My husband and I are having a difficult time trying to figure out what to do about my lying step son. I don't know what to do. Antonio, my step son, will be 7 and just recently, his mom got custody of him because we found out that she had lied about my husband being the father. My husband has been taking care of him since he was 3 weeks old ( I mean Antonio has lived with my husband all this time). His mom had never been involved and all of a sudden she wanted custody. I have been in Antonio's life since he was 2. Anyway. He tells us that his mom tells him to lie about things or not to tell people things (for example he comes to our house every Friday. The first week the new custody order started he had told me that the electricity had been turned off all week and that his grandma had paid the bill the day he came to our house. I asked him if he told anyone and he said no because mommy told him not to. We called social services to report it, but they told us that we couldn't really prove anything and besides the fact that if it was shut off it is now turned back on. NO ONE did anything.) We have caught his mother in lies before, but we didn't know how bad of a liar she was. So, Antonio (whose now in 1st grade), informs me today about kindergarten. See, my husband had custody of Antonio and he was enrolled in the elementary school here. He told me that he stood on the fence all the time at recess for talking. We knew he had a problem talking during class, but he never told us that he was standing on the fence all the time. The fence is a form of discipline they use with the kids. Now, Antonio has become quite a liar himself. He lies about everything and we are just at our wits end and give up because we don't know what to do anymore. She doesn't ever want to talk to my husband about certain issuses and we are afraid that if we say something to her, she won't let us see him anymore, even though there is a court order that says my husband gets him every weekend. My question is what kind of discipline is there for 7 year olds who lie all the time? I feel he is too young to be grounded and I don't want to spank him because there is a reason why he is lying. Any suggestions would be great.
Unfortunately there is not much in place for biological father's let alone your unfortunate circumstance. My heart goes out to you and especially your husband, he must have been heart broken to find out that he was not the father! All I can suggest is counseling if that is a possibility. I have a step-daughter who is no longer a part of our lives because we just could not fight the mother any longer. She always undermined every single good thing that we tried to do. We were warned that we might eventually just have to let go, but never really thought it would happen. The mother is an on again/off again meth user who lies as well. My step daughter is 15 now. Last year, her behavior had changed incredibly and in an effort to determine if she was doing drugs or whatever else, we saw her diary laying out and opted to read it. This (snooping)by the way is something that the Attorney General of AZ states is a parents responsibility. You will have to make your own calls on this. At any rate, the diary had violent fantasies of doing harm to me (turning on the garbage disposal with my hand in it), her little brothers (my husbands and my children together), a boy that had rejected her and absolutely filthy language about her father for not letting her have boyfriends until 16. There were things in there that I have never even thought of or heard of on horror movies!Of course we had to protect ourselves and the kids, and confronted her and told her that counseling would be necessary if she were going to be able to continue to live with us. She and her mother have blamed the whole thing on my "violating her privacy" and she refuses to take responsiblity. To force her is to make her hate us more. So, we have let her go back to her mother and she wants nothing to do with us. A real slap in the face, considering every penny we had went to getting joint legal and physical custody, including savings for buying a house! So good luck and get the counseling if the mom will allow it. It can do wonders! Just try to outwit the mom at every chance you get and call CPS every time it is appears necessary. That is what they are supposed to be there for!
