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No magic solutions here either, I fully hear and understand what you are saying, living it.

Ah, the old lying again! Yep, very familiar here too. Have you come across confabulation? https://www.bcadoption.com/resources/articles/truth-about-confabulation My daughter, ASD, lies. Quite well and quite convincingly. She does it for different reasons at different times but she can be quite vindictive and will deliberately lie to get other people into trouble. She doesn’t quite see it in the sane way as we do. The other person will have annoyed or upset her so she believes it’s her right to get her own back on them. They upset her so she’ll do the same. It’s led to some fairly serious issues and we now have it written into her statement because it makes her and others very vulnerable. It’s a difficult one to handle and oftentimes I get it wrong and I do get cross. But, also, I have to acknowledge that lying really presses my buttons. It’s a huge trigger for me in the same way that, for example, swearing would be for others. It’s my issue and I have to acknowledge that and deal with it! I hate lying but I have had to learn ways of managing my trigger. Another thing that causes lying here is anxiety - we suspect she’s pda and she is a very anxious child so in that instance I try to see her lies more as a firm of panic attack. Those lies are not malicious, but more often she’ll say the first thing that comes into her head. We both know it’s rubbish so then I’ll give her time to have another think. Waffly I know. But different things cause different lies and need to be handled differently. Kids, eh?!

Good article in theory, practically not really when it involves teens, false allegations etc. I also am sure that at times it can be confabulation while at other times there are ordinary lies who do not need any storyteller therapy. And this makes it so complicated, easy when a child is 6 it all can be down to confabulation, complicated when they are still doing this despite the storyteller when they are teens and the outside world start what comes out of their mouth seriously, Ah, tell me all about what daddy did when he was cross'.............. Yes it's brain damage, no child without attachment disorder without brain damage, no child with asd, fasd, adhd etc without brain damage. And that makes it so hard especially when they get older and you did not manage to get them the label 'mentally handicapped' (what guarantees services), the future is not rosy. As there is brain damage this does not resolve itself and stays forever, the ability to change is very limited, this makes those kids extremely vunerable. Jails are full of adults suffering from confabulations, struggeling to live honest independent lives. So in my books there is a good reason to take this very seriously even when it is 'only' fantasy. If the storyteller method has not worked by age 10 I would say try something differently. I say it again I would be so happy if my child would feel shame after stealing my stuff, that would be healthy.

Lies drive me crazy too. Dd1 lied a lot - wishful thinking, to impress, to get out of trouble. I did get cross sometimes but also got in the habit of checking things out and never responding if wasn't sure what the truth was. As she got older, I realised there was generally truth in everything she said - it just wouldn't be the whole truth. So there were frequent occasions where she would tell me about things that had gone wrong at school, but only what others had done to her, not her role in the situation. I generally talked it over with her and she got wise to my take on things. She started to say things like: do you promise not to be angry if I tell you the truth? Then she wanted us to "trust" her so that gave frequent opportunities to go through what that meant and how it involved honesty on her part. We'd give her tasks she could do with clear guidelines and if she kept to them (eg back home at the right time) we would praise her and relate it back to the "trust" she wanted from us. It did then get better. I don't 100% believe everything she tells me now but I haven't actually caught her out in an important lie for a long time. (Loads of silly ones, like the chocolate bar has been in her room for weeks and wasn't bought this morning, I ignore. You have to let some things go.) Gets easier when they're more independent as you get to the stage of realising you're never going to know everything about them anymore. She now gets cross when her friends don't tell her the truth!

Lying is a big button for me too. I can understand. She thinks she’s managing life brilliantly and ‘winning’ but sadly she’s loosing. Both my AC are always lying. It’s a much easier version of life when they’re in control over what you think has happened. It’s a much easier life when all the ‘right answers’ are the ones people believe to be true. No killer shame to face. Plus you get to fool others and that’s a buzz. Also they dissociate almost all the time. So dream worlds and real world - well it’s a blur hopping inbetween them and they might be guessing what’s in the gaps where they can’t remember what’s happened. The coat is an interesting one, holly Van gulden says kids with early trauma often lack permanence and constancy (Her short you tube on this explains best) Think the coat is a good example of this

Lying isn't a trigger for me, so I guess that makes it easier for me to deal with it, so I'm putting that out there first up - I have other triggers of course, just not lying. So, the first thing is probably to try to de-tangle yourself from the trigger. Have you ever tried some kind of therapy for just you? I have had therapy (not counselling - it's different) and found it incredibly helpful as it enables you to revisit your own upbringing and the messages you have picked up throughout life and work through the views and attitudes that you might not find that useful these days. Even if you think you had the perfect childhood there will be things to discover (and actually, thinking you had the perfect childhood is likely to be a problem / can of worms in itself!!). So then you can deal with the lying without taking it so personally / getting so triggered. My two daughters tell lies all the time for various reasons. Some of them are due to shame. Others just laziness. Or to make themselves look good. Never to actually cause trouble like e.g. donatella describes (but they CAN cause trouble just the same). My two are now 18 and 20 and it's manageable. I have a good idea when things are likely to be untrue and I sometimes let it go or sometimes I will say "it would have been nice if that had happened" or "want to start over again" with my elder daughter (my younger daughter has too much shame for this so I don't try it with her). I sometimes make discreet enquiries, but usually I just manage the situation as best I can without calling them out. Instead, I am getting them ASF therapy which I hope will increase their self esteem which I see as the main reason for their lies. And I keep them out of trouble as best I can. No easy answer. But I do believe that my two have little understanding of cause and effect when it comes to lying. They both seem to believe that if they say something then it takes on a truth. Why would I doubt them? Only because I think they are terrible people They are not able to go there right now. They don't understand that I have intuition and other knowledge besides what they know. So if a box is on the table, no they don't know how it got there because they genuinely don't see why I would think it's them if I haven't actually seen them do it. It's hard because, yes, lying does get them into lots of trouble. Our job I think is to get them the help and then help them get through the mess created after their lies get them into trouble and not take any of it personally.