Sunday, October 15, 2006

Crying wolf

Kady has become quite the fibber lately. I don't remember the other two going through a phase like this, but then again, Kady hasn't done much of anything like the other two. I'm getting very tired of it and have really stepped up the consequences of her lying. Mrs. E wrote on her blog last week about a kid who lied in her class and I commented, mentioning that Kady has become a bit of a liar herself. She emailed me back about a book her son had as a child and I can hardly wait to get my hands on it. I know all kids go through a phase where they try their hand at fibbing, but she's getting ridiculous!

Like tonight, we were in her room putting winter clothes into the closet. She was trying on a pair of jeans that we'd missed in the initial trying-on-of-clothes ritual last month and I asked if they felt too big around the waist. She immediately launched into a tall tale about her teacher at school and a dolphin and the police and how Miss Charlene tried to staple her jeans so they'd stay up and then one of her teeth fell out. Now, I have been a little busy lately and a little on the depressed side, but I haven't been so distracted that I've overlooked a missing tooth! And I have yet to find loose staples in the laundry. Her first attempts at lies were small and while detectable, still fairly harmless. Now they're just getting ridiculous.

I'm going to have to get creative in breaking her habit, though. She's entirely too smart for her own good. After hearing the dolphin/missing tooth/stapled jeans story I asked her if she'd ever heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. She said she hadn't. She's not one to pass up a good story, though, so she settled into my lap and curled up, expecting to hear a wonderful fable, I'm sure. I told her the story and she listened intently. When I finished up she didn't say anything for awhile. Finally I said, "So now do you understand why it's so important to always tell the truth?"

She looked off into space very thoughtfully, then said, "Okay, so da boy cwied woof two times before dey stopped bewieving him?" I thought back to how I'd told the story and then nodded. She stood up, flipped her hair over her shoulder and said, "Oh good. So I can wie two times befowe you stop bewieving me."

8 comments:

Kellyology said...

LOL...you're so screwed...;)

Queen Of Cheese said...

At least you know she was listening!

GERBEN said...

LMAO! OMG, girl you are in so much trouble!

RJ said...

sounds like she has the beginnings of a writer--fiction! Maybe you could start helping her write it all down and explain that stories on paper that others can read can be fun and do not have to be true just made up in her head . She is smart enough to learn the difference, I think. After all she is your daughter!!

Scribbit said...

If you find some way to fix that whole lying thing, let me know because I've got one that isn't getting any better at it, just better at making the stories believable.

Anonymous said...

I'm nodding my head here in understanding. Our oldest went through a lying phase in 3rd grade. It was so bad that she had her entire class, teacher included, convinced that she had won a contest and was going to sing the National Anthem at a Dallas Stars game the following weekend. The teacher asked me one day how the trip was, and I had no idea what she was talking about. Imagine my surprise!

We talked to her a lot about the whole lying thing. Explained how when you lie about things like this it makes it hard for us to trust with anything. Eventually she outgrew it, thankfully.

Cazzie!!! said...

OMG...they are just too smart for us aren't they? Tomas (9yrs)has tried this a couple of times..and so I just took away something that he enjoys playing with..or even just stopped him riding his motor bike for a certain length of time.
But, Sarah(5 yrs) is beginning to tell stories..not sure when to define between story telling and plain lying here at times.
I told her it is great to have an imagination, but to tell a story as though it is true when it is not is not right. Bet I will have to tell her that a few times more now though!

Jan said...

Oh the lying---I rememebr it well. I say remember it because back in '03, the lying was so bad, I cancelled Halloween. No costume. No parties. No trick or treating. NADA!!

I had had enough. DD got so bad that even when you caught her red handed, she would still deny it and play drama queen, "I don't know why you won't believe me..."tears rolling down her face.... the coup de grace was when she blamed her 18 month old brother for breaking the new DVD player. Hubby was this close () to child abuse when I finally got the DVD player open and found a perfectly folded pair of Strawberry Shortcake panties lodged in there. When confronted with the evidence she still said he did it............So Halloween was cancelled.

I hope you don't have to get that drastic......

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