How do you handle lying? My sisters little sister who is 9 has been staying with me. I caught her in…
How do you handle lying? My sisters little sister who is 9 has been staying with me. I caught her in a lie and I told her I was going to give her time to decide if she wants to be honest with me or to continue to lie to me. I told her when she lies to me it breaks the trust I have with her. She has an issue with lying but to my knowledge this is the first time she’s lied to me. She has had a pretty rough life and she doesn’t have any stable parent to live with. I treat her like one of my own and I show her love and affection. I do my best to give her routine and structure while she’s here with me. I don’t know how long she will be here. She doesn’t want to leave but I don’t know if I can take on another child to be very honest. I know her behaviors are due to her past and from wanting and needing attention and even not knowing how to adjust to actually getting that love and attention since she wasn’t getting it. So anyways, when she comes back to talk besides telling her it hurts me she’s lied and telling her it will be hard to trust now how do I handle it ?
Mish·
I would ask her why she felt she needed to lie. Then validate her. Tell her you understand how hard it must be for her but that you are there for her regardless. She’s probably scared to be moved around again. Tell her that you guys will start fresh and focus on positives with her but encourage her to come to you when she’s struggling emotionally.
ETA: her lying is a symptom of something deeper. You need to help her figure that out.
Sistersmainpiece··
I spoke to her before I saw your comment. I told her that I wasn’t going to react like her other sisters do and there is never a reason to lie to me. No matter what it is she can be honest with me. I told her how trust works between us. I told her she can trust me to provide her a loving, clean, happy environment, she can trust that I will take care of her while she’s in my care and I’ll provide her needs. I told her I trust that she will be honest with me, she will do her best to make the right decisions and to put her best effort fourth in all things. I told her that lying breaks trust and it’s very hard to earn it back and trust being broke can work both ways between us too. She did decide to be honest with me and I told her while I’m appreciative of her being honest it does hurt that she lied but we can move forward. She thought I was mad at her and started to cry so I hugged her and told her I wasn’t mad at her.