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My kid has been lying to me
I am sure this is a post for FM, but I hang out here the most and like you ladies, so here I am, with a parenting issue.
A few months ago at school conferences my son's Spanish teacher told us he was failing, but she would help him before school 3 days a week, and let him retest each chapter on Fridays after school so that he could pass and not be held behind. I know teachers have a ton to do anyway, so I was thrilled and thought this was very generous of her.
SO, he takes the bus in the mornings which gets him to school 30 minutes before first period and he has said he has been seeing her on the days she is available. Every Friday I left work early to pick him up from school because he was retaking the tests and of course couldn't take the bus. He tells me things are going fine, he still hates taking Spanish but is doing better, he is taking the tests, etc etc.
Friday I receive an email from his Spanish teacher saying he has only shown up for ONE test, weeks and weeks ago. and has never shown up in the mornings or on Fridays to take the additional tests. And she has to recommend he retake this grades Spanish next year.
I fully admit I should of followed up better with his teacher, but the school emails about everything and I thought if there were problems she would let me know. I am furious with myself for not being more on top of things. But I have never had an issue with my son being dishonest, he gets A's and B's in every other subject and is in the gifted program for Math and Science. I have never considered him untrustworthy. Now that I find out he has been outright lying, to my face, for MONTHS I am livid. He is lucky he is at his fathers right now because I am so mad I don't think I would be very rational.
What do I do? I have always thought he was a good kid but now I wonder what else he isn't telling me. I am not sure how to punish him for months of lies. I hate that I can't trust him anymore. I am hurt he has lied to me because I thought we had a good relationship mother/son wise.
He just turned 13, if that matters.
This turned out long. Thank you for reading and any advice.
Re: My kid has been lying to me
Well, maybe if he spends the summer in summer school he will learn his lesson.
My child would be going to sumer school, grounded, and losing his computer except for school work.
You must show him now that this BS will not be tolerated at all and that you aent playing games. Expalin to him that HIS choices gain YOUR consequences.
Does his dad know the situation?
Oh summer school is a given. He will be going.
His dad does not know yet, but he will when he brings him home this afternoon. He and are not together, but are a team when raising our son. My plan is to take his TV and Xbox, They are already on timers so he can't use them for more than 2 hours a day, but he will miss them. All computer time is done in the same room as me already, but he won't be playing games anymore. I am also going to make him write an apology note to his teacher, since she was so generous with her time for him and he wasted it.
I was going to stop his overnights with his best friend here every Saturday, but I know that child has a difficult time at home and this is the only place where he gets healthy meals. I don't want to punish his friend. They are the same age, but different schools.
Does this seem reasonable? Not harsh enough?
Ditto all of this. Let him know now what lying is going to get him and hopefully he'll think twice before doing it again in the future.
If his TV and Xbox will hit it where it hurts, then I would say that's sufficient. Always keep some options open in case you have a need to take something else away. Tell him his TV and Xbox are gone because of his lying. If you find out he continues to lie to you then he will lose his time with his friends. Unless this friend could possibly be encouraging his lying, I wouldn't take his time with friends away just yet. But do what you feel is necessary. The note of apology to his teacher will probably be the hardest thing for him to do. My DS had to do that once and he was most upset and humiliated by having to hand that note to his teacher.
Good luck!
Taking his books away would actually hurt more than his TV and XBox, BUT he reads all this crazy scientific stuff and not like, Harry Potter etc, so I am not taking them unless I have to. I will strip his room down to his bed and his alarm clock if needed. I txted his dad and asked him to come in and chat when he drops off our son, and make sure we are on board together. If he can go to dads and watch TV it's not much of a punishment.
His best friend is not a problem, but I am not so certain about some of his other friends.
With his apology note, do I tell him what to say? Just give him guidelines? Let him think it all up on his own? I am not sure he understands the sacrifice she was willing to make just to help him.
Thanks so much for the advice!
I would explain to him what a huge favor his teacher was doing for him so that he would pass his class. Let him know that she probably has a family and things to do outside of school and him not showing up was a big inconvenience to her. Make an example of how he would feel if he offered to do something nice for a friend and sacrificed his Xbox time for his friend, but his friend didn't appreciate what he did and never thanked him or anything. He might get it better if you put it in 13 yr old boy terms.
Give him basic guidelines for writing the apology and tell him it has to sound sincere and if it doesn't he will have to rewrite it. Help him if needed, but make him write out what he feels he should say first.
Before you lay on the consequences, I'd take the opportunity to ask him why he decided to lie about the situation. I'm sure he'll say, "I don't know," so then I'd say, "Well, take till tomorrow morning to think about it if you need to. Then we'll figure out what to do about it."
