Where does out and out lying play into Asperger's?

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Yes, he's probably frightened that he will get punished and/or forced to spend a lot more time struggling with his homework. I can't see why kids are forced to do so much homework these days anyway.

I had trouble with it when I was a child - I would lie about things a lot. In particular, if I thought I would get in trouble for telling the truth (my mother was a total b*tch). Even if I was telling the truth, I would get accused of lying. So, I didn't bother being honest. If I was gonna get disbelieved anyway... at least I might get out of trouble for a little while...

I also, as some folks here have mentioned, have a LOT of trouble with figuring out how long something will take. I always overestimate. So, for me, I have a set time that I will work on something - 15 minutes. I set a timer and work on it for 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, I get a break. I have to keep at it using the timer until I'm done, but it keeps me from feeling overwhelmed. And I often am surprised by how little time something takes.

Homework sucks. I'm 42 - I hated homework when I was in school, and I hate it now. I just finished an algebra refresher that had awful amounts of homework - repetitive, mindnumbing, dreadful homework - to the point where I had no time to actually *study*. I hated it. If the teacher had been more selective about the problems, so that I could then do more of the ones I had trouble with, I'd have gotten far more out of the class. I basically, skipped whichever ones I felt like, and told him I was doing it. Most kids, however, don't have the courage (or backup of their parents) to do that. So they're stuck in an untenable situation. I understand the point of repetition helping with retaining new information, but in most cases, it didn't *feel* like new knowledge, so it was silly. I didn't mind doing repetition for stuff I was having trouble with... but only until I got it.

Anyways, a long rambling post about this. Good luck with your son. I'm busy helping my 12year old.

I guess this is another sense in which I am an atypical Aspie. I must confess that there are many occasions in which I am not completely honest, both about things like my homework, and about things like "Does this make me look fat?". I would say I'm the least honest with my immediate family (namely my mother, grandfather, and uncle). They don't seem to be able to fully accept who I am, so I guess I do it to give the impression that I'm more productive and/or "normal" than I really am, or to avoid hurting their feelings. However, with my peers and with other authority figures (teachers, bosses, etc.), I'm usually pretty honest.

My son is 11 and trying to get him to bring his homework home is an astronomical feat. I can ask do you have any homework?..no(lie)... Do you need to bring your books home?..no(lie)... Can I see your agenda?...ok... Why does it say you have math homework?....Oh that homework.

When I pick him up from school and ask these questions then he says..."Why do you always have to ask me that? Don't you trust me?"

If I didn't check for his homework before we left the school he would never do any. School just started back up for us and they skipped him ahead a grade in math this year. His teacher told me that he will have homework every night and already the first day of math class he forgot to write down what his assignment was. But he said he thought he remembered what she said and he did something for it. So, good thing I am volunteering in his math class everyday.

when I was younger I would actually take alot of time to sike myself up for a lie,telling myself I didn't do what I know I did...I always got away with it





"It's not a lie if you believe it"

Out and out lying plays pretty heavily into every personality type... including NT. Some people lie more than others, but people with AS only lie about as much as NTs do.

Hi Michelle,
I was really interested to read your comment. I see this with my son (he's 14). If he's had a fight with my DDs he will invariably lie about his part in it - sometimes even though I was in the room and saw what happened. I do believe that he convinces himself as his outrage at not being believed is extreme.
I don't know if you can help explain this so I can understand it better?
Thanks,
Helen.

Claire used to lie when she was little, The family joke is that Our son didn't know what a lie was till Claire came along. Asked if she had helped herself to the biscuites she would answer "No." but be standing there with chocolate around her mouth.

She was never any good at it and now she's older doesn't do it at all, She worked out that it didn't get her anything and I always knew, so she stopped. "No point" was her remark.
I think that Aspies don't usually bother with it as they get older, and when younger it's more to do with "Can I get away with this." Or as been said they are trying to avoid a difficult situation, either your son doesn't understand the homework or he sees no point in doing it. Obviously there could be other reasons to.

One point I'd like to make to all the aspie folks that think they're great liars.. My wife and I know our 15 yr old daughter lies to us. She does it often. And she's pretty bad at it, but we hardly ever call her on it because she's generally lying about things like feelings, emotions. Its rarely about schoolwork but even then we know when she does it. I think most parents do know when their kid lies to them (a kid with aspergers or otherwise). People who think they're great at it and get away with lying are fooling themselves.

If she was to make a post on the BBS she'd probably say, " I lie all the time. I'm great at lying. and I get away with it and nobody knows.."

I know I'm a good liar. And that fact tends to scare me a little. I used to lie about schoolwork all the time, and my parents never picked me up on it. And I now use lying to play practical jokes...Unfortunatley I find so amusing I can't keep a straight face...

I was a chronic liar from the ages of 3 til about the age of 17.

Having studied my own behavior patterns extensively and tried to recollect what was going through my head, this is what I think the problem is for many Aspies.

Some Aspies have no sense of the future. They only have the sense of the now. So when an aspie lies about having done his homework, you can't make him understand the consequences. The lie is the difference between spending a half hour working, or doing what it is that he wants to do. Frequently, they won't even make the connection between the lie and the punishment.

To me in particular, a lie meant a delayed punishment, whereas the truth ment an immediate punishment. One particular fight with my parents over a lie I told about a homework assignment, I remember screaming "See what telling the truth gets me into?". Another time, I actually lost a week vacation at the ocean because I wouldn't tell lies. The parents were convinced that a punishment that severe would get through to me - it didn't affect a thing, only made me think my parents were mean and cruel.

