Jean responds:

Thanks for writing to parentingadolescents.com. I think you are right to distinguish the kind of lying that your twelve-year-old daughter is doing from the kind that I was talking about in the article on lying. In a way, it seems to me that the lying stuff you describe is not yet adolescent in character: it's more childlike, I think. The effort here, I would guess, is less to 'establish a sphere of autonomy' (an adolescent task)than to hide feelings she either does not know she has or feelings she knows she has but is ashamed of.

I would want to focus on the hidden feelings that are somehow communicated in the behavior. So in this case, I would look at the behaviors about which she is lying, not so much at the lying itself. (That's also the advice I give in the article--don't go after the lying, go after the behavior being lied about.) But you need to be looking at the behaviors not as wrongdoings, but as attempts to communicate something. The question is, what is that something?

There is a feeling of hoarding to these behaviors, as I read about them in your letter. It's as if she can't get enough, is afraid to be in want of something she direly needs: the sweets, the ball, the desired foods. What does she feel is missing--in her life, inside of her, with her friends? I hear her as ravenous: but for what? What do the foods and the forbidden lunches and the sister's ball represent? What is their function? What is she trying to do or trying to get in taking these things?

If this had just begun in adolescence, I'd be looking at it more as an autonomy struggle--to do what she wants in going off grounds with friends, for instance--or an identity struggle: you may cook organic food, but I prefer deep-fat-fried, thank you. But this has been going on for a long time. In childhood, sneaking results when you can't face what you're feeling, wanting, doing--when you're ashamed.

I'd try to help ease the shame because it keeps her in the dark--she can't face what's happening if it's too shameful to be talked about, to be owned as belonging to her. It's not, as you note, that she doesn't know right from wrong, lying from telling the truth, taking things from respecting others' rights to their property. You need to help her talk about what's driving these grasping, needy behaviors.

It's hard for parents to talk to kids in that way sometimes because, I think, we're often afraid that "it's us," one way or another. But our children ae made from more than just their parents/family. They each carry their own unique constitution and are influenced by many things out there in the world. Whatever is troubling her, it's not "just you"--which isn't to say you don't need to be available to hearing that there may be a dynamic in the family that is troubling to her. But you don't need to take total responsibility for her being the way she is.

If you find it's hard for you--or for her--to talk together about what may be going on for her, tell her you love her and are a little worried and would like for her to be able to talk about it, if not with you, then with someone else, and ask the school for referral to a counselor who is skilled with young adolescents (or consult our Directory of Clinicians).

Thanks again for your question, which helps clarify the subject of lying, and with which I'm sure many parents can identify. And good luck to you. It's so hard, this parenting gig!

Jean.