Little Lies

Posted by Shanavera (3 days ago)

Hi, This is about my son who is 12 years old.

The problem started when he finished the Primary School and changed the school in New Territories to attend Form 1 last year September.

He is popular in the secondary school for his achievements in the first few months and then students getting to know he is half Chinese. In a school where the students are 100% Chinese, he gets lot of attention. He made lot of friends who would call them 24 hours a day. Since changing the school he wanted to use public transport and we agreed to let him do so. Little lies started when he said, he missed the bus (busses run every 12 minutes) and got back home late; he had stayed at school to attend extra classes (while teachers conveyed that he has only attended 3 out of 10); he was at his friend’s home doing a project (while he failed to produce such projects to school). Big lies started when he told the class teacher the disciplinary warnings and many memos issued to him were lost (while one fine afternoon, with the help of the teacher, I found all of them in his locker), missing his homework on time (for no reasons) and telling anything to cover up any misdeeds at school. My husband kept on telling me that our son was lying and reminded me how he got punished by his dad. I agreed to take away son’s mobile phone, video games and to limit the time he spent on the computer.

Still he lies. Even his weekly Tutorial teacher complains that he doesn’t hand in work on time. He does not have any explanations but lies every week when I ask him whether he has completed the assignments, without any hesitation he says yes. But the teacher tells me he didn’t finish the assignments. His attitude changed a lot too, He liked challenges before but now he sees the challenge he gives up. I know he will be a teenager and quite worried how I could help him to keep a balance between his school work and basket ball playing / computer games etc.

Where did I go wrong? I do a busy 9 to 6 job, run back home see their books, play with them, laugh with them and give them most of the things they ask for. Has anyone go thru anything like this?

(I am based in Hong Kong)