Why Does My Child Tell Lies About Me and Throw Me Under the Bus?

Might be because he feels safe saying it's you. He may be afraid of his father.

Are you sure you haven't used curse words, perhaps thinking he couldn't hear. With all the drama going on, I would understand using them.

Who has physical custody of your son? I think schools have to call both parents when they share custody. I also suggest that it's unlikely they would not call because of that one incident. I would calmly without blaming them, ask them to always call you. Also teachers generally have the code saying, "I'll only believe half of what your kid said, if you'll only believe half of what the say about me" something like that.

I suggest there is more to this story. The court.will not dismiss the case. They require both of you to complete the requirements ordered by the judge. Also, your son being involved.in passing notes is minor. Blaming you may make it into a report. It's.likely to come.up in mediation. That"s good. What each home is like will come up.

If you don't have an attorney,.I suggest you, at least, talk with one.

One thought, in divorces, the kids are caught in the middle. I urge you to find ways to prevent as much of that as you can. He needs to know both of you love him even if you think it's not true.

I would be sure to not be defensive. You know he didn't learn curse words from you. Just say that's not true. The longer you talk, you will be thought guilty.

Please don't ask your child why he says negative things. Consider that he's more scared/anxious/ angry than you because all of this is being done to him. He is powerless and too young to understand.what"s happening or have the skills.to deal with it. I'm glad he's getting counseling. I suggest.you tell him he's save and he will be OK. Don't talk or put pressure on him about the case. Don't ssk him questions. Don't talk about it when he might hear.

read your first sentence.
That's why your son is lying.
He's scared, confused, angry, and in the middle of YOUR adult nasty custody case.

i think it's fairly obvious (IF this is accurate) that he thinks he can get away with or at least mitigate his behavior by putting it on you.
he sounds like a pretty troubled young fellow.
you say your son doesn't hear about any of the particulars in your house, but you don't say whether or not he hears trash talk about his father. that's my first red flag from this post.
the next is that you were not informed by the school about your son's (fairly minor) trouble at school, and that the teacher said it's because your son blamed you for it. i call BS. schools don't make that kind of judgment call based on what an 8 year old says. there's more to that story.
the biggest one is your title. your concern isn't your son, the trouble he's in at school, or how he's coping with the nasty divorce. it's that YOU feel thrown under the bus.
your son is clearly conflicted. maybe it's time for someone to put him first.
khairete
S.

The best advice I got off this site from moms was to just listen to your kids when they are troubled.

I would sit in his room at bedtime, and just let him talk. Just listen. Without prompting, just let him talk and if he starts opening up, you can gently ask him questions if he brings up things at school, or with his dad, etc.

I found that I didn't get the full picture if I just talked to the teacher. If I asked my kid questions like "Why did you do it?" at 8, they didn't always know why they did naughty stuff. So it was sometimes easier to blame someone.

Not because they wanted that person to get into trouble - but they had no answer for why they were acting out.

Don't take it so personally. He's 8.

As for the school - that's really weird. Just ensure they contact you in the future.

Because he's 8, because he's confused and in a stressful situation, because he's a kid and sometimes kids exaggerate or say things for attention or make things up or create the world the way the wish it was ...

Right now I wouldn't focus so much on your son lying. Instead, I would talk to the teacher (and the principal, if need be) and say that as a parent, you need to be kept in the loop. I also find it very strange that the school did not contact you. The teachers I know would never automatically believe something like that without talking to the parent.

The old saying is the teacher will believe 50% of what your child tells her/him about family/home life, and you should believe 50% of what your child tells you about school. Not because kids are being bad. But because they don't fully understand many of the things they see and hear. Also because they see from the limited perspective of a young child. They simply do not have all the information and are not yet capable of filling in the blanks.

Talk to the teacher. You need to be kept in the loop.

Maybe you are doing it and don't realize it?

