How to handle a fibber
Posted on August 16, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie
Today’s guest blogger is one of my heroes – a mom who brooks no monkey business and takes no prisoners … unless she has to. Writer Wendy Thomas is mom to six kids (not to mention the dogs and chickens). Those sheer numbers alone are impressive, but she handles motherhood with a grace and wit that leave me in awe.
My youngest daughter Emma, age 11, has always been a pip, full of energy and moxie. The only problem with her exuberance is that she tends to push boundaries, conveniently blurring truths and lies.
Who took the last piece of cake?
I don’t know.
How did this dish get broken?
Search me.
All summer long my other five children has been reporting missing money – a dollar here, a five dollar bill there, some coins. And then, lo and behold, little Emma all of a sudden has money with which to buy candy. Hmmmm …
At a recent swim meet (I wasn’t there and my oldest son was in charge) Emma snuck off and was missing for fifteen minutes. (It was a good thing I wasn’t there, I would have killed her.) She finally turned up with a whole towel’s worth of candy, gum, and chips. Hmmmm …
Where did you get the money? Griffin asked.
My friend gave it to me.
When the kids got home, Griffin, who knew a fib when he heard one, told me about this. After asking Emma where she had gotten the money (and it not making any sense at all, what kid gives away four dollars?) I took the candy out to the driveway, ground it into the dirt and threw it away. That’s what happens to candy that you buy with stolen money. To a kid who lives candy, this was a harsh penalty. I was prepared to let it drop at that.
The next day another of my sons told me to look in Emma’s bed. She had fished the candy out of the trash and ate it in her bed. (Gag) She also had about fifty dimes tucked underneath her pillow.
Where did you get the money?
Another friend gave it to me … even though she hadn’t seen another friend since the swim meet.
That’s it. I told her to use the bathroom and get shoes on. If you insist on lying to me then I’m taking you to the police station because that’s where liars and thieves go. My daughter hollered, she professed innocence, she cried, but she got in the car. She knew I wasn’t kidding around.
We went to the police station where I filed a report of money being stolen at our house and my darling daughter went into the interrogation room with the Juvenile Offenders Officer. Let’s just say that it was a good thing I made her use the bathroom first. To the officer’s credit, he talked to me beforehand to see what I wanted done and, although I was tempted, incarceration was not the answer. I just wanted my daughter to know that there are very real consequences to her actions.
The officer was tough but fair. If you’re old enough to lie about taking money, then you’re old enough to face the consequences and tell the truth, he told her. After a bit and with many tears and much drama, the truth came out. It turned out she stole from ME!! My daughter is currently on our imposed house probation for the rest of the summer.
Emma knows that once she shows us she is trustworthy, we’ll all start trusting her. In the meantime, now that she now has a “record,” if she ever steals again, next time she knows that I’ll skip the police station and will instead drive her straight to jail.
How do you handle it when your kids aren’t 100% honest?
Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons. Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).
Image Credit: Lorenzo Gonzalez
That took balls. I’m not sure I could take my only daughter to get interrogated, but stealing money is serious. She won’t do that again, I’m sure. That kind of event will stick with her for the rest of her life.
I LOVE THIS! What a great way to scare a kid straight! Good for you for taking it as serious as it should be and nipping it in the bud!
I stole candy once. They had left it out just in reach for me to grab and I thought it was like the bank were you could just grab a piece. I got in the car with my candy and my Mom asked me where I got it. Lucky I wasn’t imagitive because I told her, “from the store.” She made me take it back and apologize. I was 6 years old and I still remember, ahah.
