Discipline for Lying at Age 4 1/2? - Allen,TX

I agree with definetly not putting hot sauce on a child's tongue. That's crazy!! Children this age may or may not fully understand what lying is. So, be careful not to punish for something he doesn't understand. Consequences are only effective if a child understands why. I would talk with him and teach him about lying when the opportunity arises. As he matures, you will know that he does understand what lying is and will be able to apply consequences when he chooses to do it. No little white lies for you or your husband either. You can't lie and expect him not to. I have to remind myself of that one a lot when I'm asked to do something I really don't want to do. Good luck!

Whatever you do pls don't put hot sauce on anyone's tongue unless you totally want to ruin your child's self-esteem!

My 4.5 year old does it too. They've just discovered they can get away with it but don;t yet know the 'immorality' of it. But they will in time. When my kid did the lying about the hand-washing, I just said, "Okay if your hands are clean, good for you, that way the bacteria from your hands won't go to your stomach where they make us all sick" It may still not work but it eventually will. Talk about right or wrong when things are more serious than that.

EDIT: I knew I would probably get blasted, as I said, but I did want to say, we do talk about lying, we do give them chances and this is a last resort-we don't just put hot sauce on their tongue without any warning or explanation and no it is not crazy-too many children these days lie b/c they aren't corrected from the start. And just for the record, with 3 kids we have only used hot sauce 4 times-it honestly doesn't take long to get the point across, it's only a dab and now our oldest, likes hot sauce and uses it on her food...go figure! LOL

I may get blasted for this but it's what we do. We put a dab of hot sauce on their tongue for lying and it works. We have 3 kids and they know we will do it and they DO NOT like it or want it. HTH

I won't claim to have the final answer, but my daughter (age 5) knows she gets extra punishment for lying. For instance, if she hit her brother, she is going to get time out or swats (depending on the situation). If she lies when asked about it, she automatically gets swats and at least two extras for the lie. After swats, we finish with discussion, prayer, and forgiveness. We make sure to praise her about telling the truth even when she is getting in trouble for an action. The combination of praise and extra punishment has made it less of a problem than it was a year ago.

I am going through the same thing but he blames things on the cat and his sisters even if they are not in the room. I automatically give him a time out for what he did and for lying and if when he comes out he still doesn't tell the truth then we ground him from something normally a favorite t.v. show and then he normally tells us the truth we also reinforce what lying is and that it is not ok!! It takes so much time but I am sooo glad I am not the only one dealing with a almost 4 year old doing this.

I have no idea what to do for this, but don't do the hot sauce thing. My mom put pepper on my tongue for saying a bad word (I didn't know what it meant, which made the punishment worse), and I didn't use pepper in food for 30 years.

I've read that lying is normal at this age, but it's not intentional in the same way as it is when kids are older. I think it's like "advanced pretending". He needs to learn what it is and that it's bad, and that he'll get into more trouble for lying about something than for actually doing or not doing what he's lying about.

Good luck!