Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Middle Child Syndrome?



Hey there. I'm a little more than steamed right now. As my wife was washing the dishes, she uncovered a whole bowl's worth of cereal hanging out in the sink. We called in the kids (our two oldest had cereal) and asked them who was the one that threw it in the sink. Must've been the ghost of the house because they said it wasn't them. If there is anything that really gets to us, it's liars. We've explained many times to our kids that we will not tolerate lying in the house. Even after we made it very clear that if no one fessed up, they would both get in trouble. Still no one confessed. It wasn't until I said that the person that confesses will NOT get in trouble. That's when our middle child confessed and said it was her.

Why does she continue to lie to us? We've already told her countless times that lying just makes things worse and she is making it very difficult for us to believe her anymore. She's been on this streak of lying that we're beginning to feel that no matter what the punishment is, it's just not sinking in. I threatened her with boot camp, she just turned 7, and I did it as a bluff, but now I feel like maybe that's the way to go. It's pretty damn obvious that we're not getting through to her and maybe some tough love will go a long ways. I just don't know where to turn right now. We instill good morals and ethics and for the most part, they listen and follow the rules, but I just don't know what her deal is lately that she's been the rule breaker of the house. She even went as far as STEALING gum from her grandpa's drawer and said it wasn't her... I'm not going to be raising a criminal and we need to find a solution to this "mean" streak now before it really gets out of hand...

My wife is online right now looking through articles to see what other parents are doing. She came in here and just told me that some articles mentioned that this seems to happen to kids in the first grade. Our boy, the oldest, had his incident with lying. I gave him the punishment of his life and that was the last of that. Come to think of it, I think that was about the same age that she's in now... I don't know, we're just hoping that's it's a phase and it will soon pass.

Until then, later.

1 comment:

  1. i also have three little ones. ) ages 3, 7, 10) and have seen that patteren. I changed that with two diffrent things, If they tell me the truth right away. i dont yell at them or they dont get in trouble, but when they lie they do. and i also told them when they lie there hair stands up, so its easy to spot it now.. its the one holding there head going dang it how did you know it was me..

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