Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Lying

What to do....

My six-year-old (I can't believe he's six already!) has been lying lately. He'll tell us that his younger brother did something, little brother will deny it, and six-year-old will say "he's a liar".

Eventually he comes forth and tells us he was lying. How do I get him to understand that he can't lie? What is an appropriate punishment? He already lost TV privliges for a couple of days for spanking an adult at church (he thinks it's funny, but we've told him he can't do it). I guess he'll lose bike privliges too.

I remember going through a lying phase, but I stopped when my mom told me that there might come a time when someone would accuse me of something I didn't do, and if I lied to her she wouldn't be able to stand up for me and say that her daughter didn't lie... I've tried a similar phrase on my six-year-old but he doesn't seem to care.

Sometimes I have no idea how to hande things... :)

1 comment:

wordsfromhome said...

Think about some less sophisticated rephrasing of what your mama said. The hypothetical future is not as important to a 6 year old as what happens to him here and now. You might not have been much older, but perhaps a little more thoughtful about your future at the time.