She Can't Handle the Truth

My daughter lies. That’s all there is to it. Simple as that. She tells lies. Maybe it’s a normal thing for kids. But I’m starting to hope it’s not pathological.

Our daughter is 8. This is not a recent problem. It is also not confined to her conversations with us, her parents. Most unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

She started making up stories pretty early in life, as most kids do. She told stories about imaginary friends and imaginary places; harmless. Then she started to make up stories about her friends. This one being mea to that one. That one hitting this one with a rock.

When we found out one of the stories was not true, we talked to her about the importance of telling the truth. She would nod as we talked. She would tell us, “I won’t lie any more.”

She did.

One night she started crying in bed. We rushed in and asked what was wrong. She complained of not feeling well. I felt of her forehead and asked what was wrong. She said her tummy hurt and she didn’t think she should go to school the next day. This was unusual. She loved pre-school.

I reminded her it was Library Day. (Every week her class would walk to the local public library for Story Time.) This led to moaning and groaning. “I don’t feel good.” Which, said with a whiny, pre-schooler voice came out, “I don’t fee-ee-eel goo-oo-oo-ood!” Followed by, “I don’t want to go to the library.”

That was even more troubling than not wanting to go to school. This girl loved the library. We went once a week (remember the poopie story?), and Library Day was her very favorite day of the school week. Finally we told her she could go to school, but she didn’t have to go to the Library.

The next day, I took her to school and told her teacher she didn’t want to go to the library. Her response: “Oh no!” Then she told me the real story.

My precious little girl and a friend got in trouble for talking during the story at the previous Library Day. She didn’t want to go because she thought she would get in trouble again. At the time, I thought it was cute.

In kindergarten we became a little more concerned. One day her teacher commented to a mutual friend about how great Misty and I got along. She said she thought it was great that both of us were so involved with our daughter.

Our friend was understandably confused and asked what she meant. She said we got along great for a divorced couple. WHAT?!?

Our lovely daughter told her kindergarten teacher she had a stepfather. Why would she do such a thing? Because she wanted to make two of the Father’s Day crafts they were making.

We thought it was funny, but it was getting less and less funny.

We went to a parent-teacher conference with her first grade teacher. It was a standard scheduled conference. Mostly just a chance for us to meet the teacher and talk to her one-on-one. As part of the conference we looked at our little angel’s daily journal.

In this book she wrote a sentence and drew a picture each day. As we looked through the book we noticed an extra person in the “Family Portrait” type pictures she’d drawn. Finally we noticed, in one of the sentences, a mention of her sister. We laughed and made an off hand comment about her not having any sisters. Her teacher looked at us a little odd.

“She doesn’t have a sister?”

“No. Just a brother.”

Apparently she’d told her entire class that she had a younger sister. This would become a recurring theme.

We continued looking at the journal. Then we found a picture that we didn’t know what to do with. The caption read, “If you break Mommy’s special vase she will beat you.” The drawing showed a broken vase in the floor, an empty table with our son standing next to it, and, beside him, Misty holding a bat. We were shocked. Given the Sister Fiasco and the Stepdad Affair, we had no idea what she’d told her teacher about the Great Vase Caper. Luckily, her teacher laughed along with us.

This year the sister made a come back. A few weeks ago she had to write an autobiography. As I read, I noticed that in the question about family, she’d added a sister. We talked about how an autobiography has to be true. Just ask James Frey.

A few days later we went to open house at her school. Our daughter’s teacher, whom we know from high school, asked, “How many children do you have?”

My immediate response was, “She doesn’t have a sister.”

This time the story was more elaborate. She has an older sister. Who is in school at Auburn University. Her teacher was understandably confused. We went to high school with her! She couldn’t figure out how we had a child old enough for college.

When we got home we had another talk about the truth.

Things seem to have gotten worse. A couple of weeks ago she came home and told us that her teacher forgot to hand out behavior stickers. (When they get in trouble, they pull a strip. If they don’t pull a strip, they get a sticker.) The next week, her behavior report came home. She had to pull a strip on the day the teacher “forgot the stickers.”

We had another long talk about the truth. How important it is to tell the truth. How important it is that we trust her. How, right now, we often don’t trust her. “You’ve got to tell the truth!”

A few days later I asked her a question. She answered. I checked out her answer. She’d lied. Again. About something insignificant.

I hope it is truly a phase. I hope that phase ends soon, because I’d hate to have to follow her every step of her teenage years.

I’m not sure I’m going to make it.