Okay I have to add because so many seem hung up on the school not calling her. My kid's school does not call my ex, not ever. I suppose if it was an emergency and they couldn't reach me they would call him but not until after they called the emergency contact list. I don't actually think it violates any laws because my ex is really not a nice guy and would have got his lawyer on it.

Mostly that the school doesn't contact her was why I posed my simple one question response. My ex thinks he is a fuzzy bunny too. The only reason I know that a school will not contact one parent who has joint custody is because it isn't health for anyone to do so. That the parent left out reacts in a very unproductive way. Of course this is based on my own personal experience, other experiences may very, but it seems to me it is a big deal when a school decides to leave one parent out of the loop.

I should just walk away but I have to ask, you do know a lot of us are divorced and understand our decrees? When we divorced we had joint, I now have primary. My address was the address of record because I own the house they grew up in, went to school in, in other words it was written into the decree where their primary residence was. That didn't mean I had primary custody, it just means I own the home the kids use as their address. I means if I wanted to move I would have to modify the decree where he can move all he wants where ever he wants. It means their mail come here. I only got primary now because he just could never get them to school on time and it was affecting every aspect of their education.

So perhaps you need to have a chat with your attorney and have them explain things better. It sounds like you are giving your ex more than the decree spells out.

I want to touch on something I saw which troubled me...
Why has your son only had 'a couple' counseling sessions?
The adults are letting him down if that's the case. If I were you, I'd schedule those sessions on my days with my son, to know that he was getting them.

Your son needs help. He is crying out for help. Having parents divorcing is shitty. Having parents arguing over things-- also crappy. My mom moved in with a Grade A jackass when she left my dad. Trust me, some parents are much 'safer' to side with than others.Even when my stepfather was terrible, I didn't say bad things about him to my dad. And I would be more likely to get upset with my dad, because the repercussions were far less damaging to me. (That said, they were still damaging.)
I don't know if you have ever gone through it, but I have and it sucks. The whole thing. Get your son some neutral support in a counselor. Today.

I'm kind of surprised the school believed what your son told them.
You should tell them that when ever 'a parent' needs to be contacted, then both parents need to be kept in the loop.
As for why your son says these things?
That's a great question for your next counseling session.
It may be a case where your son has been asked to explain himself (his behavior) and he doesn't know why or doesn't have an answer and rather than saying "I don't know" it's more satisfying for him to provide an answer that he made up on the spot.
Work on it with him in counseling.

Something is off here. A teacher sees a 2nd grader (I'm guessing that your son is in 2nd grade) encouraging kids to pass notes with profanities written on them. The teacher appropriately puts a stop to this, and issues punishments and notifies parents. But your son tells the teacher, who is an adult in charge, that he heard those words and learned those behaviors from his mom. So the teacher makes the judgment that the child is credible and hides this disciplinary action from the mother, and calls the father.

No teacher would accept a statement like that from an 8 year old, and then not call the mother, or inform the principal. Teachers and school staff have protocols to follow. If you have joint custody or legal custody, you should be contacted. If a teacher were told that an 8 year old is learning damaging behaviors at home, usually there's a policy in place to handle this kind of thing - involving calling the parent in, or calling CPS, or something. The teacher would evaluate what she was told - is the child in a stressful situation, do the parents seem credible and reliable, etc.

Either the school is violating laws, or maybe your ex just happened to get called first and "warned" the school about you, and then told your son what to say?

Are you known at the school? Do you volunteer, show up for conferences and events? Do the teachers and staff view you as a polite, calm person? Have you ever used profanities at the school?

It seems to me that someone is manipulating your son, if he truly said what he did. Take notes, get statements from the school. Document what happened on that particular day.

There are several issues here.

1) Kids hear things that adults don't realize. They know when you're on the phone, they hear when you think they're asleep. They hear you when you slip up, and you can be so angry or absorbed, you aren't aware. We all do it - not a big deal if you can recognize it when/if it occurs.

