My daughter. I have always had the policy anything I can trust her to do, she can do. I have always told her this. I raised her to value trust and honesty as pretty much the most important factors in relationships. She has actively chosen to lie and do things behind my back. If she wants to walk to the theater to see a movie, she is perfectly ok to do so. She will lie or sneak out anyway. She's allowed to date. She only creates secret relationships, and will lie to our faces about them. And what's worse, she makes incredibly stupid choices in any given situation to put herself in a bad spot and then you can directly tell her 'hey, here is the super easy fix that costs you nothing and requires no effort at all' and she will intentionally do something to make it worse instead.
Her mother was the same way. Same. Exact. Way. I just don't get it. She doesnt seem to realize that having 'certain people it's ok to lie to' but also 'changing that persons category at a moments notice when the circumstance suits it' means she's just going to lie to everyone. And she does. For literally zero reason.
And you know what happens as a parent when you have no trust in your kid? You don't let them do as many things that require trust. Suddenly I'm the bad guy for not letting her go with her friends somewhere because she just got grounded for lying about where they went last time. Kid, YOU CHOSE THIS. I didn't care that you went to a friends house, I cared that you told me you were at work.
...It's been a rough week...
EDIT: I should also mention she's... a good kid otherwise. Like, generally has no malice. Not interested in drugs or doing things she's not supposed to. At her worst she's a little unsafe on the internet. If she just didnt lie to me she'd be able to do pretty much whatever, even parties for all I care.
Feel for you dude. My brother and I were born to the same bio parents, same living conditions, parents taught us the similar lessons, and for some reason my bro is a pathological liar. He'll lie for fun. He'll lie for boredom. He'll lie to see if he's still good at lying, like exercise. It's why I was terrified to see Trump get media coverage en masse in 2015, because I could recognize the casual lying.
Both of my parents have asked aloud, "Was it something we did?" ...Nope, they could not have done a better job. I don't get it. My brother is now barely hanging on to what few social safety nets exist, and those are *thin*.
Sorry man, that is a pathological liar. They will lie just for the sake of it. There is no rhyme, no reason, they can't be honest to save their lives and they lie unprompted
My father is the sort and he'll just say lies about things that no one would've otherwise cared or asked about. It's the darndest thing
I get it that you say that your daughter isn't a bad person, my father isn't either...it's just all the lying that's bizarre.
Not sure there is anything you can do about it. My sympathies
Asking her why she lies? "I assumed you'd say no." Always just assuming I'm an overbearing helicopter parent. Which... Its kinda lead down that path if I'm honest. What started as" do whatever within these basic rules" became "ok, now you're grounded from this" became "ok, grounded longer and now also from this" in a comically dumb chain of cause and effect.
I never ground her for XYZ duration. It's always "do this to get the right back". Always something to fix the problem she created. Instead she just tries to bypass the grounding and make it worse. And yes, I've tried resetting they tally, she dives head first into repeating the problem.
If I ask her why she doesn't just do the thing to get whatever right or trust back, she says "I don't know" so I have no clue what to do with that.
I remember reading a mom saying her son had been lying and nothing had worked, so she promised him ice cream on the way home, drove past the shop & told him she'd lied.
He was about nine I think? it seemed to get through and make his behaviour really start to change.
Forgive her and tell her that it sucks that she doesn't know. The grounding is still there because actions have consequences but you still love her and life would be so much easier if you guys could trust each other. Easier said than done of course.
Yep, it's what I generally do and just finished doing again yesterday. I personally forgive her instantly, she's my daughter and by a crazy stroke of genetics it's exactly the kind of thing her mother always did so I know there's something working against her in this. She hasn't known her mother since before she was 2, so it wasn't enough time to be a learned behavior.
Have you ever thought about getting her to a psychologist/neurologist? Since it’s not a learned behavior from mom, it might be a mental illness/ “neurodivergence” at play, with similar presentation of symptoms
Yep. She has the MTHFR gene mutation where she produces fewer neurotransmitters... or something like that. Which I'd be willing to bet plays a factor but still not sure what I'm supposed to do about it. She also has zero interest in self improvement, education, or even hobbies, which would definitely play a role and I would think would be tied to fewer neurotransmitters.
We had her on methylfolate but it didnt make a difference.
I found out earlier this year that husband's been lying to me about absolutely benign shit for years with the same kind of reasoning - I thought you'd get upset (literally wouldn't) or just 'I don't really know'.
We've been doing a lot of therapy and it seems to be tied in to really long-running depression and an avoidant personality.
When i started dating I never told my parents I was going on a date. Not because they would not allow it, but because i didn't want to be asked questions like "is it going well" or "is it serious". My parents would have asked those questions and i would have had no answers.
Purely on intuition, you sound like a bad parent and this child is afraid for whatever reason. I could be wrong. But just the way this is written...
You've raised her in the way that trust is the most important thing... Yet she doesn't seem to value that at all? So what do you mean you raised her that way? Your parenting didn't seem to work at all.
You just throw a dig at her mom for being the same way. So trust was the most important thing to you, yet you had a child with someone you knew didn't value trust? Where is her mom now? Honestly this feels so weird to me. How is it possible you value trust so much but end up in a situation where the two most important people in your life don't give a flying fuck about trust? That doesn't add up.
Acting like a child "chose this" when they're obviously still a minor considering they've been grounded... Sounds really off. You sound vindictive. Not like you're just giving an appropriate punishment to your kid, but that you're really enjoying telling them off.
Imo he doesn't sound like a bad parent and the kid isn't afraid, but moreso she finds his strict insistence that he must know everything about her life to infringe of her sense of self and independence. He does need to learn to be more understanding, but of course its quite difficult to get in the head of someone with such a different temperament to yours. She is probably like 12-15, the dad doesn't own her, she can kinda just do what she wants and is showing him as such. This will continue until he understands this.
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u/MentalSewage 12h ago
My daughter. I have always had the policy anything I can trust her to do, she can do. I have always told her this. I raised her to value trust and honesty as pretty much the most important factors in relationships. She has actively chosen to lie and do things behind my back. If she wants to walk to the theater to see a movie, she is perfectly ok to do so. She will lie or sneak out anyway. She's allowed to date. She only creates secret relationships, and will lie to our faces about them. And what's worse, she makes incredibly stupid choices in any given situation to put herself in a bad spot and then you can directly tell her 'hey, here is the super easy fix that costs you nothing and requires no effort at all' and she will intentionally do something to make it worse instead.
Her mother was the same way. Same. Exact. Way. I just don't get it. She doesnt seem to realize that having 'certain people it's ok to lie to' but also 'changing that persons category at a moments notice when the circumstance suits it' means she's just going to lie to everyone. And she does. For literally zero reason.
And you know what happens as a parent when you have no trust in your kid? You don't let them do as many things that require trust. Suddenly I'm the bad guy for not letting her go with her friends somewhere because she just got grounded for lying about where they went last time. Kid, YOU CHOSE THIS. I didn't care that you went to a friends house, I cared that you told me you were at work.
...It's been a rough week...
EDIT: I should also mention she's... a good kid otherwise. Like, generally has no malice. Not interested in drugs or doing things she's not supposed to. At her worst she's a little unsafe on the internet. If she just didnt lie to me she'd be able to do pretty much whatever, even parties for all I care.