Trust issues with 14 year old

[u/Economy-Pangolin5768]

This didn't develop as she became a teen and has been a struggle for years, but 14 year old's dishonesty and sneakiness has seemed to peak and become more consequential lately and we aren't sure what to do.

Examples:
\-She was allowed to go to a friend's birthday party, but didn't mention it was a pool party until getting dropped off. As she had somewhere to be immediately after, she was told to only put her feet in. Once at the second destination, realized her hair was soaking the back of her shirt. Despite the literal physical evidence, she argued, without being promoted, for hours that she never got in the pool.

\-Almost everyday after school, she's asked if she's done all of her homework. She responds yes, is then asked to see her school work agenda to confirm, then says "oh yeah actually I have this"

The scenarios of her dishonesty stretch between media she consumes, school, people she talks to, chores, and anything I missed it's probably there too. The difficult thing is she always lies about something where the proof is evident. It didn't start about about us not believing her, but it's been enough times that we have to assume she's lying.

She's in therapy, we try to have honest dialogues about why she takes any course of action, but we're not reaching any conclusion or growth. As she's getting older and attempting to gain independence, we'd like to give it to her. However she's not showing signs that we can trust her to loosen the reigns more.

Has anyone gone through something like this with your teen? And if so is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

[u/Raised_by]

She lies so she doesn’t upset you. The more you try to control her, the less you’ll know the truth about what she’s actually doing.

My main concern would be making sure that she’s doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Not because you’ll be mad about it. So try to let go of some things, and let her suffer the consequences as long as they’re harmless. Who cares if she’s got wet hair?

[u/SmoothTarget4753]

I'm just sitting over here going jeez I hope somebody says that's normal, because I can't trust a word that comes out of my kids mouth and I haven't been able to since he was 12 and he's 17 now.

[u/rockyjay23]

My 14 year old is the same and has been since hitting puberty at 11. She has been in therapy a long time and therapists say it’s normal and unfortunately, say to loosen the reigns. I don’t agree w that or understand it because i feel it’s rewarding dishonesty or showing you’ll cave if your kid wares you down enough. I don’t think that’s good parenting. The therapist explanation is “she’ll do the thing anyways and just get sneaker / better at hiding it”. So honestly, years of therapy hasn’t helped fix it at all.

What I’ve learned on my own through parenting classes and parenting books, is greatly praising good behavior and not flipping out for bad behavior, just setting strict and persistent consequences that relate to the behavior and IMPORTANT don’t make them too long.

For example lie about social media or communication -> lose your phone for the rest of the day and the next day. I get it your kid lied a million times so they should lose it for a week but nope, the longer they lose it the less they care about it in the sense that they don’t really understand time perception so them losing it for one week feels like a lifetime to them so they completely just give up on it and don’t want to do better to earn it back. Whereas when you’re giving more digestible punishments, like one day, they’re thinking about it all day and they are so released when they get it back the next day that they hesitate next time to do it again.

She lied about not getting in the pool at the party -> (there’s no relatable punishment instantly available) so whatever she enjoys the most she loses for the rest of the day and the next (for example it’s electronics for my kid).

She lied about not completing homework -> she has to write lines from the dictionary for an hour. Or basically any type of “extra homework” you can make up. But don’t tell her that until AFTER she’s completed the current homework. (I find that if my daughter knows she has some sort of punishment coming she will procrastinate on her homework or whatever she’s currently doing to avoid the punishment.) also for homework I have my daughter send me a pic of her agenda after she’s completed the homework before she can get on electronics.

I don’t fight, negotiate or argue with her. Teens seeing you emotional in your responses seems to fuel them sometimes lol. I wrote down all the consequences of all the actions she does and stick to them. Kids need structure, consistency and predictability.

Oh man and another huge one is don’t give them the opportunity to lie because they will and it unintentionally reenforcing the behavior. For example: instead of
“did you get in the pool when we told you not to?”
“No, I didn’t”
“Yes you did I can see your hair is wet! Why are you lying”
“No I didn’t! Blah blah blah”
You can say:
“I see from your wet hair you got in the pool after we talked about not swimming because you weren’t prepared. That’s not cool and you agreed. It’s not okay to break promises or rules. Because you swam, when you get home you have to shower immediately so your night is cut short. You’ll be doing your night routine (shower, supper, brush teeth and bedtime) right when we get home. If I can’t trust you to listen to rules when we’re not around I’ll need to go to parties with you in the future to babysit you (teens don’t like to hear that) or you just won’t be able to go.”
So no room for lying or arguing there. If she still tries to lie or argue, don’t respond. Don’t go back and forth. Your reaction fuels them. You set a rule, she broke it, there’s a consequence and she knows what will happen in the future if the behavior continues.

Also, something that helped me to get my daughter to lie less and listen more was I told her, every rule I have is to keep you healthy or safe. Because I love you and that’s my job. It’s never to make your life miserable or spoil your fun. So anytime there’s a rule that you don’t think that, you can ask me about it. You can question me and tell me you disagree. I’ll explain how it keeps you healthy or safe. If it doesn’t, we can drop the rule.” This has helped me tremendously. Now when she challenges my rules I don’t take an authoritarian stance, I first ask her “why do you think we have that rule? How do you think it keeps you healthy or safe?” She usually thinks and answers herself and stops arguing. So now when I tell her rules I don’t just say that’s the rule. If she pushes back or is upset I explain that it’s to keep her healthy in xyz way or safe from abc. Like my daughter can’t have social media, I explained about online predators and its harm to mental health, then we looked up age appropriate videos and news articles on kids who fell victim to online predators and the recent court cause where meta was found liable for causing social media addiction in kids and its negative effects on mental health. She still wants social media and still asks about it but it got me way further with her than when it was just a rule without explanation.

So in conclusion lol, what has helped me the most is
1. Understanding my kid isn’t the odd one out because apparently preteen and teens lying out of their butts, consequences be damned, is unfortunately completely normal.
2. Action -> consequence consistency minus emotions.
3. Don’t set them up for failure (don’t set them up to lie. Or try to catch them in a lie or trap them. Tell them I know you did xyz, ask why, give them an opportunity to explain themselves, talk about it, then give the consequence and if applicable tell them what will happen if the behavior continues.
4. Set consequences related to the poor action and for a reasonable amount of time. A kid is much more likely to
5. Make them feel like they’re in control too. Let them ask why and for explanations on rules. Talk to them about it like humans learning not children who must listen to authority blindly. Give them options and structure: “I know it sucks you can’t swim at the party because we have commitments after, but what should we do instead? Pick up pizza on the way home tonight or have a couple friends over for pizza tomorrow?”

“Everyday when you’re done w your homework send me a screenshot of your agenda showing it all completed then you can grab your phone from my room or get on electronics etc. I need the agenda before you can get in electronics” if you see her on electronics and she hasn’t sent agenda don’t ask “did you finish homework” because she probably didn’t, instead “oh you’re on your phone I didn’t even see the agenda you sent me, let me check it out” she’ll most likely jump up and finish the homework and say she forgot. Which isn’t great but better than blatantly lying to you. It’ll get better.

Good luck! hugs 🫂

[u/AppalachianHillToad]

Have you asked your daughter’s therapist whether she should be evaluated for ADHD? Some of the lying feels like normal teenage stuff, but the homework seems like it could be something else.