son's lies as much as possible, and to not confront him with things that will cause him to lie or continue to make up stories, as that makes him more of a liar. Now, he knows my kid, so maybe he's understanding where the cause of lying is coming from (major anxiety) and for a different kid he might say different. But I'm just passing on the advice I got for my teen who lies multiple times a day about many things.

Also, gotta say that telling someone not to worry about ruining her relationship with her 10 yr old sounds like bad advice. We need our kids to feel safe with us, to trust in us, not to feel attacked by us.

amother

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 6:38 pm

amother NeonBlue wrote:

Right so about the smaller constant lies, we were told not to challenge them and cause a power struggle. We were taught a specific way to call her out with little drama when we were 100% certain of the lie.

The issue is here is that she will cry to me about other students bullying her and give made up examples! I’m not sure what to do! I will speak to her therapist but that’s not for close to a week.

amother

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 6:40 pm

amother Lightcoral wrote:

You wrote she has anxiety. Does she have any compulsive tendencies? Lying can be a compulsion. My dd with ocd used to do this before we treated her

I haven’t specifically noticed any compulsive tendencies but it really is something I haven’t seen much of…No excessive handwashing or counting that I have seen! What else would I look out for?

amother

Lightcoral

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:01 pm

amother OP wrote:

I haven’t specifically noticed any compulsive tendencies but it really is something I haven’t seen much of…No excessive handwashing or counting that I have seen! What else would I look out for?

Cognitive Rigidity, perfectionism, extreme rule following, very hung up on fairness, extreme punctuality, black and white thinking, intrusive thoughts ? How does her anxiety play out?

amother

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:20 pm

amother Lightcoral wrote:

Cognitive Rigidity, perfectionism, extreme rule following, very hung up on fairness, extreme punctuality, black and white thinking, intrusive thoughts ? How does her anxiety play out?

She is a funny combination of rigidity and not noticing rules! I think it’s the anxiety with impulsive hyperactive ADHD!

Zero punctuality. Does get stressed when people break rules in school. Sometimes black and white, and sometimes totally not. Not sure about intrusive thoughts, but sometimes perseverates on anxious thoughts and ideas.

The anxiety diagnosis actually surprised me, but when we did a full psycho-ed eval it came up based on her interviews/questionnaires. She always reacted strongly to her specific triggers and struggles to get past them. Gets nervous if we go out at night and she doesn’t know the babysitter, terrified of robbers and some specific animals, etc. I knew she was anxious, but didn’t realize it was to the point of constant stress (that was how she answered on her interviews).

behappy2

Thu, Mar 21 2024, 7:46 pm

amother NeonBlue wrote:

You only destroy the relationship if you get confrontational about it. You just say "I know that didn't happen" and move on. But for sure get the therapists advice and one week is hardly long to wait. Whatever you do in this one week will not kill her. Just don't get into fights over it. When you keep pandering to her in fear of a meltdown you tell her that you are not being authentic with her and that she is the parent. I'm sure it's not easy.

amother

Impatiens

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 1:03 am

I would try simply validating her until you can ask the therapist.

For example:
DD: Today in school a girl cut my hair and ripped up my project!
You: (Looking at her and with real feeling) Oh no, that must have been so upsetting! (Continue with whatever you were doing before)

As long as she continues the conversation, continue validating, but don't perpetuate it by asking follow up questions.

amother

Lightgreen

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 3:39 am

Just a thought because I'm thinking she's craving a certain kind of sympathy or reaction from you. I wonder what would happen if you said to her one day (not when she was doing it), "I feel like sometimes you have a need to tell me things that you're imagining, even if they didn't really happen. How about we set aside x minutes every day when you tell me things that didn't happen and we both pretend that they did. After that time, we can talk about what really happened that day."

You can also the time after the "role play" to talk about why she came up with those scenarios, what feelings they triggered her and why she might be thinking about those feelings. Just a thought but only if you think it would help her to demarcate the time between real and fake.

amother

Fri, Mar 22 2024, 5:43 am

amother Lightgreen wrote:

Interesting.

I think she’s making up these stories to make a minor real scenario more extreme and elicit a stronger reaction from me, but it’s not necessarily a conscious decision. At one point when I was talking to her after the fact, I asked her why she does this. Her response was I have no idea.