2) Kids in a divorce are in the middle. Kids in an acrimonious divorce are tortured. They often turn on the parent they can trust the most, because they know that parent will always love them. They often "choose" the parent who is the most distant, the most tenuous in terms of secure love, or the nastiest/most likely to react in anger. So your child may feel much safer with you, and is unwilling to accept his own role in the swear words incident, and absolutely terrified of anyone thinking his father is an angry swearer.

3) Kids at this age do NOT throw their parents "under the bus"! They are afraid, isolated, fearful of what divorce will mean, fearful of what will happen to them in a divorce, fearful of what will happen if they are bad. After all, their parents stopped loving each other, so what happens if parents stop loving the child?

4) Parents have to stand up and be bigger than a child's fears or faults. They cannot go after their own child like this.

5) I have no idea what's up with the school. They may have screwed up and are covering their butts, they may have said the wrong thing in the wrong way to you, they may have released a child to an abusive parents 3 days ago and so they are being exceedingly cautious, they may be poorly trained. I don't know. The whole thing sounds completely off and I think you need to have it clarified - perhaps in your shock and anger you didn't get all the facts and nuances. But your focus should be on the school and on a good lawyer/mediator, not on your child's disloyalty. Focus on what you know, that your child participated in some way in a swear-word-passing episode, and deal with it.

6) Keep participating in the mediation - it makes it clear you are the more reasonable parent.

Your son is in a confusing and difficult situation. I would suggest child psychologist for your son to talk with.

Otherwise I would ensure that you keep everything in writing about what is going on.. ensure that you are living in a way that will be proactive.

Nope, I don't believe this. Even if your son said that, his teacher would still contact you. Unless you don't currently have custody (?)

I feel like something isn't quite right. You meet/see your child every morning at the school, but your son sees Dad more than you? Dad is primary because he lives in the school district, but you are close enough to visit every morning for 3 years? The lawyer advised you to forward personal, confidential information regarding your custody case (that hasn't been decided yet) to the school? I feel like there is a big chunk of information not being shared . . . Also, it seems very unusual that the teacher would listen to an 8 year old that states he learned to "instigate" the passing of the notes with the swear words from his mother.

Perhaps getting in contact with the school and asking that your son see the school social worker is warranted. This would give him access at all times to a trusted adult that he can confide in. It doesn't sound like he has that in his life right now . . .

Good luck.

Agree with Denise P. I think your son is in a very difficult position. Since he stays with his dad, he cannot complain about him freely else he might get some kind of punishment. You are doing the right thing. I hope you have a good attorney representing you. My prayers to you and your son - you both need to get out of this situation asap. Stay strong and do not loose hope - you are doing the right thing by being your child's advocate. Nobody will do that other than his biological mother.

Your son is 8 years old and he's trying to please everyone. I would guess he's scared to death of his dad and if he puts him in a bad light? He will get in trouble with him.

You need to talk with your son and listen to him. Best time to do it? In the car so he can't run out. Make sure your phone is turned off so he knows he has your undivided attention.

If your ex's family situation is really that bad, why would you ever allow him to be the primary custodial parent? I understand that you didn't want him to have to change schools, but he was 5 when you divorced. It's not as if he had been there for years. And, realistically, there's no guarantee that his father is going to remain in that school district until your son graduates from high school.

With that in mind, I'd reconsider the custody situation. Changing schools can be difficult for a child, but it's something they'll adjust to. Being in the toxic environment that you describe is going to be much worse for him in the long run.

Your son is just trying to figure out how to navigate this messy situation. He probably feels secure enough with you that he knows that you're going to love him regardless of what he does. And I seriously doubt that the school completely believed everything he said. Kids tell their teachers a lot, and the teacher more than likely understands there's more going on than he lets on.

Just listen to him... Ask him why he said those things, but don't chastise him for doing so.

Good luck!

If your ex is so bad that you can't say what was done - does he have supervised visits with your son? Who has custody? Your son seems scared and angry. Try to have a heart to heart talk with him.