Lying 9 year old

[lovlysummer]

I have a 9 year old lil girl (almost 10). She seems to be lying alot lately or bragging about stupid things. She does not do this at home but the babysitter has just informed me that she is noticing it becoming more frequent. Like she told her she can speak Chinese cause I took her to China once. I mean really. I am a single mom of two lil girls. I'm poor. I haven't seen farther than VA. Suggestions on how to nip this in the bud. Again she does not do this at home cause there are consequences. Please help

[nursegirl6572]

Apologies...I was distracted by my own story....and wrote "him/he".....and yours is a girl!  

[nursegirl6572]

I don't mean to chuckle, but your post really made me laugh.

I have a son who just turned 9, and I agree with the above poster that this is totally normal.  Kids at this age are HUGELY into impressing everyone.  They want to be the "BEST", the super star, have the best stories to tell, etc etc.  My son and his BFF are hysterical together.....they will banter back and forth....something like this...

My son (C): Hey, K, we're getting a German Shepherd, TONIGHT (reality, looked online ONCE for puppies)!
His friend (K): Really dude?  My Mom said we're getting a GS AND a bull mastiff (Reality...his parents discussing possibility of getting ONE dog).
(C): Our GS will be a boy (TRUE!)
(K): Ours will be a girl.  The girls are better, they can have babies.  Were going to sell the babies and my mom is going to let me buy wrestlers (toys) with the money. (none of that true)
(C): Well, we are going to let Rambo (our other dog) have babies too and sell them, and we would have gotten WAY more, because he's from Montana and a hunting dog (never mind that he's a boy and can't have puppies, lmao...he's even fixed, so we couldn't even stud him out)
(K): Cool dude.  
(C): We're going to speak German to our GS. (FALSE)
(K): Us too...my dad said that last year (HIS idea first...lol)

Okay, you get the idea.  It's actually hysterical to watch.  They go back and forth, and the tales get taller and taller.  Some kids will actually outright lie and make stuff up, some will stick to embellishing/exaggerating.  My son does a little bit of both.

You could try to have a talk with him, and just reinforce that lying isn't nice.  I honestly think he'll probably grow out of it before long.  Try not to worry too too much.  As long as the lies aren't harmful in some way.  If they're to "impress" people, telling tall tales, that's pretty harmless.  You just may have some explaining to do (like with your sitter) when your family/friends are shocked about something...like you going to China (does VA have a "China Town"?  Maybe THAT'S what he meant!!  LOL)

Good luck hon!

[angelonherknees]

As a mother of 2 girls, this is honestly normal. It is a way to seek attention. Try not to worry about it too much as it will pass. If you stay on here about it, it can get worse. For a kid at that age, even bad attention is still good attention. They thrive on it. So by making it into a big deal will just reinforce the behavior. Hope this helps. But I assure you it is NORMAL