Need Advice - Enid,OK

Consequences are key to all discipline. Around here my sons lose something for breaking the rules. The little one loses his freedom the older one loses one thing at a time until he only has his freedom left then he loses his freedom too.

It's key to avoid feeding her need by having a long drawn out conversation with her like in this parenting style:
http://lifematters.com/step.asp

Consistency is the second step. Take it away then make sure she has a chance to earn it back by deed not words.

very logical and revelant consequences is all i can say!!!! make the crime fit the punishnemt... my kids know if they are honest with me about the act they chose i will not punish them further however for me to be disapointed with them is the worst possible they can recieve and they really hate me being disapointed... worth a try

what else is going on in this girl's life? it sounds to me that there may be other issues underneath the lying problem. the lying is probably just a coping mechanism or a way of getting attention. have her parents divorced or has she moved recently? or any other big life things that have happened around the time that the lying started? i would look into that first, not just addressing the lying. you have to find out the reason why she feels the need to lie. otherwise, just trying to force her to tell the truth won't do any good!

Hi fellow mother, I am a single mom of a 2 1/2 year old, I don't have any experience with this situation but I do have an opinion. I don't know what kind of kid she was or how the relationship with her mom is but it seems to me on the surface that this 6 year old is 6 in her body but not in her emotional state. She is still a little kid in there somewhere and hasn't developed properly. Telling her lying is wrong will only compound the problem as she is only hearing your words and not fully understanding what you are trying to convey to her. Without making the issue any bigger than it already is I think that personally what I would do is to spend a great deal of time with her. Cooking in the kitchen and playing make believe and having tea parties and when she tells you something just smile and say oh yea? thant sounds nice dear, just start believing her and accepting her behavior or she is going to get alot worse. She needs some love and acceptance right now and for some reason she is needing attention, kids that age don't intentionally do anything maliscious or wrong, she is trying to communicate her desire for more love and reassurance that she is ok, basically she does not know how to act, and alot of kids like to play make believe and she needs more of that, she has a great imagination and if you support it and cultivate it she may becaome a great writer or something someday. Attention and Love, my personal remedy.

What sort of consequences does she have when she behaves this way? From what it sounds like (form the info you have given) it's almost like she needs tougher consequences. Sometimes just telling them it is wrong doesn't get the point across but by punishing them (grounding, restrictions, etc) and sticking to the punishment will work better. I may be way off base, I'm just going on what info you have given.

I know with my daughter when she lies, etc she loses privileges. She has to go to bed early, I remove toys from her room, she doesn't get to spend time with her best friend, etc. It works wonders. The key is sticking to your discipline and keep it consistent so the child knows what to expect when they make wrong choices.

:)

V.

I recommend starting a consequence box with the ickiest chores in the home (scrubbing woodwork and switchplates, scrubbing the bathtub, cleaning litterboxes, picking up sticks in the yard, sweeping the garage) and anytime she lies, she gets a consequence and has to do the chore right then before she does anything else. At our house, lying about something is twice the penalty of any other bad behavior. We also don't tolerate screaming or tantrums. The last tantrum in our house (about two years ago) received a tumbler of very cold water over the head! I learned that one from my cousin whose step daughter was a biter at six years of age and that's how they broke her.

The bottom line, you have to be very consistent and never let the child get by with the behavior you're trying to stop and they usually catch on fairly quickly.

I agree with the previous response that there needs to be consequences for her actions but I also think that there is something more going on here. You said that your sister is a mom of four and works alot. That must make it very hard for her to give quality one on one attention and time to each of her kids. Please know that by saying that, I am not judging her, by any means, just stating a fact that it is difficult for us moms to juggle all the responsibilites of working and the needs of multiple kids. It sounds like this behavior is stemming from a need for more attention from her mom and dad. Your niece may not know how to get their attention in a more appropriate way, so she acts out because she knows that she will get noticed then. If your sister tries to give her more attention when she is behaving well and makes it a point to have time alone with her more often, it might reduce this behavior after awhile. Escalating consequences will probably not help if the bottom line issue isn't addressed. Hope this helps.
T.

I have 2 sons of my own but have raised 4 step sons and a stepdaughter, I found that the one thing that worked the best in situations like this was to make them write sentences. When my kids were young and just really learning to write we started them out with like 10 sentences, at first they thought it was fun until they had to do them a few more times, and of cource as time went on we increased the amount of sentences they had to write. This is one thing they really did not like to do and we saw inprovement in them over time because they did not want to write sentences.