[momofthree071616]

Our DD will be 12 in 2 months and we are scared,confused and lost. She has become a full blown liar. It can be something as small as did you clean your room to something big like did you steal something from my room. On top of all that her grades are dropping and she has went from "he's cute" to kissing boys and lying about it. I have researched and read all the "expert" opinions and at this point I am ready to hear from the REAL expert, You! I need mommy advice please. Im worried about her self esteem I'm worried because she is a follower and foes things because its cool and "everyone's doing it". What did you do as far as discipline? Better yet if you have been in this situation what did you do? What worked what didn't?

[8forus]

This one is difficult. I've had two all out liars. One became one on the day of his 17th birthday - just out of the blue, no warning whatsoever ... he moved out. (Things are much, much, much better now and he's a lot more responsible now and truthful - still on his own but doing ok.) So no help there. The other liar is not quite as dramatic as she is 9 - and while she lies about everything she's not doing really bad things. Actually this month is a punishment for her. A lot of things built up to the point that we grounded her for the rest of the month at the very beginning of the month - no friends, no tv, computer only for schoolwork (computer in the living room so everyone can see), no phone (this recently just started with her and her friends talking on the phone) ... so far *it's working!*

BUT my situations are so very different to your situation!

*IF* this were my daughter we'd probably wind up grounding her and keeping tabs on her at school. She'd lose her phone and computer privileges and certainly no friends outside of school until she could speak to us about whatever is going on and show a change of attitude and behavior. BUT that's our go to discipline for specific types of behavior. I'm not sure what we'd do if that didn't start working - we'd have to think and pray on it for awhile.
My 14 year old thought that because she's in 8th grade and hates her foreign language (there are no choices and they have to take this one as a requirement) that she could just not do anything in that class (as a protest to not having any choices) and fail it then get to pick a different language in high school. While technically this is true, we won't allow her to fail it - on purpose. Once she saw that we were serious about it and we were keeping tabs on *everyone's* grades - weekly family meetings after dinner where everyone heard how everyone else was doing - she finally buckled down (without letting on that she was) and has brought her grade up from a 56 to an 88 so far. Her older sister was about to be pulled out of her extra curriculars because her grades were plummeting (poor time management) as was the 14 year old if those grades couldn't come up. We simply didn't care how much said activities meant to them - grades were more important and are what get them in to good colleges. We had to school the 16 year old on even though she wants to go to music school, she has to have the academic grades to go with her musical ability.

I keep getting off topic!!

Honestly I just don't know the answer nor what we would do - I really just wanted to give you some support since no one else has answered either.

[LovinMyGirls]

I agree with what was stated above. My dd is 12 as well. But thing is she doesn't have things like a cell phone. Granted I let her use mine from time to time to text certain people and she has a old laptop of mine to talk to friends etc. But I don't have all the answers..but I think some of the problems with kids is the freedom.

I'm a single mom and I can't and choose not to hand my daughters everything they want. I talk to other moms who have 4 year olds with ipads..I'm like seriously?

Anyway-- take away privileges. My daughter knows her sports, activities with friends are not a necessity. If she gets into a nasty mood (rarely) she can loose these things. I think once they can appreciate that it's not all about them which is hard when they are just entering teen life they begin to understand. But it's an ongoing cycle.

But I'd keep tabs on what she's lying about and confront her about it. When you know it's a lie confront her and tell her it's not to be tolerated and she looses privileges.