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Why not use her slime obscession to motivate positive behavior? Every 2 days of staying within the rules and not lying gets a couple of hours playing with slime. How about set up a proper place to play with her slime — a bathroom, perhaps —- and part of the rule is she cleans up properly afterwards. Gee, if this was my kid and she liked something pretty harmless so very much, I’d find a way to let her play with it in a way I could bear it. I would also be there while she played with it to observe.
NO! Fortunately. That was a one-time thing...so far. Never really was addressed like it should have been. Her therapist and attorney, at the time, were aware. Her Mom had a couple of major surgeries last year and is still not fully recovered so we've been dealing with that. Plus a change in insurance forcing a change in therapists and SD's court appointed attorney thinking she needs a break from therapy for it to be more effective has all kept it from being fully addressed, but fortunately no more fires. Thanks for asking.
You do not mention what punishment she receives for her lies. She needs to learn that there are consequences for her actions, and that if she wishes to avoid punishment she need to clean up her act.
You do not mention what punishment she receives for her lies. She needs to learn that there are consequences for her actions, and that if she wishes to avoid punishment she need to clean up her act.
Punishment is dealt with by Mom since she is with her all day. That usually results in her getting her iPhone taken away. If that is gone, then she usually loses her tv or computer access or both. Mom is partially disabled and has mobility issues - which contributes to the reason some of these things happen. But Mom would also have a difficult time enforcing things such as chores as a punishment. But SD is so used to having these things taken away, they really are ineffective.
Why not use her slime obscession to motivate positive behavior? Every 2 days of staying within the rules and not lying gets a couple of hours playing with slime. How about set up a proper place to play with her slime — a bathroom, perhaps —- and part of the rule is she cleans up properly afterwards. Gee, if this was my kid and she liked something pretty harmless so very much, I’d find a way to let her play with it in a way I could bear it. I would also be there while she played with it to observe.
How else does she have fun?
That was tried previously. She would sneak it, hide it, lie about not having it when she did, not clean up the mess or clean up in improper ways such as using and ruining bath towels to clean it up, pour it down the toilet and clog up the toilet in an attempt to hide it. That is when we decided to ban it from the house since she wasn't being responsible with it.
She is horrible at lying also which is great as we usually catch her. But the fact that she knows she is bad at it and keeps getting caught but still does it isn't good.
She hasn't received a diagnosis yet. We need to switch to a different therapist due to an insurance change and her court appointed attorney thinks it would be a good opportunity for her to take a break from therapy since she has been in court mandated therapy since age 4 and it really isn't doing much good at this point. Her last therapist would do a lot of play therapy and wouldn't share any information with Mom about what was going on there. Unfortunately, her attorney speaks on her behalf and Mom is in agreement, so a break from therapy it is for the moment. She does have anxiety and I do believe ADD or ADHD or something similar, but again, no diagnosis yet. These are all things we are trying to work on.
OK, I'm not sure I understand. Why doesn't the therapist share findings with her mother when it is vital for the mother to know? And what happened that this is court-mandated? Can you provide some more background?
I'm not sure a therapy break is a bad thing. I train dogs, and sometimes you have to give them time to process what you've been working on. I suspect it might be the same for kids. Is your wife following therapist recommendations, if there are any?
Mindfulness is something she could be taught to cultivate perhaps. I found a bunch of books for children on it. Anxiety and ADD/ADHD can be helped by meditation and breathing exercises. She needs to learn to think before she speaks and makes rash decisions. It sounds hippy dippy, but this IS something that has helped me. And from there, perhaps you can just say to her when you know she's lying: "Take a breath. Are you sure that's the story you want to go with?"
Ugh. I'm sorry you're going through this, that she's going through this. She is lucky to have you.
Behavior corrections doesn't necessarily require punishment. Switch it around and employ the use of rewards for good behavior. For example:
1 day of no lies = 30 min with slime in a controlled environment under supervision
1 day of doing chores as required = a different reward
Give her specific chores to be done daily. Tell her no one will nag her to do them; getting them done by x time is her responsibility. Then CHECK on her. Not getting chores done by x time means someone will stand there and supervise her doing the chore (feeding dogs, dishes in dishwasher). Find a suitable reward for having completed chores on time.
