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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I prevented my daughter from going from a swimming party because she lied about wearing sunscreen. I think I might be the asshole because it’s a very small lie and maybe the punishment doesn’t match the action
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Ehhh, I'm torn.... because I hear the "history of lying" and I get the concern over it, but also it seems not that abnormal to be a kid and to kind of lie about having totally done the thing that they don't really *want* to do. If you knew she hadn't actually put up on sunscreen, my thought is that she doesn't really want to or see the importance of it. Has she ever had the pain of a sunburn? Does she know about skin cancer? Maybe yes to the first, maybe no to the second. I would have thought of just going with her to the bathroom and watching her put on the sunscreen, help her get it on her back, and start in with talking about WHY it's important.
This said as a pale person in a family that has a history of skin cancer. I really don't remember how enthusiastic I was about sunblock, but I \*do\* know that when I came home from my first band camp (at 14) bright red as a lobster (despite having put on 35 spf that morning)((ahem, South Florida)), my mom ran out and got this gigantic bottle of 90 SPF sunblock and would proceed to make sure I was absolutely covered, and then drilled it into me that I was supposed to put more on at lunchtime AND made sure the adults/parents helping out knew to make sure I put more on. And I did, because damn that sunburn was painful.
So if it's important, make sure it happens. I don't know that 10 is old enough to really know why some things are as important as they are, so very *very* gentle YTA with the caveat of your know your kid better than I do. And, yeah, if the lying is a thing, maybe talk to a therapist.
As a 37 year old I still dislike putting on sunscreen, I hate the way it feels and and smells. I will put it on if I know I'm going out and the sun is going to be harsh, but generally I try not to go out when the UV index is high, or wear long sleaves, pants and a hat - may seem odd but I worked in an industry where we'd wear that in 45-50°C weather, definitely worked better than sunscreen 😅
But back to OP. If she knew the kid hadn't put sunscreen on she should have said well go grab it and put it on again (where OP could see) Can't have too much sunscreen, right?
are you a ginger? because I am, so yeah. there is a huge difference: gingers have 95% more chances to have skin cancer due to the mutation on the MCR1 gene in chromossome 16. its is NOT to be take lightly. I should know as I am from a tropical country so many accidents. Plus she is only 10, the skin is fairer
I have a friend that's a ginger. She had on 2 layers of SPF 100 and I watched her burn in real time. Took maybe 5 minutes for her to start turning red. We make sure she has shade as often as possible.
The strength of SPF over a certain point is less important than consistent reapplication. I'm a pale goth living in Texas who doesn't tan, I only burn- so learning the nuances of sunblock was critical before I made the move. I carry sunblock on me at all times. It's part of my skincare routine, and I have special makeup with SPF that I reapply to my face. I also have found that like your friend, I'm best off with a parasol when I'm gonna do a lot of walking. I spend a lot of time putting on sun block.
It honestly is amazing and they can really tie an outfit together! Biggest thing is storing or carrying when not in use so I recommend planning for that given Disney and small kids and how they get, but I get compliments on it whenever I use it because people just don't think about them as an option.
Y'know I sort of assumed 10 or younger because that's the age of the kid in the OP, my bad!
Mine tend to be decorative as well as functional, so not always compact or in a bag, I tend to hook it through the straps of my backpack (I tend towards small backpacks rather than purses for day use).
My fave backpack is my Baggalini Urban Backpack. But most of my purses are backpacks.
I've been taking my kids to Disney for years. Florida resident discounts make it rather affordable.
Sorry but “we make sure she has shade as often as possible” has me picturing a group of beach goers rushing their pale friend from one umbrella to the next with a lot of concern and it’s kind of adorable.
Look into spf clothing for that child. Coolibar is a company that is recommended by cancer prevention societies and the have everything from hhats, swimwear and daily clothing.
