PK child is sharing stories that didn't actually happen
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Anonymous
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DS started PK this year. It's been going only "ok".
Part of this is our fault - a bunch of kids form DS's preschool are at the same school and at the beginning of the year he ended up in a different classroom than them. We were unhappy about this but decided to just deal with it. Late September there was a classroom adjustment that took place b/c of an imbalance in class sizes b/c of dropouts - we were approached about whether we would be willing to move DS and we agreed (it was still resonating with DS that his 'friends' were in another classroom). In hindsight i wish we hadn't - it just upended DS to a new class with a new teacher, etc. But since the move there has been something weird that has happened - DS has come home and shared things that happened at school that didn't actually happen. The first happened a couple of weeks ago when he came home and seemed stressed...after a while he told me that his good friend "Katie" had fallen off the slide at school and hurt herself. I was pretty panicked b/c I know "Katie's" mom so contacted her about this - she said it never happened. I asked DS again about this and he was more vague but repeated the story about falling off the slide at school. I spoke to the teacher and she said that while the PK group was waiting to go to the play structure area another child had in fact fallen off the slide (and apparently sprained/fractured her foot). Last week DS came home from school extremely stressed was quiet all night and after some prompting said that he had been sent to the office at school. We were initially freaked out because we did not get any feedback from school that DS was sent to the office. The next day I spoke to DSs teacher asking what went on - she said he was never sent to the office nor was anyone else (and pointed out that in PK they don't just send kids 'to the office'). I canvassed other parents I know in the class and they mostly couldn't offer suggestions - although the parent of one girl offered up that it seems like when they were in the library the group had been overly energetic and some of the kids didn't want to 'sit and listen' (I suspect my DS might have been one). I'm trying to figure out what is going on - DS has been genuinely stressed when sharing these incidents and is not really one for tall tales - when he doesn't want to tell the truth he will say 'i don't remember' rather than lying. It also doesn't strike me as attention-seeking behaviour. I'm just trying to figure out what might be going on and how to handle it. Any ideas? |
Anonymous
| That sounds very normal to me, I wouldn’t feed it with your attention though. |
Anonymous
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Panicked? Freaking out? Texting and canvassing other parents to crowdsource what’s happening?
You’ve got to learn how to calm down. |
Anonymous
+1, reality and fiction are still kind of loose concepts for this age. I get your concern about these specific stories and I think it makes sense to follow up in those cases, but as long as the teachers are saying everything is fine, I would not worry more. Oh, and he didn't actually lie regarding the slide story -- a kid did fall and hurt themselves! It just wasn't Katie. That's okay. My child is now 6 and still sometimes doesn't know the names of every classmate and will sometimes take a guess that turns out to be wrong. At 3 or 4 I would not have trusted any report like that to have any accuracy. The fact that he got the main details correct and just the name wrong? Actually above average for a preschool story. And yeah, the other one was probably him getting mildly reprimanded for something and reporting it as "being sent to the office," a concept he probably hear in a book or from another child -- it probably just felt like a huge deal to him to be singled out for bad behavior at some point, but was actually not a big deal. I would find it reassuring to hear the school has a reasonable approach to discipline (agree that it would be weird to send a preschooler to "the office" for anything short of violent behavior that is endangering others). Just don't make a big deal of it, correct facts if you know them to be false, but then move on. |
Anonymous
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Your DS is just processing stressful things he is learning exist. He’s just going through the motions of reckoning with them. It’s not intentional lying in a way that’s a problem. It’s more like how you process things in your dreams.
Just focus on coaching him through the stressful emotions. It doesn’t really matter who fell off the slide, if anyone. He’s just coming to you to help him know it’s okay to be upset about it and for tools for how to deal with it. Same with being in trouble (sent to the Principal’s office). |
Anonymous
| Stop. This is all normal except your reactions. You are set to destroy your kid with helicoptering. Please use this as a wake up call. |
Anonymous
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I don’t know what your preschooler’s library looks like, but our elementary school library includes an office in the back. It’s just a workspace, not THE office, but I can see why a little one would call it an office. There was enough truth in his first story that there might be some truth to his second one that no adult has pieced together yet.
It doesn’t sound like he’s fabricating wild tales. I think it’s totally developmentally normal for preschoolers to be unreliable reporters without intentional lying. This doesn’t sound worrisome. It’s also totally normal for kids around first grade to attempt to impress other kids with lies, so be prepared for that in a couple years. Kids tell each other that they have a full size roller coaster in their backyard or that their mom is a zookeeper and they’re raising lion cubs at home. Some of it will be crazy! |
Anonymous
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It is completely normal for a 4 year old not to be able to accurately tell stories about their day. He's not lying, he just doesn't have the ability to hold the details in his head like an adult would.
Stop assuming that every word your kid says is 100% accurate. |
Anonymous
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This is normal and most likely has nothing to do with your first two paragraphs. Have you ever heard the phrase "kids are not reliable reporters"? Or, believe half of what your child tells you about school and they teachers will believe only half of what the kids tell you about home?
So you should be wondering what your child is telling his teachers at school. 
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Anonymous
| You are going to be in for quite the shock when you have teens. |
Anonymous
| Just wait until your kid starts telling the teacher tall tales about what is going on at home! |
Anonymous
This is exactly what I was going to say (kindly). It is SO apparent from your post that your anxiety is trickling down. |
Anonymous
+100. When we were in 1st grade, my best friend told her teacher that her parents beat her with a wooden spoon. Her mom was a school nurse and dad was a cop and it landed them in a LONGGGGGG case and investigation with child protective services. |
Anonymous
My 4yo daughter "my dad got so mad he punched a hole in the wall!" The reality was that DH tripped over the dog leash and his elbow went through the wall when he was trying to catch himself. I'm shocked that no one followed up with me about that. Not going to lie, I was a little worried because there actually was a hole in the wall! |
Anonymous
I have to say +1 here, though I know it never helps to tell anyone to calm down. But I really noticed a LOT of anxiety in your post op. A lot. The things you describe are pretty normal for a 4 year old. Kids will very often tell versions of things that are semi true, not true, etc. And either way none of these things are things to panic about. I wonder if you DC is sensing your anxiety and worry. If so, it is understandable this is a big change for your son and it hasn't been as smooth as you hoped! Kids are incredibly intuitive and sensitive to our feelings. And also, sometimes they just don't know how to explain what is making them stressed so they will kind of cobble things together from their memory. Like the slide incident is so normal to me - mixing up who really experienced it. My son is in kindergarten and his reporting is still quite wild and DEFINITELY not accurate. The teacher's at orientation said, "we'll promise not to believe everything your kid says about you if you promise not to believe everything they say about us!"  So that just shows you how normal it is. Take everything with a grain of salt and unless you start hearing repeated patterns, don't worry too much about it.
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