When kids lie

[Shine]

ShineBoy had a lying incident last Friday. He had forgotten to do his 8th grade English assignment and when he told his teacher that he'd "left it at home", the teacher told him to call his parents. So we get this frantic call from him, telling us he'd printed it up the night before and it was somewhere in his room. We were about 15 minutes away by car at that point, but we drove all the way home to help look for it in his room. It became clear within minutes that he had lied because the computer he'd supposedly done the assignment on hadn't been used since MrShine had last used it. Furthermore, the printer had been set up to print envelopes. He was sooo busted! We'd come all the way back home for nothing. He lied not only to his teacher, but to us.

We had a big talk with him on Friday night about the hazards of lying and the benefits of time management. He received the consequence of no TV and computer privileges from Friday night til Tuesday. He was also given the choice to either walk into his teacher's class, with his dad or me present, and clean things up with his teacher today, or to do it on his own with the stipulation that we got a note back from the teacher, so we knew it had actually happened. He chose to do it on his own, which I thought made sense for him.

I'm sure this isn't the first time the teacher had had a kid "panic" and lie, but I imagine it's not too often he gets that same kid coming back and telling the truth about what really happened. ShineBoy is a good kid and will definitely learn from this experience. I sincerely doubt he'll do it again.

The note from the teacher today thanked us for "guiding lights" in his life. :D That was cool.

[rug]

1. Make him write out Colin Powell's UN speech one hundred times

by hand.

If that doesn't teach him the consequences of lying, nothing will.

[Shine]

3. That's funny, but he's already learned his lesson

for a teenager to admit to his teacher he lied takes a lot of courage and humility.

He won't do this again.

[jobycom]

2. Mine would have forged the note from the teacher, too.

:rofl:

:thumbsup: on superior parenting skills.

[Shine]

4. heh. Thanks, jobycom!

:hi: