lying

As you know, Garbanzo has a very weak grasp on the principles of honesty and trust and integrity. And yes, we do know that he lived in survival-mode for most of his life and came by these issues honestly (so-to-speak) and so forth. But we can hardly launch him into the world without trying to alter these habits.

Can you imagine? He is good-looking and charming and desperately needs intimate female affection and has nary a qualm about lying to get what he wants and is very impulsive and is always looking for the next new thing.

Right. So you just locked up your daughters (wise of you). We really really need to modify some of these factors. We've been working on the lying.

And this morning a teeny tiny step of progress was made.

Last weekend he told a whopper and we had a long long talk (after he spent the day forking my vegetable garden as discipline). I drew him a picture of our family, cozied up inside a circle of trust. When he lies, he breaks a gap into the circle and steps outside. HE STEPS OUTSIDE. That part is important, because -- regardless of how much we miss him -- he is outside the cozy circle by his actions. I can't un-do that.

In fact, pretending that everything is okay would be doing a great disservice, setting him up to expect that he can betray trust and life goes on unaltered.

I also told him that when we have to confront the lie, the door back into the circle closes a little more with each new lie. But that, if he confesses the truth before we inquire about it, he steps back in. The circle is still tattered, but at least he is on the inside of it.

(My hope and expectation is that he will be able to shorten the time-span between stepping out and stepping back in to where they happen in the same breath. I think this is more realistic than trying to eliminate the reflexive lies in the first place.)

. . . Mom, it's really bugging me that I lied to you yesterday . . .

Then he and I role-played many situations, some silly and some serious, in which a lie was told and confessed and things were okay. Sometimes he was the liar, sometimes I was. So he got a good dialogue memorized which he can use for the confession part, and a realistic idea of what might happen after a confession.

Yesterday I found a bag of unauthorized snacks open on the counter. Both kids denied it and I pretended to buy their (his) lie, hoping that he would use the opportunity.

YES!

This morning he came in and said, "Mom, it's really bugging me that I lied to you yesterday about the sunflower seeds."

It was bugging him. That sounds like a fledgling conscience, doesn't it? I am encouraged.