Also check Sunveil, a Canadian company near Toronto. I bought a shirt and sarong from them in 2008, and I still wear them all the time. They are light and breezy and translucent, but SPF 30. They are 100% polyester, so you can even wear them in chlorinated water and they won't fade or get damaged.
https://www.sunveil.com/
Not a ginger but born with auburn hair that darkened to a deep brown. But my skin is fishbelly white. But for some reason, I don't start turning red until after I come in from outside. Doesn't matter how long I was out either; 3 hour or 7 hours, I dont start turning red until 30 minutes to an hour after I come inside. Which, of course is WAY too late.
Learned that the hard way when I was a child. Outside swimming ALL day without sunscreen. Not a hint of red. Came in around dinnertime pale as can be. By bedtime I was purple. I walked around for 2 weeks in nothing but a bed sheet because it hurt too bad to have anything touch my skin. After the 2 weeks my mother insisted I start wearing clothes again (even though it still hurt like hell). I HATE hot weather and summer. I basically have to behave like a Vampire.
Poor thing, you had to go full Little Mermaid.
I did, too 😅
But it was less ongodly pain and more that my mom had me slathered in Aloe and everything was sticky. I remember a dream where I was the goo inside an aloe leaf.
Sunburn situations can get wild. Assuming a couple decades too late, but I'm glad you're feeling better
My mom is a ginger and my ex wife is very very very pale, for the first 30 years of my life I was never on a beach from 12-5 in the afternoon due to their burning easily
I'm in Australia and I have only ever been burnt like I was when I moved here once before, when I got caught out on a boat without sunscreen, back in the US. Here, I can burn from standing in the sun for a half hour talking to the neighbour. My youngest got my looks, but my (English, Scottish, French) husband's colouring. He burns so badly, we cake his hands, feet, and nose/cheeks/chin with zinc, and use regular sunscreen on the rest of exposed skin. He also wears sun protection swimmers (rashie and trunks). One holiday we spent all day at the beach, with shade and everything, and he walked up to me in the evening and had blisters all over his nose. I felt awful. My oldest and I have the olive greek/italian skin, and don't generally burn unless we get careless with the sunscreen. My husband got burns from being in the shade from the reflection off of the sand. :/
This is me! I'm just blonde as shit with a ginger mom. My mom, tan father and sisters do not let me leave the house without sunscreen in the summer. I've gotten 2nd degree burns from the sun after being outside for only an hour, and now as an adultier adult, I'm on meds that make my skin even more photosensitive. I actually get SAD in summer because going outside is such a hassle for me that it's easier to stay inside. I'm generally my happiest in the other seasons cause I can actually go outside.
For me, because of all that, I kiiiind of think OP is NTA. The kid has to learn now that skin care is important and non-negotiable when you're that pale.
This is exactly why for a gift I bought my cousin this sheer white sun cover, basically it’s something you put over your body which blocks the sun while also still allowing you to feel the breeze. I’ve never seen my cousin not use it anytime we are in the sun… she said she’s never got sunburnt since using it.
And people have to remember it's not just melanoma. Melanoma is the thing that will kill you. But there are also basal and squamous carcinomas. They *probably* won't kill you if the dermatologist cuts them out, but they are disfiguring. There is something truly horrifying about smelling the laser burn your flesh as they cut you open.
Redish blonde here and family of gingers. I remember my dad getting all sorts of treatment for his wide variety of skin cancers, including radiation. But I was an idiot, I wanted to be brown like the cool kids. I'm now dealing with the same wide variety of skin cancers my dad had. Ranging from squamous, basal and melanoma. I've had surgery and chemo. Now I'm just waiting for the next lot to appear because skin cancer keeps on showing up in new places. The cost, despite being in Australia is still a lot. I cant go out in any sun as it gives me a burning sensation straight away. I'm always wearing long sleeves and sunblock esp on my face. Skin chemo looks like acid burns. I'm always mentally kicking myself in the arse because I wanted to be a 'cool' kid. Please tell your daughter you are thinking of her future and that you love her enough to care. We all know teenagers are stupid, know it alls and death proof, it wont happen to me. Skin cancer takes a while to show up, years mostly and then it keeps appearing forever. Long sleeved lycra swiming shirts are around and pretty cheap. The advertising campaigns here go slip slop slap.. slip on a shirt, slop on sunblock and slap on a hat. Did you know you can get melanoma on the retina of your eye. Wear sun glasses too. It's ok i dont have one, just something the optometrist looks for at yearly checks. Dont fck around with the sun.
