Lying 8 year old

gabriel1980

all young kids lie - it's what they do to avoid punishment like adults.

motorguy

Sounds very much like jealousy and possibly attention seeking?

You need to find the root cause of that rather than just punishing the behaviours.

theoretica

I would point out, sometime when you have caught her lying with proof, that this means you won't be likely to believe her in future. Given the number of old moral tales about this I think it must be a common problem.

pandora205

Children lie to avoid punishment, especially if parents get angry or have heavy chats. The way to avoid this happening is to be very matter of fact if a lie has been told, comment positively when the child honestly owns up and briefly explain the impact on the victim (if there is one) and then think of some way of recompensing for the damage. In the case of a hidden/stolen toy, this would be either giving up one of her own or some money to replace it, perhaps by earning 'pocket money' for chores to replace. It's best to avoid unrelated punishments, as the link is lost.

All children lie to some extent. They are most likely to do so if they are afraid of the consequences. However, there can be other reasons, such as jealousy or revenge, which would need other considerations (respectively, positive attention; watching out for bullying or overbearing ways of managing)

culpepper

Do the punishments take attention away from the other children?
If so, she is getting her reward by depriving them two fold.
I think consoling the wronged child rather than concentrating on the wrong doer might be more of a punishment.
Ofcourse she does need consequences but at present she is getting lots of attention time and obviously isnt upset by it (judging by hiding her smiles during a reprimand).
One thing that stands out is the asking her if she did it strategy...
She has learned as most small children do, that saying she did not do it is much more rewarding than saying she did. At the least, she does not get punished if she is believed, at the worst, she gets a long attention session and then 'comes clean'.
If instead of questioning her, you concentrated on the 'victim' of the offence , it would be in her interests to stop the sabotage.
You could say something like 'oh how did that happen ?' or 'how odd that that has disappeared !' and then carry on with whatever you would have done if not going through the 'did you do it?' stage and save yourself all that stress.
You would still need to quietly monitor what is going on, in case the actions become more clandestine but when good behaviour is seen, then attention is more deserving.
Tablet and TV time are supposedly with mum or dad and not on her own? Else it might be that they feel (to her )like excuses not to interact with her...

lizzy85

Give her some activities that will focus that energy into something good and creative. What does she likes to do? Draw? Dance? You can ask her what she likes and maybe she will stop being so mischievous once she is occupied on something.

patchwork_cat

I know that smile a 'mona lisa' smile? Is it a case of any attention is good attention?

duchy

Older siblings often feel they are deprived of attention because they can do things their younger siblings can't so perceive the only way to get your undivided attention is to be naughty.They feel they are subject to higher expectations from you - so things like damaging a siblings toy is a double reward they hurt the younger sibling they are jealous of AND get your time and attention.

Are there any special things she gets to do with you that are "big girl" things so not for the younger ones but just her ?

pandora205

Another thought - don't ask children why they do something wrong. They are hardly going to say:

It's due to:

sibling rivalry
poor role models (parents/peers/older sibs/TV/computer)
seeking attention because I feel neglected
to get revenge
low self image
limited social reasoning
genetic predisposition
etc......

It takes skilled professionals time to identify causal factors, many of which interact, so it doesn't make sense to ask a child why

[Deleted User]

I totally agree with the punishments., they must continue but as others have said, do as you are doing but don't make such a big thing about getting her to admit it. Once you have proof, just say why you are punishing her and what the punishment is.., as said already, this actually gets her what she wants.., attention.

HOWEVER, I wonder if you are able to make time to spend time alone with her? I suspect this might cure some of the problem.

Also try (when she hasn't been naughty) to encourage her to come to you to talk when she's feeling lonely or bad, this might encourage talking to become a reaction to feeling jealous rather than acting badly.