Another reason I lied was to attempt to clarify situations I didn't understand. For example, one day I was accused of tearing a girl's dress in 3rd grade. I didn't remember having been anywhere near her all day, but 1) I knew no one would believe me, and 2) I knew I was "proven wrong" when telling the truth a lot, frequently because I'd misinterpreted the situation. So instead of telling the truth (I don't remember going near her), I wove an elaborate lie, about not seeing her behind me and backing up and accidentally knocking over and she tore her dress on a nearby chair.

The last reason I lied is because it frequently seemed like the truth did nothing for me. I've mentioned my abusive track coach in a few other topics. To get away from him, a friend and I would hide in the woods behind the school. I would of course, get caught each and every time. And I'd lie about it, even when my mom literally saw me coming out of the woods. Conversations would go like this, approximately.

Mom: You need to quit lying and stay out of the woods!
Me: I wasn't in the woods!
Mom: Yes you were, I just saw you!
Me: Well I only went there because the coach pinched me!
Mom: He wouldn't have pinched you if you weren't doing something you shouldn't have been!

This was a screwup on my mom's part, but understandable - anyone would be infuriated if their kid kept lying to their face repeatedly like I did. But when I said the coach pinched me, and nothing was done, I took it as proof the truth was useless. Whereas if I'd said right out "I was running away from track practice because I watched The Coach put another kid in a hammerlock until he screamed and pinch him until he bled", instead of lying...

One last issue with my truthfulness is that questions, especially rapid-fire questions, confused me, and still do. So if I was being interrogated over something like the dress issue by a teacher, by the end of the interrogation, they'd have 4 or 5 different stories, one of which was the truth - but by the time they were done I'd have completely forgotten what really happened.

I can't even say why I stopped lying - it was like, one day, I woke up and suddenly didn't have the urge to do it anymore.

You two practically read my mind. When I was a kid, I quickly learned that confessing (i.e. telling the truth) was worse than useless. My parents would get very angry, and dump out the most severe punishment they can think of, all with a snide smirk on their faces. So simply put, there was no incentive to tell the truth, so I figured: if I can come up with a belivable lie, I can avoid the punishment. As I got older, my parents caught on to this, and simply stopped believing me whenever they didn't feel like it. So there were more disincentives to tell the truth, which taught me to fabricate more and more complex lies. In the end, I'd come up with a perfect lie: (1) it covers up most of the story that sets things against me, (2) still gets me into a little bit of trouble, just so my parents could believe the story, (3) and I get away with much less punishment than I'd get if I told the truth.

Now you may ask: "Isn't this more like a battleground than a family?" And I'll tell you: "Exactly!" That's how I viewed my relationship with my parents, as a zero-sum competition. My parents goal was to give me the most punishment, and my goal was to get the least punishment. The winner was determined by how well I could lie. So let's say there was a test in school. One of the three scenarios could ensue:
I didn't study, and did poorly on the test (which was really hard). Knowing I "should" tell the truth, I showed it to my parents. When confronted, I admitted that I didn't study enough. Punishment: no TV for a week. My conclusion: my parents won, gotta lie next time.
I didn't study, did poorly, but threw the test into a sewer; my parents later saw the grade on the report card. When confronted, I made up an excuse about not understanding the textbook, so no wonder I did bad. Punishment: no TV for three days. My conclusion: I had to take some blame, but nice cover-up . My parents won, though.
I studied and did very well on the test. Experience shows that it's OK to tell the truth this time. When I showed it to my parents, they praised me on the good work, but warned me to keep it that way. Punishment: none. My conclusion: I won, since they can't punish me.

So if you look at these battleground scenarios, you tell me why aspie children shouldn't lie. If you punish them regardless of whether they tell the truth or try to cover it up, there's simply no incentive whatsover to be honest. Furthermore, if the lying is about grades, do you really want your children to get good grades just because they're afraid of punishment?

Not to be cliche, but there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. Living in the "battleground" taught me to be a perfect liar. I can't tell you how many times I've lied to my parents, teachers, professors, bosses, even police officers, all with a completely straight face and a credible cover-up. And guess what: they bought it every time. The goals of lying were only avoid the hassle that might come with telling the truth; I never lied when something or someone will suffer as a result. So I guess I should say thanks to my parents, since by teaching me to get good grades, they inadvertantly taught me how to lie. So parents, if you ever come across this, thanks.

Just because you tell a lie and nobody calls you on it doesn't mean you got away with it!

Kids and teenagers in general are very poor liars. I've found that kids and teenagers with AS are EXTREMELY poor liars. But the sad thing is, they don't know how bad they are at lying. After reading all these posts from people who THINK they are great liars I would like to ask them how they know they were/are such good liars? If the answer is "well, I never get caught" I've got to say that your fooling yourself. Every time that you lie the person your speaking to probably knows your lying but simply does not call you on it. The reason why is a combination of conflict avoidence and pity. The receiver of the lie says to themself, "this person is lying to me, I don't feel like arguing with them, I'm simply going to remember that this person is a liar and I should doubt everything they say"

I'd make a small analogy. Ok the kids that tried out to be on American Idol... many of them truly, honestly believed they were GREAT singers! They couldn't believe that Simon was sitting there telling them how bad they sucked. This is kind of the same thing with kids with AS that Think they are great liars.