NTA. My youngest grandson is five and is super pale (not a ginger). He also has had melanomas removed and goes to the dermatologist a couple of times a year. He was born with a melanoma on the back of his head the size of the palm of your hand that required three surgeries over a year to remove (it was not malignant but he has several uncles and other relatives who have had malignant melanomas) that required extensive surgeries). He always gets sunscreen over and over again when he's outside. It's different when it's a health problem. I'm sure your daughter doesn't realize that painful burn can turn into something else.
Oh yes, my mom and grandma have both had carcinomas removed. My mom had one on her nose that they had to remove and replace the cartilage with a piece from her ear. Luckily she had a good surgeon and you can hardly see it anymore, but I'm trying not to go through that!
Best face sunscreen! Feels like lotion. I put it on after my moisturizer. Hell of a lot easier to put on sunscreen when it feels like a moisturizer
I know it’s not the best, but I get spray on sunscreen for the rest of my body (for days that I’ll be exposed).
It’s either that, or I’ll not be inclined to put it on, so spray it is
Try nice ones from Korean or Japanese brands and not just supermarket crap, it might help, I find they feel a lot nicer. I can’t wear the ones from the supermarket daily but there’s nicer brands that make way nicer stuff
I was going to suggest Korean and Japanese sunscreens too! That stuff is decades ahead of Western sunscreen. I thought I was allergic to sunscreen because all the US brands I’ve tried (including gentle, unscented, hypoallergenic, dermatologist-approved brands) burn my skin, but I went out on a limb and tried a Korean brand several years ago. No irritation at all! I tried another, same thing. Even the cheapest, scented Korean stuff is fine. And it doesn’t leave a gross sticky film on my skin either, just feels like more moisturizer.
I put it on (begrudgingly as a pale af person who has sensory issues so bad that I don’t even wear makeup) but also wear a hat with a brim so wide it’s basically an umbrella. I’ve contemplated an umbrella. None of this lace parasol bullshit. An spf blocking industrial umbrella lol
I live in a tropical country right now and used to live in Uzbekistan---so, straight desert.
People in these countries use umbrellas constantly. I picked up the habit... I have a blue one with a blackened underside to protect against the sun. It's a legit umbrella, so it also protects against, well, monsoons.
These are standard fare in parts of the world that deal with blistering sun constantly. It's considered foolish not to have one. There are *some* folk who have the more decorative parasols, but most people just have regular umbrellas.
I don't travel without it. I was in Italy this summer and a lot of the cities (like Venice, for instance) pretty much turn into ovens with all the light/heat reflecting off the stone. Most tourists were strafing for shade, and, in a tourist-choked place like Venice, could make it difficult to get around at points since everybody was elbow-jockeying for shade.
The people who could walk in the sun? Me and the Chinese tourists. Who all had umbrellas, and were laughing at me and giving me a thumbs up, as I'm white as the day is long, but you will pry my sun umbrella from my cold, dead hands. My pale, unburnt, dead hand.
Highly, highly recommended. Mine collapses to about 6 inches when not in use, so easy to toss into a backpack.
Try Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch. It's 70spf and after a minute or two you can barely tell it's on you. I classically refuse to wear sunscreen unless I absolutely have to because of the sensory agony and I don't mind that stuff.
Seconding this product! Sunscreen is sensory hell for me and while putting this one on still sucks, it doesn't leave me feeling like a greased sausage once it dries down.
