ARGH!!!! easy child 2 and more lies! Just gotta vent

[Shari]

so I don't explode.

She comes here every Wednesday. Since her mom doesn't tell us anything, I check the school website on Wednesday afternoons to know whether to expect her on the bus or not to let the sitter know if she has one or two kids that day. (if she happens to be sick on Wed, we don't get told til she doesn't show up on the bus and I call wondering where she's at...and that's for the birds, so I just check the school website.)

So I checked today. It also displays the online grade summary, which I look at but generally ignore. D in math and C in the reading class that was a straight up A last week. So I looked at the grade sheets for those classes.

5 missing assignments in math. 13 total D's or F's on homework, quizzes, and tests in the past 6 weeks. 3 missing assignments in reading from the past week.

I had asked easy child last week if she was still doing tutoring and she said she was, so I was a bit perplexed why this horrible drop in grades. So I asked the tutor if easy child had been staying. Tutor spilled her guts and said not only was easy child not staying, she kept saying she was and then not showing, among other displeased things.

So talked to husband. Figured we'd better find out if she was going home after school on tutoring nights or staying in town and telling mom she was at tutoring and just running around (like days we took her to school early). So asked mom, and no, she's not been staying, and of course, mom asked why I was asking, so I told her a brief nutshell (no details, I am DONE with this - and she can look if she cares - I was only asking to the extent that this kid might be snowballing everyone and running around town).

And her mom comes back with "tell her, if she told the tutor she was staying tomorrow night and doesn't, that she'll be grounded".

Gotta love it.

Teacher tells you your kid, who has a history of lying to EVERYONE, has lied to her for a MONTH and you say "you're grounded if you do it tomorrow".

Gee. And one wonders why she keeps lying....hm. Ponderous.

Thanks for listening!

 

[gcvmom]

Yup. Nothing like delayed consequences for reinforcing bad behavior.

Detach, detach, detach!

 

[Shari]

So I'm sitting here all detached and happy.

She's not doing any homework and told me when she got home she had a lot. I ask, being chit-chatty, if its all finished.

Proudly, she says "yup!"

husband chimes in and says "even all the makeup work from being gone yesterday?"

She looked at him like he had two heads. She didn't expect him to know she'd been absent. After asking how he knew, she said no, she had more that she had "forgotten" about and suddenly remembered.

Yeah, whatever.

And I'm not passing along mom's message. I'll ask her if she's staying after for tutoring and let her mom know what she says. If mom wants to let this bs slide, she can deal with it from there. I don't even wanna know.

And I found more smelly pee pants in the laundry tonight. ARGH!!!!!

 

[Shari]

And ya know...its scarey, but I feel I am losing or have lost my ability to be objective with this child.

That bothers me. A lot.

 

[Star*]

Shari,

What if.....you took all her underpants, and kept them locked up. Then when she was at your house the only underpants she could get was when she took a bath and exchanged a pair of dry ones for the clean ones you gave her?

As far as loosing objectivity...How about keeping a journal - dated, times of all the lies she tells you? At the end of one week you sit down and show her why you can't trust her?

I dunno. The therapist told us that every time Dude lied? We had to follow him, call him on it, take him to it....even follow him to the bathroom if he said "I have to pee." one of us had to get up and follow him there and say "We can't trust you, so we have to follow you." For three months we did this and after three months we FINALLY started to get on HIS nerves so badly he told the truth for the first time in his life about something. I thought I wasn't going to win that one....but we did and it was the beginning of Dude telling the truth on things. Granted he still lies about stuff, but....not about EVERYTHING. And when he would start to slip up...? OMG we had to go back to following him around again. VERY time consuming but less upsetting than this lying all the time business.

 

[Shari]

That's actually a good idea...maybe I won't follow her around, but maybe I'll leave her out of a few things I'm doing or not let her go on a few "teen" things she wants to go on when she's with us, and let her see the list as the reason why...
***
I dunno. I don't know how much I can really impact her in the limited amount of time we have her. And her dad doesn't like to "be the bad guy", either, so its generally just me.
***
It gets to the point that I don't even want her around, and that is sad. I've never felt that way about a child, mine or otherwise. But, just all the bs that surrounds her, both by her own actions, and the inactions of the adults in her world...I just don't want to be around it. husband thinks we need to punish Wee more when he's not at school. Yet she sat there last night, told me, in front of husband, that she'd done all of her homework, when she hadn't, husband knowing the rest of the details, and proceeded to watch tv til 10pm, occassionally putting a pencil to paper and doing a tad of work. Her mom's "tell her if she lies tomorrow, she's in trouble" koi. You have an email from a teacher that says she has been lying for 6 weeks, but she's only in trouble if she does it again??? She's a month away from being 13. Not 3.
***
I know there is no "fair", but its really under my skin. I just don't want to deal with the crud that comes with her. And that bothers me.

 

[gcvmom]

I've felt at times like I didn't want difficult child 1 for a kid -- and while I felt as horrible as you do about it, I think it's not unrealistic for a parent to be driven to extremes by a difficult child's extreme behavior.

 

[AnnieO]

Shari...

My 63-y/o Dad tells a story about visiting his 1st-gen Greek Grandpa.

Seems Great Grandpa - for some unknown reason - did not believe in sending gifts. He did believe in small rewards for very hard work.

My Dad stayed with him for a week one summer. He was about 6 years old at the time. He messed up and pooped in his pants. He thought he'd stay out of trouble, so he wadded up the nasty underpants and hid them.

Dad's birthday is in January. This year, Great Grandpa sent him a box. Wow - a present! He excitedly opened it in front of his parents, sister and brother.

I'm sure you know what was in the box.

 

[Shari]

I've felt at times like I didn't want difficult child 1 for a kid -- and while I felt as horrible as you do about it, I think it's not unrealistic for a parent to be driven to extremes by a difficult child's extreme behavior.

I'm sure the goings-on with Wee currently aren't helping my frame of mind. And I wouldn't mind dealing with this girl if someone else would show one iota of making an attempt to do something, too! And I'm just not seeing that.

Step. That's gross. Not sure I'm that mean, but it will definitely be an image burned into my brain...and I'll certainly be thinking about it and laugh to myself for a long, long time.

The other idea I've had? Put them in a walmart bag and put them in mom/grandma's mailbox.