What do you do when one of your teen twins is doing everything wrong on purpose to the point of wanting to pull out your hair? You grow said hair.
Because my girls are special needs (though as far as a specific diagnosis.. that proverbial wool is still over my eyes and my thighs), I can’t teach or discipline them the same way someone else might with their misguided children. Love is equal, however. There’s no trick or reverse way of demonstrating love towards them.
Linds is traditionally a sweet girl but her devious, almost psychotic behaviour as of late is sadly overshadowing things. The forgetfulness here and there, I get it, it’s what I deal with daily between her and her sister. But creating fictional scenarios in order to avoid pending trouble and discipline is the makings of some other kind of monster lurking beneath the surface and I can’t say like it.
Fantasy lie #1
Her class was to attend a Calgary Hitmen hockey game the other Tuesday. I got a message from her bus driver saying she missed the bus so subsequently she had to stay home and of course miss not only typical schoolwork but the game which she looked forward to for weeks. There was no direct communication between her and I due to her losing phone privileges over another issue, I can’t remember what.
When I arrived home from work about 4pm, she was the first to greet me. I inquired about her day, fully prepared to console her on missing the game. I didn’t get a “I was so angry we missed the bus, I wanted to go so bad” with a tear or three streaming. Never got that or anything similar. What I did get was “It was great! I had popcorn and the game was awesome.”
With blown mind, I’m like “Oh, that’s great, I thought you missed the bus?!”
“Nope”. Apparently she did make it on time. Cool. Next thing I know, I’m texting the bus driver stating my confusion with her, questioning why she told me Linds missed the bus when she didn’t. One minute later, both her brother and her sis confirm that she was in fact home all day. Needless to say, I was floored as to why anyone, especially my daughter, would paint such a vivid, preposterous lie. And then it happened again.
Fantasy lie #2
This just went down last night. The girls had, yet again, lost their cereal privileges and I had the 3 boxes hidden away in my closet drawers. French side up, knowing the possibility is strong that they may get into them, though banished. Two days had passed and I’m not a monster so I told them they could have the boxes back.
Then I look in my closet. One box is now English side up and is almost empty. The second one is completely gone, box and all. And the third one was untouched. So I call for my girls and when they are in ear shot, I inquire about the cereal and who has been into them. I know Lexis is probably more of an accomplice if anything so obviously the real mastermind here is Lindsey. But I need to hear it.
Does she confess? Heck no. The response I got from her didn’t piss me off as much as it freaked me out to the point of thinking what am I dealing with here? Four words. “The cats did it.”
I asked her if she honestly thought I was stupid enough to believe what she just said. Then she added, “It was the cats. I saw them.” She wasn’t laughing. She didn’t smile. She didn’t say just kidding. Her face, both during delivery and immediately after, was deadpan serious.
Does she actually believe these lies she’s concocting? And possibly worse, is she thinking I believe her?
I have no wrap up to this as I fear this could be the tip of a problematic and darn near psychotic iceberg. It’s a recurring behaviour, allowing her to cope through escapism and dwell in this dollhouse of lies where she currently resides. Therapy could be around the corner. My style of discipline, which has worked for fourteen of her fifteen years, is no longer doing a damn thing.
What would you do?
Leave a Reply