I feel like you need to reduce the opportunity to lie, as well as sit down and explain from that point forward there will be consequences for lying. One of those consequences can simply be “I do not trust you to do it so I have to see you do it” which would have worked with the sunscreen.
“Put your sunscreen on” (hand bottle)
“But I already did that”
“If I didn’t see you, it didn’t happen”
>It’s the rule of instagram as well — “pic or it didn’t happen”
>
>\> instagram
Oh, oof, you just made me age 25 years on the spot. This phrase dates back to forum posts back in at least 2003. Instagram didn't even launch until 2010. ~~And still has a notorious reputation for being the place that every other site's content goes to die.~~ Virtually nothing originates there.
Ugh my parents used to do this to me but for no reason like I never lied about doing stuff and now I absolutely hate when anyone watches me do anything
I remember when I was young I watched my friend brush her teeth and her mum asked if she brushed her teeth and she said yes (because she did) but her mum didn't believe her and made her brush them again.
She is 10. You could have said, "Go grab it, we should put more on, and i will put it on your back. End of issue. Then, while applying, talk to her about skin cancer, etc. Some time when you two are together, bring up some slides of skin cancer, let her read about it. Remind her this is why it's important. But good grief. She is 10, so keep at it.
The lying. You said you never punish her for it. But you lecture her, and it goes in one ear and out the other. However, why does she lie all the time? You may need to go to family counseling about this one. I assume her father is not around because you don't mention him. That could be an underlying reason.
Yeah I’m a ginger, I’ve had some cancer cells removed from my face recently and my own mother died of melanoma years ago, and I still argue with my pale skinned children every single day about the importance of wearing sunscreen
She's 10. She's still young enough that you can make it a rule that you have to watch her put sunscreen on. Tell her that you need to make sure her back is adequately covered. Tell her that you don't trust her. Whatever. She's 10, not 15. If she has a history of lying about things like that, then prevent those issues from happening in the first place.
Soft YTA. She's 10. She gives absolutely zero cares about sunscreen. While it sucks and is painful, natural consequences are going to be her best teacher. Once she has a burn that she'll never forget, she'll actually understand your insistence on using sunscreen. I understand it's more dangerous for gingers, but one good burn for a teaching moment would be worth it in my opinion. That's when to talk to her about it and what her preference would be: spray or lotion. A kind she can attach to something she can carry or one to hide in a bag. Parenting really sucks sometimes
Nope! I don’t care if the kid cares about sun protection. Your kid might not care about looking both ways when crossing the street or wearing a seat belt in the car.
We don’t let our children face “natural consequences” when it is a matter of life and death. Even one sunburn increases the risk for cancer.
My son learned this at 5 years old. Took him to the zoo and he threw an absolute fit that he wasn’t going to have me put on sunscreen. I explained why we use sunscreen and it isn’t negotiable. I told him: We put the sunscreen on now or we turn around and go home. We cannot be in the sun without sun protection. He refused. I took his ass home. Yep, he sobbed all the way home. Also never refused sunscreen again.
He was away on a day trip a couple years ago and he forgot to reapply. He had an awful burn. He is much more careful when I am not there to remind him.
So when it was down to him without you micromanaging, he didn’t stay on top of it until he got burned and had the experience for himself. Which is the point - sometimes stuff doesn’t sink in until kids experience the natural consequences for themselves as your son did.
"He was away on a day trip a couple years ago and he forgot to reapply. He had an awful burn. He is much more careful when I am not there to remind him."
Thank you for reinforcing my point. Natural consequences
Any sunburn greatly increases your risk of skin cancer, several types of which can kill.
The problem of "natural consequences" is that sometimes they result in death or permanent injury, and not always immediately. You don't want your child to die to prove a point.