Ya not so cool…first of all if she ever does do it again are you seriously going to have her incarcerated…no so she will find out that you don’t necessarily mean what you say which will send mixed messages. The trip to the police station to talk with the officer wasn’t a bad idea but don’t expect that it will never happen again…
I have a child that lies and steals all the time. What we do with him is keep him very close to either one of us. And if he still gets the chance to steal he has to pay back twice what he stole. He does not like having to be around us all the time.Our response is, “since you do not know how to make good choices then you need to stay by us to learn how to treat other people respectfully and to make good choices. And as he starts working with us on this (and a day or 2 does not cut it, thats the honeymoon phase) then he gets more freedom, he can go and play for maybe 2 hours with his siblings. Then he gets pulled right back. Praised for doing a good job during those 2 hours and then maybe the next time he will get longer. This is a long process and a tough one for the parents. But to break your child of this bad habit/way of thinking, it needs to be done. Also most importantly, BE CONSISTANT!!! No wavering in your words! Good luck.
I seriously doubt she ever does anything like this again. I mean, she will lie again and she may or may not steal again, but when caught I expect she’ll fess up.
I have to wonder how my police station would react. Do you live in a small town? Because I live in a large city and I think they’d laugh at me and send me out the door. Did they know you were coming?
Ordinarily you’d think that destroying the candy on the ground would work. I think you chose the right thing to do in order to handle this early since consequences at home were having no effect. Its the early lessons that we remember vividly. I had to return a doll to a toystore and apologize and that cured any more potential light-fingers.
A couple of years ago, my oldest daughter, now 13, “forgot” to tell me about a note from her teacher that she missed a report due date. She “forgot” for two weeks and I found out when the kids went back to school and her teacher asked me about it. I had never noticed because she is a straight A student and isn’t one to shirk schoolwork, but evidently this report just didn’t hold her interest. Egads, we had the “big talk” about lying (outright lies, half truths, and lies by omission) in front of her other siblings (who cringed through it but also learned they NEVER wanted that talk directed at them) and came up with a plan that all homework was done in my presence, her backpack was emptied and searched daily, and I would keep in email contact with all of her teachers for 3 months. And of course, she had to go to all her teachers, with me in tow, to let them know what she had done and what would be happening for the next 90 days. That was the remedy to her “forgetfullness” but I’ve always told the kids that the punishment for a lie is far greater than it would be for the truth. So her punishment was to lose her birthday. Her birthday party was cancelled was cancelled that year. She had cake at home with family and a small gift from each of us, but not the rollerskating night for all her friends that we had planned. It made an impact and we haven’t had any problems since.
We live in a mid-sized New England town. It helped the situation that I am a local writer who is familiar with many of our town’s police officers. I’m not sure I would have been able to do this if we lived in a large city but you can be sure that I’d find someone, somewhere who could help me scare her straight (member of the clergy, school guidance couselors, a respected leader in the community).
The point was not to incarcerate her (but you can bet if she steals/lies again I’ll bring her back) the point was to let her know that there are severe consequences to her actions. Lying and stealing leads to more lying and stealing. We’ve been trying to get that point across to her for awhile without success, it was time to call for re-enforcements.
The point was to drill that in and then give her a chance to make better choices.
When she got home we had a long discussion about how the only thing you really own in life is your reputation and if you tarnish it, it takes a long time and a lot of work before people can see you shine again.
I don’t expect her behavior to change overnight (she is after all, the baby of 6 children who LOVES being the baby) but I do believe that she is thinking before taking action these days.
It’s what I wanted.
Wendy
My daughter stole gum from walmart once when she was about 8 years old. when i seen it, i marched her butt right back in the store and made her give it to the manager and made her apologize.
Wow. i think that is a great way to teach a child about the REALITY of penalties for her actions ! BRAVO Mom !!! Bravo !!! I am an extreme disiplinarian as well and I believe I will be adding this idea to my arsenal.
Thank you for being her parent and not her “friend”. I wish more parents taught their children that there are consequences for their actions.
I love your approach to this, Wendy. I know I lied about so many things growing up. My mom’s laughed for years that I even told my teacher we were moving because my dad was transferred. Probably to get out of homework or something, although I don’t remember ever saying that!
I’ll keep your post in mind if my 3, 9, or 13 year old kids turn into fibbers too!
Loved your post!
Heather