I did ask him why he lied to me, and he did say "I don't know". I didn't give a time limit for an answer, but I will now, great idea!
I'm late on this post, so I'm wondering what his dad said about the situation and what he suggested as punishment?
I just don't think that taking away tv and xbox is enough of a punishment. IMO, that is the kind of punishment for talking back, for refusing to clean his room, etc. It's a good start, but I'd do a LOT more. I would definitely have him do something on a regular basis over a few months as a punishment - for example, I think it would be good for him to spend a singificant amount of time over the summer volunteering for some type of charity. I'd want him to be doing this volunteer work at least a few hours each week. It's punishment in that he doesn't have the freedom over the summer to do what he wants with his time, but it is also something that will likely be a very positive experience for him. I would also have plenty of designated study time for him over the summer to work on Spanish.
I would have him write an apology letter to his teacher, to you and his dad, AND to himself. To his teacher - thanking her for being willing to take her personal time to help him suceed, and apologizing for not taking advantage of this generous offer; to you and his dad - for violating your trust with the lies; and to himself - for shortchanging himself by not taking up his teacher's generous offer, and for messing up his relationship with his parents and making it so they can't trust him. I'd want the letters to be sincere, so it's something that might need to be done during the summer, after you have had plenty of conversations with him about 1) the reasons that lying is not okay and 2) why it's important for him to excel in school.
I'd have a really long conversation with him about honesty. This article may be helpful: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/200903/adolescent-lying-what-it-costs-and-what-do
My main concern and the reason why I would make a really big deal out of this is because it wasn't one lie. It was a series of lies over months, which is a really huge deal, and is why I think this needs a serious long term punishment. Plus, you want to nip this in the bud at 13, as I'm sure parenting gets even harder in high school. You want him to know early on that lying will not be tolerated, in the hopes that he will really learn his lesson now and be honest and trustworthy when he gets to high school when there are so many social pressures.
I also agree with the other poster to talk with him about why he lied before laying on the consequences.
ETA: I read over my post, and while this is still what I would do as far as punishment (involunary "volunteer" work, a long talk, etc, some of my wording may have made it sound like what he did was super horrible. What he did was very dishonest and of course should be taken seriously, but also with some compassion about why he did this. Yeah, it was bad, but it's not like he was sneaking out at night or doing drugs - so some of my language may have been a bit strong (like "serious long term punishment")
I would encourage you to talk to him. Ask him why he lied and why he seemed to be so afraid to talk to you about what was going on. He may be so afraid of failing Spanish (since he does well at everything else) and making you upset that he decided to not even try, cause you don't fail if you don't try. And 13 year olds aren't great at thinking through the consequences.
You might want to ask him what he thinks is an appropriate response to his wrong doing. Kids tend to come up with some really appropriate punishments for themselves.
But most of all you want this to be about communication and understanding - punishment doesn't teach him anything, but discipline does...he needs to be able to learn from this and think about what he ought to have done.
punishment doesn't teach him anything, but discipline does.
How many teenagers do you have?
I think once when I was a teen, I talked back to my mom and she took the hinges off my bedroom door. That was the worst.
I don't have kids so I can't say if this punishment fits the crime of lying but it straightened me out.
At some point though you have to hand over the responsibility of getting homework done to your child. He doesn't do the homework or doesn't show up after school for extra help in the class he fails the class and has to take it again. It sounds like taking Spanish for a second time is punishment.
Mom won't always be there to remind him to do his homework. Since he does well in his other classes, I'm assuming he most likely has the discipline to do his work without being reminded or forced. I have a feeling that he really just detests Spanish and doesn't do well with learning a new language so he was avoiding it. Supervised study time for Spanish probably isn't going to do much good. The more you force a kid to do something, the more they are going to pull away.
My brother did something similar to this when he was in 7th grade, but he was failing all of his classes but math. He managed to fail them in the last quarter of the school year. He did it on purpose because he was bored, the teachers weren't challenging him. He actually tried to fail math, but he couldn't. lol
My parents took away tv, computer, and nintendo privelages for the whole summer. He had to write in a journal all summer, and he had to babysit me more often than usual. He could still do things with his friends, but they weren't allowed to stay the night. My parents were pretty tough on him that summer. He never did it again. I don't know if they went about it the right way, but it worked for my brother. But they also started talking with the school and teachers and figuring out ways to challenge my brother.
Have you thought about getting a tutor? One time I wasn't doing well in math, and I actually told my mom in a public setting so I wouldn't get in as much trouble. After I told her, she asked why I didn't tell her earlier. I told her it was because I was afraid she would be mad and disappointed that I wasn't like my brother, who is a math genius. She promptly got me a tutor.