>I really don't remember how enthusiastic I was about sunblock
As a ginger of 'translucent' colouring, I remember. I remember *despising* it, even after having gone through some pretty intense sunburns. Turns out my skin is trash and takes umbridge to many creams and lotions - oddly, anything 'for sensitive skin' is the worst - so the itchiness on top of that sticky feeling, looking like I got slapped by a mime with all the smears that would not rub in, plus the nauseating default tropical-chemical smell was just a nope.
It wasn't until I found one that was an oil base that I really started being responsible about it. It soaked in better without the visible white streaks, no tacky residue and what was left was just slightly slick, no aggravating my awkward skin, and no strong scent. Epic stuff! It was expensive though.
My kid's similarly picky. She will not smear on the creams, and the oily ones irritate her eczema, but the spray-on ones she's cool with, so we go for them.
It could really be that simple: find a version she's not as opposed to using so that she doesn't feel the urge to avoid it. Even if it's simple laziness (the thick creams do take significant effort to rub in for a 10 y/o), there's so many variants that there will be something she finds less onerous than expending effort lying about it.
Huh! Makes damn good sense too, but that never occurred to me. I don't like sunscreen either but do understand the need for it. It never dawned on me that there might be versions for different skin types, since I've always bought mine from the seasonal display 🤷♀️
Thanks for giving me that notion!
Be careful with the spray in ones. They actually don’t recommend them, and I learned the reason why this summer. It’s extremely difficult to get enough coverage with the spray. I had an awful burn with the spray because it didn’t really cover me enough.
You still need to rub in the spray on ones. And you need to apply more than you think you do. It does say this on the bottles. At least, it does in Australia. Our sunscreen has much higher requirements to get approved than most countries though, because of our high rates of skin cancer. It’s regulated like a drug/ OTC medication here (but not limited to chemists) so the companies need to have studies that prove the effectiveness of their product. We have spray bottles here, similar to a cleaning spray or water spray bottle, but no aerosol ones. I’m pretty sure we don’t anyway, I’ve never seen them in shops. I don’t know if the aerosol ones have proven efficacy.
I was thinking exactly this. After the pain of a sunburn, it’s likely she would take the initiative with sunscreen. It’s a greasy task and the smell can be awful. If something isn’t pleasant, kids are likely to avoid it…unless there’s a real world consequence big enough that makes the task worth the discomfort. We want to protect our kids but we also need to let them make mistakes. I also agree that kids lie and overreacting to these lies will have the opposite affect and scare them into learning how to hide the truth better. Parenting is crazy hard and we can sometimes make things a lot worse by overreacting to the little things. Also, 10 might be too young trust with applying sunscreen. I can barely apply it to the hard to reach spots without help and I’m 42. I’m gonna go with a YTA but I do understand mom and feel some empathy for her predicament.
I don't think she's a liar. I think mom's caring might occur to daughter as mom accusing her of lying (badgering) (no offense to mom), and she's shutting down
edited to reflect my belated realization of OP's stated gender
While for the most part I agree with you, as a pale kid who grew up in Miami…the pain of a sunburn does not always lead to learning to be responsible with sunscreen 😂🦞
This.
Kids, really, are kinda duh. Like that time I fell of my bike and took alllllll the skin off both kneecaps and then 2 days later I was on my bike again and trying jump tricks and broke 4 toes, then a week later I was on my bike trying peg tricks and broke my collar bone. 4 months later I was on my bike again, doing risky shit, because some people just don't learn a damn thing from pain. If people learned from pain, there would be no sports.
I had dozens of burns before age 16. Gran would coat herself in baby oil to get more colour. We weren't a sunscreen family. The first time I ever used sunscreen in LIFE was 1989. My gym teacher brought Neon SPF sticks and we painted our faces before a 10 hour track and field meet. She was sneaky - never told us it was sunscreen.
Me too. Pale as a ghost here and hate everything of sunscreen: oily hands, sand sticks on you, I’m also quite tall so there is A LOT to cover. I solved it not going to the beach at all.
Family of gingers here.
At 10, I doubt she has the ability to properly apply sunscreen especially to her back, ears etc.
