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I have a 14yr old daughter that generally is a good kid. Honor role student at school, has a small group of friends that are positive influences, very creative and involved in several activities that she enjoys. However, she regularly lies to her friends. I see her texts or messages and she lies about things like what she did over the weekend, a grade she received, what she got for a birthday gift. It appears that most of her lies are her trying to "look good" but they are still out right lies. She has this long distant boyfriend that she met over the summer and she texted him that she had a previous boyfriend that had given her a black eye. No past boyfriend and no black eye. I don't think this is normal teen behavior. I have sat down with her and had her outline her value system and what kind of person she wants to be. She says she feels horrible about lying and doesn't know why she does it. Do I punish her or seek professional help? She does have some other issues (OCD and Anxiety) but I don't think it's related.
I don't believe lying to that extent is typical. If she acknowledges that she is lying and doesn't know why, I'd certainly seek some professional help. I don't know why you'd think it was unrelated to her other issues.
I don't believe lying to that extent is typical. If she acknowledges that she is lying and doesn't know why, I'd certainly seek some professional help. I don't know why you'd think it was unrelated to her other issues.
I agree. Sounds like she has some self-image issues that she needs help with so she can trust herself to make healthy decisions as she gets older.
I would seek out a psychotherapist in your area who specializes in adolescents. You can have individual AND family sessions.
I think, absolutely, she should get professional help. It does sound like she has self image issues that aren't going to get any better on their own. I had two friends when I was about that age that lied all the time and I wish their parents had gotten them some help. Friends will often put up with it for a while and catch on on dump the friend (understandably) and I am sure that compounds the self image problems.
If she has OCD and anxiety, is she seeing a therapist and psychiatrist already?
If she already has OCD and anxiety issues then I'm guessing she's more likely to be at risk for other conditions. I'd imagine her issues with anxiety are related to her self esteem issues and lying; they really go hand in hand. Its not terribly abnormal for a teenager to embellish details to make themselves look better or to get attention. But the fact that it is occurring with frequency and it isn't just little white lies, yes, I'd probably bring that up with her therapist.
I knew a guy in high school who told everyone he was spending the weekend playing baseball for a minor league team in a neighboring state. Said he had been recruited. Long story short; not true, at all. It was nuts.
She has just started therapy for OCD/Anxiety. I emailed the therapist today about it to start including this in her therapy. I reading everyone's responses, I guess I see where it can be related. Thanks.
Her father is very involved with our kids and loves them very much but doesn't seem to have any capacity/interest/ideas to assist with parenting when it comes to hard issues that we don't know quite how to handle. His best response is something around..."guess she will learn her lesson the hard way." as he shrugs his shoulders and turns on the TV. I feel alone in the parenting department.
His best response is something around..."guess she will learn her lesson the hard way." as he shrugs his shoulders and turns on the TV. I feel alone in the parenting department.
I assume her therapist is aware of this? Is she not meeting with the two of you also??
Yes, definitely seek help and try to resolve this. I had to back away from a friendship because the better I knew this woman, the more I realized how much she lied. She does it to make herself look better, but there are so many holes in her stories, her lies just became more and more obvious. I tried to ignore it, but after a while it just becomes tiresome and you can't know which story to stick to during conversation. I hope she is able to overcome it.
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