Reactive Attachment Disorder: 10 Tips to Handle Crazy Lying

Crazy lying is lying about something that is ridiculously obvious. Lying is typical of children who wants to avoid a parent's wrath. Crazy lying is typical of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is a response to stress.

Lying is an intent to deceive for whatever reason. Crazy lying is an intent to feel in control of a situation due to past trauma.

Children who lie have a tendency to avoid eye contact. Children guilty of "crazy lying" look directly and straight to a parent's eyes.

Lying can be addressed by natural and logical consequences and realistic expectations. Crazy Lying can only be addressed by removing "extreme fear" in the child and therapeutic parenting.

How Does Crazy Lying Evolve?

Young children think they are the center of the universe. At an early age, children learn to reason out why bad things happen in a certain way. Most of the time, they believe that they are the cause of it. When it becomes painful to bear, children make up ideas especially if there is no adult present to give them a reason.

The absence of a parent in the lives of neglected children affects their normal processing of "cause and effect" reasoning. These children begin to believe what they make up in their brains as truth. Their ability to learn concrete and abstract thoughts becomes warped. They cannot distinguish a lie from truth.

In the same way, children in abusive homes will fabricate stories so they do not have to face feeling sad. Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder can lie over and over in order not to face an awful truth in their lives. They feel in control and safe in their crazy lying. They lie for survival. Thus, crazy lying is a symptom and not a root cause. It is a child's way to reach out for help.

How Parents Deal with Crazy Lying?

Parents trick their child to tell the truth. Parents focus on the "why, when, what happened" questions or ask questions they already know the answer to. If the child admits, they attack or admonish the child's response. It sets up a training ground for the child to lie again.

Both kinds of lies frustrate a parent. The crazy lying exhibited by children with Reactive Attachment disorder makes parents feel very angry. It appears as they are being challenged by their children with their own realities. The crazy lying happens so frequently that parents feel at a loss on how to handle the situation. Their high frustration level and the lack of solutions at hand make parents feel very guilty about their feelings towards their child. The guilt turns to resentment to the point where parents momentarily lose their compassion for their children.

10 Tips to Help Parents Deal with Crazy Lying

1. Stop worrying about "why" a child lies and "changing them" for now. Instead, concentrate on building a firm foundation of love in your family.

2. Take time to make a solid self-care plan to de-stress and relax. Get some understanding of Reactive Attachment Disorder under your belt. The actions of a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder will not change, so you need to change your own attitude towards the situation.

3. Work on gaining the trust of your child first and feeling safe with you. Be emotionally attuned to their moods and their version of truth. Create family bonding rituals on a daily basis.

4. Know that these children are sensitive to social cues. They will lie aggressively if they sense you are ready to lose it. Relax your shoulder and stance. Wiggle out those clenched fists. Bend your neck. Lower the volume of your voice to a soothing tone. Be careful on how your face looks when you talk to them. Practice your facial expressions in the mirror including the movements of your eyebrows and lips. Make your eyes gentle-looking and practice the "look of love". Learn to breathe deeply when you are with your child.

5. Call "lying" as something else. Parents must choose a different term for "lying". Lying implies a wrong action. Shouting to the child that "it is a lie" is in itself a stress trigger for the parents and the fearful child.

6. Do not engage in an argument with your child. Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder want you to catch their bait. It is an opportunity for them to release their pent up anger. Instead, ignore the lie for the moment. Gather your composure. Encourage yourself to look at the child in their present state of fear. Do not to leave the child or ignore the child. Say to the child in a sympathetic tone and a genuine smile, "I love you too much to even argue with you." You may need to repeat it several times until they walk away. Once the child feels safe and calm after a few hours, address the lie.

7. Teach your child to "stop and think" and relax. Give your child a minute to think about the lie. When the minute is up, teach the child to do relaxing and breathing techniques. Jumping jacks are good exercises to release some energies to calm them down. The goal is to teach the child concrete ways to bring their stress level down. If we do not know how to de-stress, we cannot teach the child to relax too. Developing the ability of the child to cope with a stressful situation helps them make the right choices whether you are there or not.

8. Play a game that role-plays the issue. Use a doll, animal, neutral object, or person to get a point across. Make it silly with lots of laughing. Then end it with "See, that worked a lot better. I do not feel scared now. We did great. You did better. Woooow hoooo hoooo. Cheers. High Five. "

9. Use the fool-proof statement for their lies "I know you wish that was true. Let's try telling the truth again."

10. Let your child know that the adults in the house are in charge and not the children. Let them know that you can handle everything and that they can relax and be happy being a child. A child with Reactive Attachment Disorder lives "in the moment" like the "dear in headlights" syndrome. They react on a "freeze and flight" mode. They are unable to trust the adults in their lives who betrayed them at some point and time in their past.

Conclusion:

Crazy lying, lying on what is ridiculously obvious, can drive any parents on the brink of an emotional breakdown. Lying has too many bad connotations. Lying is equated with a bad child. Crazy lying must be dealt with in the context of "truth" rather than as a "lie". It takes a consistent positive environment to de-activate the memories programmed from past experiences in a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder. It is only when you understand the trauma they have to endure in the past will you be able to realize that they are helpless in their situation. When crazy lying makes you lose your compassion for your children and makes you feel very angry, then it is time for you to seek help and your own healing.