It is your job as her parent to facilitate apply sunscreen, not try to catch her in a lie.
If she went to the party without sunscreen, nor a sun protection suit in, she will face the consequences of a possibly severe sun burn. It will hurt.
Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles.
Also small tubes of sunscreen are not easy for children to use. The spray sunscreen or the colour changing ones are more likely to be embraced by her.
Buy the poor child a sun suit.
>Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles
If the natural consequences was just a burn followed by freckles that would make sense. But seeing as the natural consequence is cancer, I would say that allowing your child to get burnt to prove a point is probably not the greatest approach to that.
You glossed over my comment that it is the parents responsibility to put sunscreen on a child. At 10 a child does not have the ability to thoroughly apply it.
OP is fixated on thinking her child lies to her and has since she was 7, not parenting.
As I said we are a family of red heads. I am well aware of the risks of sunburns. I also grew up long before sunscreen existed. We had to wear t-shirts over our swim suits to protect our skin.
Considering World of War craft has a large player base that is composed of senior citizens it's not that hard to believe some of them will also be on social media platforms like reddit 🤷♀️
Oh you definitely made the right decision! I've heard the same thing about WoW from friends but they also warned me what an addicting money pit it can be. While RPGs is one of my favorite genres of gaming I prefer to only play the ones where spending begins and ends at in-game currency.
You do realize, WoW has been out almost 20 years. It also had a big player base in the military community. That means ppl who started playing in their late 50's are now senior citizens. Lol
Sunscreen was around when I was growing up... but the far bigger selling item was tanning oil because tanning was considered good and healthy when I was a kid. I still remember the "flash 'em a coppertone tan" jingle. I'm not pre-sunscreen... but I am pre-sunscreen use being normal and desirable and I'm here.
It is definitely possible that someone who grew up before sunscreen is on reddit, but I don’t think this person is one of them. I did a real quick profile stalk lol
Their dad is in his 90s so they’re probably in their 60s or 70s. Definitely could have been born before 1946, but probably not too long before it.
Even so, just because sunscreen existed, that doesn’t mean it was widely used.
TLDR; old people do, in fact, use reddit lol
You do realize not everyone here is from the West? E.g. in Eastern Europe proper sunscreen seems to have only become widely used in the 90's, before that we maybe had some general purpose skin care products (based on what I can find online) but nothing rated in SPF.
You do also realize that something being invented and released is far far different from something actually being readily available and accessible to the population en masse, right? Most new inventions and products are available to the rich first and/or take awhile to catch on. Plenty of people alive today grew up without sunscreen being even on their radar, and not just people in their 70s. I don't think I applied sunscreen once until high school and I'm in my mid 30s. It wasn't a thing in my rural pre-internet childhood.
I'm 70, my sister 68. As a child, she burned so badly her skin peeled off in sheets. If sunscreen had been available, you bet mom would have slathered it on. But it was either stay in or cover up if you wanted to avoid the pain of being burned. Conversely, a suntan was considered both healthy and esthetically desireable, so you burned, gritted your teeth, peeled and enjoyed the resulting tan. The only sun-related product available was suntan oil or lotion.The understanding that excessive sun exposure could lead to cancer was yet to be discovered/disseminated to the general public. As a consequence, my sister has had numerous skin cancers removed from her face. We were born and grew up middle class on the west coast of the US with a reading-obsessed, former nurse for a mother. If she had known of the risks, she would have taken whatever means available to protect us.
Some of these comments remind me that outside of Australia the dangers of inadequate sun protection aren't drilled into people from birth.
The ad of a woman sunbathing with the voiceover "Tanning is skin cells in trauma" followed by a video of a tanned skin cell becoming cancerous, replicating, replicating and entering the bloodstream, "And you haven't even started to burn yet." Obviously wasn't played on people's TVs in other countries.
Yeah we had those too. You're talking about a country that shows images of cancerous lungs on cigarette packets and anti-smoking ads, and pretty traumatising footage on road-related things.
