My husband and I are currently going through the SAME situation with my 14yr old daughter.

The lies she is telling seems almost identical. My daughter is a freshman in HS and is currently an honor student. However, my daughter IS cutting! We were in therapy and the therapist was not a match for my daughter and we switched.

We feel like we are banging our head against the wall. She tells lies about myself, my husband (her stepfather) and her bio dad (that she has no contact with), family members have died, her friends parent s abuse them. She lies about drugs, alcohol and sex.

Its pretty intense. We have considered homeschooling her since we recognized that school seems to be a huge trigger for her. The socialization part. She has no privelages currently because she needs to earn them back via trust. When she does, it takes a few days and she is off and lying again. She is currently telling everyone she is not lying (including therapist) but I am finding notes quite the contrary!

We are at a loss as well and just don’t know what to do.
The one recommendation I can make is take her for full medical and psychological work up and document the hell out of everything. We have also asked our daughter to periodically write a statement regarding the things she lies about and acknowledging the fact that they are lies and understands the impact they might have. She signs and dates it. We keep a copy, and all of her health care providers receive one. We also have notified the guidance counselor at the school and discussed the issues frankly with her so that the school is aware as well. Be open and honest with everyone!!! Exposing your daughter is unfortunate but protects everyone until she is healthy again.

I am also considering contacting all of her friends and notifying their parents and possibly homeschooling.

I am struggling to find others in my area with this problem. My hope is to find a support group for her and us! No luck so far.

I do want to validate your pain…. there are periods of time in many families that are just plain painful to get through. During times like this you are wise to reach out to other parents as you have in this note; you need to know you are not alone and that others understand your predicament. I encourage you to make such connections locally and in person too; reach out so that you have people to process this with. You won’t have to go far to find parents who have endured very similar situations.

One thing you might benefit from is reading PARENTING TEENAGERS: the Agony and the Ecstasy as it is full of quotes from other parents. You will hear similar fear in some of their voices and perhaps you’ll get some insight from your peers, “veteran” parents or young adults who are also surveyed. Hang in there and I hope things work out soon…

It all started with high school. Her grades started slipping, she failed two classes. We did the whole school follow up thing. She began lying about homework, tests, etc…The four of us sat with her and calmly explained we love her and that school comes first. We restricted her cell phone use, internet use, and told her she needed to concentrate on classwork the next semester. As soon as the grades come up, the restrictions would be relaxed. Long story short, she’s infatuated with this boy and began sneaking around with him…not coming home after school, etc. (wife and I aren’t home until after 5).

We stumbled upon some very disturbing e-mails between her and her ‘friends’. All lies about the four of us as parents. We chalked it up to her trying to save face with her friends about why her free time had been restricted.

The four of us spoke again. She was told no unsupervised visits with the boy. Grades continued to slip, even though we were working with her nightly. She managed to fail art, for god’s sake, due to lack of participation. Her cell phone was taken away. No visits to her boyfriend’s house during the week. It got worse. She ran up a $300 phone bill on the house phone while we were at work. She failed her freshmen year and had to take summer school. We made her call and check in after school, and we called and checked in on her daily.

Her dad and step mom live in the country. We’ve now found that she has at least once ridden the bus in for summer school, cut classes and gone god-knows-where (presumably to the boys house).

The lies are getting worse. I just intercepted some more emails where she’s telling this boy that we are trying to keep them apart, that her mother and I hit her (has never happened, we’ve hardly ever raised our voices to her), that we make her go hungry (she eats better than I do), that her step-mother makes her pay for her own food (untrue), that she’s becoming bulimic and has also begun ‘cutting’ herself (absolutely untrue). The lies are getting bigger as time goes on.

This is all obviously being done as a play for sympathy and attention from this boy…to keep him on the hook and interested. “You’re the only one I can talk to…you have to help me….I love you and want to be with you…etc.)”, and she’s obviously getting his attention.

We are all literally so afraid that the lies are going to get so out of control that eventually she will tell him some lie that he takes to his parents, or she will say something to another friend or someone else in an effort to get attention that can’t be taken back and then either her stepmother, I, (or all of us) will end up investigated (or worse) by the authorities. My heart is breaking…..

We’ve already got her in counseling. We’ve shown the counselor some of these e-mails and expressed our concerns. We have had multiple conversations with her about her lying and the danger of it, and how it hurts and disappoints us and how it’s becoming more difficult for us to trust her. Every time it’s the same thing…she’s sorry, she bawls, she’ll work harder to regain our trust, she hates feeling this way….it’s always the same story.

She simply will not stop. The child wants for nothing. She has two loving families that want nothing but the best for her. She went to a christian grade school. We routinely go to church. She’s got 6 grandparents living nearby that she loves dearly and are always around. She’s got a loving brother and sister.

I don’t get it. I’m literally becoming afraid to talk to her or discipline her in her mother’s absence out of fear for what lies she’ll make up next about me (or us) to her friends.

To the best of our knowledge, she’s not involved in drugs, alcohol, or sexually active. My honest impression is that she is literally teetering on the precipice of throwing her life away.

We can’t start over and pretend nothing has happened because she’s out of control. We can’t keep punishing and taking things away..that will just make it worse and give more credence to the crap she’s spewing to her ‘friends’.

I don’t know if the answer is a different counselor, a meeting with the boy and his parents with her in attendance where we confront her on the lies and find out what she’s been telling them, whether it’s boarding school, or what.

I am convinced she lies for the thrill, for the attention the stories get her, and out of defiance. Sooner or later she will say something that can’t be taken back. I just hope when it happens it doesn’t tear the families apart.

Anybody that’s experienced anything close to this….help us please.

Dave

Thanks,
tammy

http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/04/02/lying-teens-5-types-of-kids-fibs-white-lies-and-exaggerations/

Thanks!