If a parent needs to lie to a child to "keep the peace", lying will make the parent feel small, the child will feel the parent's lack of worth, and the child can't feel love from a parent who doesn't feel worthwhile.
Timestamps:
00:00 Real Love coach is coaching a mother with an angry entitled teenager.
01:41 Mother lies to her to keep the peace.
03:16 What's really going on with the mother and how it affects her daughter.
05:56 The need for the mother to tell the truth to her daughter.
08:38 What to tell this mother.
13:27 Letting people complain and complain encourages their victimhood.
Transcript:
Lying to Keep Peace
I received a letter from a parenting coach. She said, “I coach a mother whose 16-year-old daughter is a spoiled, entitled brat and when her mother wouldn't buy her a car, she pitched a fit, tried to move in with her alcoholic narcissistic father, then tried to move in with some neighbors who she told that her mother threw a table at her. This was a lie."
**I have heard this story—almost to the letter—many times now. Kids are so entitled that they simply can't believe there isn't a way to manipulate people to get what they want.
The daughter is back home now due to some coaching I gave my friend about how to interact with her and things are going better, but in part, this is because my friend lies to her to keep her happy:
**So your friend is afraid of her own daughter, again not uncommon. That makes it impossible for the daughter to feel loved.
They made an agreement that my friend gets her night to go out—on Fridays we go out and take country western dance lessons with a group of friends at a country western bar—and the daughter gets her night to do what she wants on Saturdays which mostly seems to involve doing stuff with her own friends and her mother is either available to drive her or stays home so the daughter can have friends over at their house. The part where my friend lies is that once the daughter is settled in what she is doing on Saturday night, my friend will go out dancing—something that she loves doing—and will tell her daughter that she is going over to a girlfriend's house.
How Lying Affects Parenting
**Sounds innocent, but here's what's happening.
- For reasons unknown, the mother feels some shame about going out dancing. Something from childhood, something.
- So she lies to daughter about it.
- This lie makes the mother feel small.
- The daughter FEELS her mother's lack of worth.
- The daughter can't feel love from a woman who doesn't feel worthwhile herself.
I'm not sure what she tells her on Friday nights, but it freaks her daughter out that her mother goes out to a bar to dance.
**NONE of her daughter's business what mother does. BUT Mother HAS to tell her daughter what she's doing. Why? Because of the numbered list above. The lying is hurting both of them.
Today, I asked my friend if she has had a conversation with her daughter about what it is that is upsetting to her about her mother going out dancing. This is a friend from my Catholic singles group. There is nothing going on that her daughter needs to be worried about when we go out. My friend said that her children just think that mothers don't do things like that, that their role is to just do stuff for the kids
**Dang, that is amazingly entitled on the part of the daughter. There's another reason for mother to tell the truth. When Mom lies, daughter has her entitlement confirmed, that's it's okay to even HAVE an opinion about what her mother does with her time. This is a crazy messy relationship.
and she said that she's just going to do this (keep lying) so she can get her daughter through the next two years without conflict.
**Very wrong, for all reasons above.
I thought about saying, "you are teaching her to lie,"
**Not really, because daughter doesn't know Mom is lying.
but wasn't sure what to advise her to do instead because their whole relationship is pretty screwed up.
**No kidding.
Advice for the Lying Mother
I did send her a link from Ridiculously Effective Parenting that said, "Your Angry, Impossible Child - How You can Help" when things were in crisis and she seemed excited about it, but I don't know if she actually read it and she seems to want to just manage her daughter by lying because it seems easier. Do you have any suggestions on anything to say to my friend or would you advise I back off because she is not listening?
**This is an easy one. I would say this to Mother:
"I'm trying to help you with your life, so that you're happier, and so you can learn to love your daughter better. You were brave not to give in to the demands for the car, but you're still not addressing the real underlying problem, which is that YOU feel so worthless that you have to lie to avoid your own daughter's approval.
"I'm not telling you that you have to do anything, but if you keep lying, I can't help you. I'm not refusing to help, I'm stating that I CAN'T help you, because you're destroying the effects of my loving you by choosing to stay in a prison that your daughter keeps you in.
"And when she leaves home—I assume that's why Mom talked about lying for two more years—your daughter will continue to hold her hostage. Daughter will ask you what you've been doing lately, and you will have to lie to avoid disapproval still.
"Then—and the odds of this are HIGH—(1) your daughter will choose to stay home during college and for the next 20 years, because it's cheaper.
"Or (2) she'll fail in school, because she's entitled, and she'll find that her professors aren't as easily manipulated as you are. And then she's back home again.
"Or (3) she'll go to school, and there will be an endless list of demands for money and other things, and you will give in every time, which will further entitle daughter and financially destroy you.
"Or (4) daughter will move in with you, accompanied by boyfriend or baby or both, again because you have no spine."
**See where this all goes? I've seen it happen over and over, so I'm not guessing. Mom has to grow a spine and really be a mother.
I would conclude:
"So here's the deal. Again I'm not telling you what to do. BUT if you keep lying to your daughter—and whatever else Mom is doing to avoid disapproval, because it's a GUARANTEE that there is a lot more to this story—I can't be involved in trying to help you.
"I will continue to talk to you ONLY after you (A) get a membership in the Ridiculously Effective Parenting Training, and (B) I get a confirmation from Greg that you are a member (you'd have to give me her name so I know she's registered)."
**I emphasize to any coach that it does NO good to keep talking to someone when they don't do the hard stuff that is required to learn and grow. Listening to them complain only encourages their victimhood. You have to be as firm with Mom as I've suggested that Mom be with her daughter.