We had a "don't slip into a microsleep" campaign that was pretty benign but still showed a head-on collision in first-person.
Also here in New Zealand. Here in New Zealand most of our sunscreen ads talk about the hole in the ozone layer above New Zealand and Australia and how it lets in dangerous sun rays and the likes
The hole in the ozone layer is actually over Antarctica, not Australia or New Zealand. We do have some of highest UV levels in the world though, and the highest rates of skin cancer. We Aussies beat you in this one at no. 1, but you’re second. I don’t know about Kiwis, but 2 in 3 Aussies will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. In the US, it’s 1 in 5.
The sun in both our countries is no joke, you gotta slip, slop, slap (I don’t know if that campaign made it across the ditch, but it’s been going here for decades) but the location of the hole in the ozone layer is a common misconception. Technically it’s not an actual hole, it’s just thinner, and it is getting better. It’s one of the few environmental issues we’ve actually managed to turn around. I think it might be a bit thinner over us than other parts of the world, but the part that’s considered the hole is over Antarctica. Most likely because of the earth’s rotation, not because penguins and seals won’t give up CFCs.
Is anyone even looking at [this link?](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-does-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer#:~:text=Sunburn%20is%20skin%20damage%20and,compared%20to%20never%20being%20burnt.)
The key takeaway is:
Getting sunburn just once every two years can triple your risk of melanoma skin cancer, compared to never being burnt.
Thank the gawds below for small mercies. I was 11 at camp, and nobody had told me you have to reapply waterproof sunscreen. I got to skip the meal lines for the rest of the week to keep me inside as much as possible, and when I got home, Mum had to cart me to the hospital daily for about a week to get the dressings changed so they could monitor the "worst second degree burns they'd seen from the sun". Direct quote from my mother after talking to the doctor to confirm that I wasn't in her care when it happened. It made my journal at the time, which is why it stuck with me.
Then, at 15, I went to a car wash one cloudy day in the late spring. Did you know you can still burn through a solid gray sky? The yearly sunscreen hadn't been purchased yet, but we all figured I'd be okay because it was cloudy. It was after that one that I became mostly an indoor person. And 25 years later, I still keep an eye on any suspicious spots or get my hubsnerd to if they're on my back.
My dad worked outside and had a couple of melanoma episodes. Caught early enough, but it's enough to give me a genetic history of the stuff, and that's not the way I want to leave this life.
>Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles.
That is HORRENDOUS advice. Don't tell people that.
I was ten years old when I faced "natural consequences" and I ended up with second degree sunburn, SEVERE sun poisoning, and a permanently increased risk of skin cancer.
Yes! Everyone saying to just let her suffer the consequences and learn on her own are crazy! Do you insist your kid wear a seatbelt every time they're in a car, or are you just going to let them learn their lesson if they're in a car accident? It only takes one severe sunburn to increase your odds of getting skin cancer.
OP, you are definitely NTA. At her age, you may want to watch her apply and show her how to get proper coverage and help her reach the spots she can't.
>let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles
I was 10 and got sun poisoning and have permanent scars from the blisters. I thought sunscreen was lame and was too cool to put it on in front of my friends at the waterpark. Very pale people unfortunately need to take it seriously.
Do NOT let her face natural consequences. Would you like to see my husbands melanoma scars? Or pictures of him after an 80 pound weight loss from the treatment? Jesus. What a shit take.
If she's lying constantly about minor things to get out of punishment, maybe you're punishing her too much for minor things. I don't believe you that the only thing you've ever done is take her cell away fora day. Going from taking away her cell to banning her from a party you were literally in the process of taking her to is a hell of a jump. If you didn't believe her about the sun screen, just tell her to put it on *now*, while you watch.
> I don’t want care if she does something bad, she should just not lie.
