Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

Arielle has taken to lying, kind of. She doesn't tell me flat out whoppers. What she does is, when I ask her a question to which she thinks the answer might get her into trouble, she'll answer instead, "I don't know."

I first noticed this last week in the whole carpet/picture incident. Now that I think about it, it seems I've been getting the "I don't know" answer quite a bit recently, but I took it at face value, since she's never lied to me before. It was pretty obvious with the carpet, though, that she just didn't want to say.

Today, she came out of her room wearing some clothes that I had put away in the top of her closet for when she is older and taller. When I asked her where she'd gotten them from, she said (all together now), "I don't know."

So. We had a little discussion (OK, lecture) about what a lie is, and why it is a bad thing. I told her that telling me she didn't know, when she does know, is telling a lie. I explained that the consequences for lying would always be much more serious than the consequences for doing something wrong. Then I told her why I don't want her to get up in the top of her closet (I didn't know she could even reach there, much less get into the boxes! Wow, let's scare Mom, why don't we?) and told her the consequences for lying to me about going up there.

I gave her an out. If she apologizes for lying and tells me the truth, then the consequence stops and everything goes back to normal. So far, she'd rather stick to her story. Which has made for a rather miserable hour, now, with Arielle sobbing and miserable because she knows she's in trouble.

My poor sad little girl.

Suggestions would be very welcome from all of you. When did you first have to start dealing with lying from your children and how did you handle it? This is the best way I can think of to handle this, but I would be glad to hear ideas and thoughts. Because the best way I can think of, is not necessarily the best way.