How to cope with lying

My daughter is 8. Her sister and father have ADHD. I had no concerns about my daughter until recently. When she was younger, she was prone to extreme tantrums and would lash out but it was not that bad. However, I’ve noticed in the last year or so that she lies. A lot. And she will not back down, even when she has been caught out lying. She struggles a lot with friendships at school and often falls out with her friends. One mum sent me a message one night asking if we were emigrating in the half term cos that’s what my daughter had told her child. We have no plans to emigrate. She has very extreme reactions when things don’t go the way she wants them to, and she starts getting very confrontational and aggressive.
I don’t know how to get her to stop telling lies. She lies about so many things, things that seem irrelevant and there’s no need to lie about. She will say one thing then say something contradictory 5 minutes later and deny the first thing. She will not ever say sorry. It does not matter how many times I try to explain the importance of saying sorry if you have hurt someone, even if it is an accident. 
Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this? I don’t know who to ask to get help with it. I’ve mentioned it to the SENCO at school, who is her teacher, but the SENCO isn’t interested because they don’t see the behaviour at school. 

  • I lied a lot when that age or so. I didn't really understand what truth was or how it was valuable when it came to dealing with people.

    I observed that people lied continuously throughout the day:

    My mom's nails and hair were fake, yet she told people that they were real.

    Witnessing many adults casually lie about their age.

    Watching parents lie to each other "is something wrong?" - "no, I'm fine" -lie.

    Elected officials (on tv) saying things that aren't true without consequences.

    Parents lying to bill collectors.

    Parents lying to insurers (the bike was not in the garage when it was stolen but leaning against it outside).

    Adults behaving jovially to each other and then insulting them after they have left.

    Adults lying to me: "this wont hurt", "you'll be OK", "its not your fault", "your father is a*******", "its from Santa"...

    Saying a dress looks nice when it doesn't.

    Saying you enjoyed something when you didn't.

    The point is lying is a fundamental part of human interaction. Telling someone that lying is wrong is just not correct or truthful and does not take into account the realities of human society. You need to discuss, honestly, what kind of lies there are, when they are good and when they are bad, when the may be needed and when it is not. 

  • Children lying is often a self-esteem issue where they have measured themselves against their perceptions of everyone else bragging about their wonderful life and she feels inferior - so she creates an on-the-fly- artificial reality to boost her own image.  Unfortunately, we are not good at judging other people's true intentions and spotting truth amongst childish exaggerations so she's grossly overcompensating - which makes her stand out as odd and creates conflict.

    It's great that she has a vivid imagination - why not get her to write short stories to stretch her mind and focus her into separating the real world from her imaginary world - and praise her for the stories she writes - maybe chat about them beforehand so you can get a real feel of how amazing her brain is - it just needs some redirection into creative output rather than negative behaviours.     It sounds like she could be the next JK Rowling.

  • Do you have any support for your daughter from any professionals outside of school? They might be more able to help you with this behaviour?