Hello
I have an 8 year old daughter who has shown signs of anxiety from a young age.
She has recently started seeing a psychologist.
My daughter has a very over-active imagination and often gets distressed over things that aren't real or haven't happened.
I am her sole carer.
She often gets distressed and thinks I am going to die and will have nobody to care for her, she often worries that she will get kidnapped.. i reassure her often.
Lately she has started to lie, she told me her siblings were being mean to her after an incident in the backyard. I had witnessed the entire incident and knew they hadn't been mean to her.
I explained that by not telling the truth, other people can get into trouble.
I have now just received a phone call for her holiday program supervisor telling me that she became distressed because she thinks I'm going to die and also told them that at night time she gets sent to bed and I turn on the TV and have fights with her siblings which is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE....
I will be discussing this with the psychologist and her paediatrician but im after advice on how to handle this situation as this could potentially have us investigated by children's services.
How do I get her to understand that lies can have serious consequences?
I just want to cry 😔
Lying Children with serious consequences
Lying Children with serious consequences
Posted in:
Mental Health, Anxiety & Depression, Behaviour, Kids
3 Replies
Sometimes anxiety exaggerates or even skews the way you perceive things. So it may not be that she's intentionally lying, maybe she's just not seeing things for what they actually are.
Anxiety often makes you feel like people are being mean to you when they aren't.
Anxiety can often make you misinterpret tone or social cues. As an example, an animated conversation, someone speaking loudly to compensate for background noise or a healthy debate can often be processed by an anxious person as a fight.
Anxiety can make you obsess over things and make you hypersensitive and cause you to be triggered by seemingly innocuous things.
I'd ask her to elaborate when she lies -
E.g.,
Can you tell me when mummy and siblings had a fight that upset you?
Can you tell me what siblings did that was mean?
You can then either explain the situation she describes or correct her where appropriate.
Other than that, I'd definitely get some advice from her psychologist on how to manage this going forward.
And out of curiosity, are her siblings older?
I think with this, you solve the anxiety. The lying isjust another part of it. She may feel silly about being so distressed so needs a 'real'reason either when someone is showing concern or to get someone to care for the level of emotional response shes feeling. Anxiety definitely switches off your rational brain, so she could well not know what really happened but her anxiety leaps her to worst case scenario and then here you all are.
Mine had anxiety, never lied, but definitely worried about me dying, or not showing up at pickup time and what would happen to her.
Make a list of the people that will be there IF something SMALL holds me up, overblow it, tell her all of her friends mums, the teachers, the office staff, the police, will all care. Nobody will leave her. I also reassure her that nothing will happen to me, Im going nowhere, shes stuck with me until Im 100.
But nothing really helps until you sort out the anxiety, which might take meds if shes at that state.
Also i wouldnt go in strong with the 'serious consequences' to an anxious child. Try to breathe and not let her know its something that worries you.