Posted: 17 April 2004 at 6:35pm | IP Logged

My eight year old son is ADHD.  He has been with us less than a year and the adoption of he and his four year old brother was just finalized last month.

Aaron has come miles since he first came to live with us, but we are still battling some of the same issues and nothing we are doing seems to be working.  Currently, the biggest problem is contant lying about stupid things.  He always gets caught and occasionally by the time he does, he has told two more lies on top of it.  Just last night he got in trouble for lying and was not allowed to play the last hour before bedtime.  Tonight, he lied once and then heaped two more on top of it.  We have taken away priviledges, toys, etc and nothing seems to be working.  Being from the old school, my husband spanked him once for it, but it doesnt seem to phase him and it was more traumatic for my husband so we don't want to repeat that again. 

We're nearly at the end of our rope trying to curb this behavior, the fear being at if he is lying about stupid stuff now, it will get worse as he gets older.  What works with these children?

Thanks!

Posted: 18 April 2004 at 6:32pm | IP Logged

My children are also adopted.  I have a friend studying child psychology right now and she called the other day to tell me that alot of the symptoms my son is exhibiting (others say is ADD) seem to also be symptoms of children who are not bonded.  I am not saying you don't have a good relationship, I feel that most of the time we do with our son, he just may not have learned to bond as an infant and depending on what he has been through since may be why you are seeing these problems.  He may need some counseling.

One thing we have tried, it works some of the time, my son HATES mustard, so when we catch him in a BIG lie we put just a little drop of mustard on his tongue.  He can't stand it and usually the lies die down for quite a while. 

I don't know your son's history, but you may want to check into finding a counselor who can tell you more about the bonding thing.   Good luck!!

Posted: 26 April 2004 at 8:03am | IP Logged

Angelgirl,

We found an excellent solution to lying but before I pass it on please realize that a child with ADHD has a different outlook on life.  Rather than having me explain it, I copied the applicable passages from this very good web site: http://www.pediatricneurology.com/full.htm

 Live at the “mercy of the moment.” (“Johnny is always swept away by whatever is happening to him right then and there.”) ADHD behaviors make sense once we realize that they are based on reactions taking only the present moment into account.  It is not that Johnny doesn’t care about the future; it is that the future and the past don’t even exist. Such is the nature of the disability.  By way of analogy, imagine riding down a river with a leaking canoe.  You would be so overwhelmed by the need to bail out water that you would not see the upcoming cliff.    It's not that you don't "care" about falling over a cliff--it's that you don't even get to consider it.

Life in the next 4 seconds. If you want to make sense out of inexplicable behaviors by someone with ADHD, just ask yourself: “What behavior makes sense if you only had 4 seconds left to live?”  For example, if you only had 4 seconds to live, it would make sense to lie in order to expediently get out of a problem…After all, who cares about a future reputation when there is no future?!”

Now that you have your son's prospective on lying, here's our solution:

We gave our son an allowance $2.00 a week, payable at the end of the week.  For every lie we caught him in, we deducted 25 cents.  The first couple of weeks neted him less than a dollar, by the third week he was earning between $1.50 to $2.00.  Now,  when we hear a lie coming, we merely ask, "is it really worth a quarter?"

By the way, we tried a similar method mention in a previous reply with mustard on the tongue.  We tried a bite of soap for  inappropriate language.  It worked with only one bite for our oldest son (who doesn't have ADHD), but after two bars of soap with our youngest (who does have ADHD) we realized that type of behavior modification didn't fit into our tool box. 

Hope this helps.

Paul

Posted: 27 April 2004 at 7:50am | IP Logged

Rosina,

I try not to use the words "never" and "always" since I often get surprised by the exceptions.  Never  believing my guy also sets the stage for an unbroken circle of self-fulfilling expectations that lying is an accepted fact of life.  That said, my guy is only 9 and so far his lies have been small and transparent.  Our goal is to model acceptable behavior by reinforcing times of truth and disappointment with falsehoods.  So, the allowance thing helps.  There have also been times that we know a lie has been committed and encourage him to turn it into a truth.  We explain that the truth this time will not net a consequence but  continuing to maintain it will double it.  At this time its about a 75/25 split with the truth winning out. 

By the way, all kids (ADHD affect or not) have lying in their tool boxes of responses.  It's just that it takes ADHD kids longer (as it does with other behavioral maturation processes) to realize that its not a character building and frendship strengthening trait.  ADHD kids are generally smarter and faster at absorbing knowledge than other kids.  Unfortunately, they tend to be slower at developing their skill sets related to maturity (I think it's that 'self centered' thing that gets in their way).  Its a tough combination and one that varies in degrees with each kid.

Avoiding confrontations by not asking direct questions may work on the home front, but when our guy is away from us at school or at play, others will be more direct insisting upon the truth.  Therefore, we are trying to  model and role play the same at home.  Unfortunately, the longer he waits to learn the value of being believed the more likely he is to be alienated from his peers; which has its own set of issues and concerns.   

Paul

Posted: 27 April 2004 at 6:19pm | IP Logged

Anyone have advise on the stealing that goes with ADHD also.  So far we have been lucky and the stealing is only things like cookies in the middle of the night, etc.  But since she is a very good liar I don't tend to belive a word that comes out of her mouth.  I realize this is a "normal" part of ADHD but I want to be able to believe my llittle girl.

Example of this, last night as we slept (her room is upstairs ours on the main floor) she snuck down the stairs past our bedroom door, went into the kitchen and helped herself to a bunch of cookies, a pen (which she is not allowed upstiars either) and colored herself and then lied to us this morning.  Hard to say you didn't do it when you have blue ink on your face.  But then lied about the cookies, seeing I just made them at 3 pm yesterday when about 6 are gone from the container we all notice it.  Help anyone....Any ideas??? tips????