lying

Do you ever experience those times when the universe keeps directing you to do something until you cannot ignore it anymore.  I feel this way about writing my book.  I have been wanting to write this book since the twins were 4 months old and now they are almost 12.  It is clearly time.  In my book I have designated an entire section on kids and lying.  However, the subject couldn’t wait until the book gets published because I am surrounded by liars right now.  The more I ignore it, the more lying I find.  So I just had to share with you all.  I will keep it short and sweet and you can get the unabbreviated version with more details just as soon as I get this book finished.  For now, here are a Parent Coaches thoughts on pretty little liars.  First: We are all excellent liars and if our kids didn’t try it there would be something wrong.  Second: Once they have lied, lecturing on the merits of lying becomes somewhat redundant.  They know they have lied and now we are one step behind the 8 ball.  We have to go deeper.  What you really want to know is why they lied.  Once you can answer that question you can get a little bit closer to the source of the real issue at hand.  Maybe they couldn’t see another way out, maybe they thought they were going to get in trouble, maybe they wanted to get out of doing something and so forth.  The bigger and more important question is:  What are you going to do about it and what do you want out of the situation?  For me, I want a relationship with my children in which, for the most part, they know they can come to me with anything.  As well, I want a relationship in which we can talk about the hard parts of life.   If I lose it on them for lying and I start taking away all of their privileges it will drive a further wedge between us and steer me away from what I want.  This does not mean there is not a natural consequence for their actions and sometimes it can be a big.  The other night my son was on YouTube while he was suppose to be doing his homework.  His computer was taken away and he had to let his teachers know he was behind in his homework.  The next night when his computer was returned, (children should always be invited to try again), he had a lot of catching up to do.  If I had lost my cool and grounded him for a week for lying, there would be very little room for talking about YouTube, the internet, appropriate content and so forth.  Or maybe the conversation is about how some homework is boring and sometimes in school we have to do things we don’t love… I get that, I don’t love unloading the dishwasher and folding multiple loads of laundry.   Trust me when I say I wanted to ground him for life… I wanted to lose my SH*T… I wanted to freak out!!!  I was pretty mad, hurt and disappointed.  I was all those things because I love him.  Its that simple.  So as we move forward raising our kids we work on TRUTH.  The truth is that I am not perfect, he is not perfect, we lie, we screw up in big and small ways, the world will right itself, everybody is going to be ok and thank goodness for coffee, wine and good friends.

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