Make sure she understands the rules before implementation.
She's not a baby if she can place orders using your stolen credit card. If you don't set limits now and change her behavior now, YOU will reap the punishments for not taking control.
This was me as a kid. Slime wasn't the thing back in the 70's, but I found my comparables. Bad hygiene too.
Ok, let's start with the basics. I don't know this girl, but, I do know her mindset. For me it started with a large family and being cast off to raise myself starting at the age of 7. Since I was on my own while parents were preoccupied elsewhere including babies, yes, the logical result was that I was going to raise myself as I wanted. Authority was rejected. Those who assume authoritative roles but take none of the responsibility for the well being of a child are not respected by the child. I'm just putting this all out there. You decide what is true, or not. But therapy for a four year old implies an awful lot of dysfunction.
She's smarter than you think. She's been raising herself for a long time, apparently, I think I know and am on the mark that this is the case. She gets attention when it is negatively reinforced, but there's a good chance that she was left to her own devices as long as she wasn't doing something to attract negative reinforcement. That's not good for a child. The positive reinforcement was missing, neglected, or absent.
She's creative. She's had a lot of time to spend in her own head, but she's hung up on slime. It's time for a watercolor set including a nice easel and set of brushes and a place to paint where she can release all this pent up creativity. It's time in otherwords, to graduate from slime. So much more could come out of this obsession, slime is not meeting her potential.
I know this girl, she's me. Ask her if she's ever smelled someone smelly, or smelled bad breath on someone. Then take her shopping. Buy her a favorite color of toothbrush, find out what toothpaste she really likes. Let HER pick it all out. Does she have her own personal hygiene location in a bathroom? Can it be set up, clean, pretty, so that she begins to like this chore more? How about soaps that she would enjoy washing with? Or fragrances of shampoos? It may not be feasible, but a personal hygiene space just for her would really improve things in that area. Sharing a bathroom that was usually occupied with a brood of siblings didn't exactly encourage me to take care of myself well until I was out on my own.
I also bet highly on some early life trauma or abuse. If she's raised in a contrarian dictatorship with do as I say not as I do...she's too smart and isn't buying into it.
I'm not blaming you whatsoever OP, I don't know you, haven't seen your posts, nor know your wife or family. I want to make it very clear that I am not passing any blame here. But I know exactly the type of dysfunction that leads to her behaviors. Somewhere along the line, I'm willing to bet, this girl has been raising herself. So now she's too old to be "raised" and she's going to rebel somebody trying to start now. Let her continue to raise herself, it's just a matter of supplying positive reinforcements to help better her behavior and choices.
And then there's communication, and that's an entirely different animal. The best way to start would be to begin a pleasurable activity with her that she would enjoy, and never criticize during the activity. She could very well use some stronger positive bonds with her parents. Communication has to stop being about criticism or negativity, and begin being about forming bonds, caring, and honesty on the parent's end. Kids don't lie habitually because they've had strong bonds with their parents, they lie habitually when the majority of the attention they've received has been negative, and they lie habitually when they are lied to habitually. It's a learned behavior. That pendulum needs to swing the opposite direction.
She's more creative and smarter than you think.........
And if there's a ceramics class nearby or at school, get her enrolled!
Last edited by NoMansLands; 05-22-2020 at 01:09 PM..
she actually sounds like a very clever child to me. Sounds to me like her lying isn't something that she could do if she were monitored more. Maybe that's what she needs...someone to be with her more..when she's making slime, or whatever she's doing, it should be somewhere where there is a constant supervision, such as someone walks by every 5 mins and is within sight at all times..
Kid lie all the time at that age if they can get away with it
kids her age LOVE slime...I make it quite often with my grandchildren, we got the recipe down pat...
What 12 year old dosen`t lie. ? I guess every parent has too go through a twelve year old. Don`t worry.
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