unintentional 'lying'?

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I know my 9 year old doesn't mean to be lying and I'm not sure I'd really classify it as lying either. It's just what is said and how it is processed are so different. I really don't know what to do about it.

For example we just had the following exchange between me, her, and a friend:

Maggie: D--- said "If I don't play dress up than she will be the only one who looks pretty and her mother would like her better"

D--- : "No I didn't! You're lying! Your just trying to get me into trouble!"

Me: "Maggie, what exactly did D--- say?"

Maggie: "If I don't play dress up then I'm not her friend."

D--- : " I did not! You're lying again!"

Me: "Is that exactly what D--- said?"

Maggie " Well.... I guess she said "If you don't play dress up then I will have to play all by myself" but I she meant....

Now I know Maggie was upset by her friend's insistence on playing dress up. She honestly thought that if she didn't play dress up that D--- wouldn't want to play with her ever agian and that D--'s mom would be upset with her. Once you calm her down you can get her to tell you the exact statement but this misunderstanding and rephrasing is really causing problems between her and a good friend. I just don't know what to do to get her to understand how important it is not to rephrase things like that.

Any suggestions?

Kelly

I can definitely relate to that, myself. I do not have any directly helpful advice for you I'm afraid, since nothing was ever done to help me for this problem (I had to figure things out on my own) and I would not be sure what to do if I was in your position.

I guess, one thing to try, is after settling a given misunderstanding, to make sure the child understands what happened and exactly what was misunderstood and how (how the child in your example mistakenly equated dress-up with the continuance of the friendship for example, and why the child's understanding was wrong). Also perhaps it might be helpful to write it down and keep a sort of journal that the child could read over, so they can remember these things and go back to them. Study them, even.

Just my 2 cents.

What we have been told to do with all of our children is use reflective listening. What that basically means is that you repeat back to your child what they said to make sure you understand what they are trying to say.

A quick example would be sort of like this:

Child: "Billy hates me"

Parent: "Billy told you he hated you today?"

Child: "No. He had this mean look on his face when I was giving a presentation in class so I know he hates me."

Then you can go into discussion on reinterpreting data from there.

I find it helpful with my AS child to make sure and add a time frame when reflecting the information because his time sense is so different. He might make a big to-do over something his brother did, but come to find out it happened two years ago, not two seconds ago as his presentation sounds to an NT like me.

There are many ways to reflect what is said. It just takes some practice. It lets your child know too that you *are* listening to them and care about understanding them.