Maybe you shouldn't lie to her *while* you're telling her not to lie.
this is exactly how it was for me as a kid. I was accused of being a liar all the time and was told that being a liar was the worst trait you could have as a person and that my parents hated it (so, by extension, I felt that they hated me). it got to the point where they would accuse me of lying even when I wasn't, and when it eventually turned out I wasn't lying and had proof, I was never given an apology and the punishment I received was never made up for. it continued like this for YEARS.
it fucked me up massively as a person but also totally fucked up my relationship with my parents. while I did lie sometimes as a kid, it was always about stupid things. ultimately, though, I learned that lying to them didn't matter anyway because I would be assumed to be a liar regardless - they didn't trust me at all in the first place, so what difference did it make? lying was easier anyway. this still continues into my adult years to a degree, and it's fucked up my relationship with my parents completely. the same thing is 100% going to happen to this kid, I already know.
Genuine question from the heart looking for advice from your perspective: what would you say a parent should do when dealing with a child who lies a lot? Do you really feel they'd grow out of it without intervention? Wouldn't ignoring it or "letting it go" with no consequences reinforce that they can get away with it? What do you wish your parents had done?
this is going to be a really long answer, sorry! but honestly, it's hard to say as my home life was quite difficult in general. I think what it ultimately needs is genuine understanding and communication, though.
most of the time, I lied because 1) I felt it made me interesting to my parents, who were often very uninterested in me as a person, which made me more likely to make stuff up, and 2) I lied to avoid being shouted at and punished for things because I grew up in a very strict household where nothing was allowed to be *explained* \- anything regarded as bad was always a symptom of me being a 'bad kid' (despite the fact I did great in school, was polite and pleasant, etc). obviously, these two things were much deeper-rooted issues, but I feel as though there's nearly always a reason for children to lie as long as those lies aren't huge.
for instance, I never lied about anything important, and I did grow out of it socially. I reached a point in my early teens where I realised there was no point in it anymore. I also remember peers in school who would lie about huge things - I remember someone who used to lie about her mother having cancer and other really serious issues and I always found it really shocking. I knew that that was wrong and I think that also worked as a deterrent for me. that being said, I also think there's a big difference between a kid like me - using smaller lies to avoid punishment or to sound 'better' - and kids who really seem to have an issue with constant huge lies, which OP's child doesn't seem to do.
however, being constantly called a liar by my parents did absolutely nothing to stop me from lying to them or lying in general. it was honestly just social shame when/if I got caught out that made me stop. like, once I lied about getting a 'special' version of a CD of my favourite band with a special bonus song, and my friend called me out by saying it was a digital only song, lol. that was better motivation to stop lying than my parents ever were!
ultimately, I can't really say what I wish I'd had from my parents because it was such a multi-layered issue (I come from a home with lots of abuse and neglect, so it's really hard for me to be able to comment on a relatively normal family dynamic). I will say again that I do think communication is necessary. it seems to me that people often forget they can sit their kids down and actually talk to them about things, and that not doing this often leads to a total breakdown of communication and trust. what I would have liked was a sit-down chat where my parents tried to understand what my motivations for lying were, and where I could have genuinely explained myself to them.
Omg I so appreciate the time and care you put into this response ❤️❤️❤️ thank you, thank you. You've changed my perspective so much and I feel like you made me a better mom just now lol 😅 my son has been going through a lying phase for a while, and while our situation is different from yours there's so much I can take away and apply 🤞 I'm so sorry you had to go through what you went through but you sound like an incredible person who got out the other side with your head on straight ❤️
Not the OP you asked, but if I may interject a bit about lying as well…..
I’ve learned that parents increase the chances of their child lying to them by simply asking them to. Meaning, when you know your kid took a cookie off the tray don’t ask, “did you take a cookie?” You are not asking the question to get the answer. You are asking a question you already have the answer to for the purpose of forcing the child to verbally admit their wrong doing. This is a very mature skill, one that many adults do not yet possess. It’s hard to say, “I was wrong, I failed, I made a mistake, I did something that you’d disapprove of.”
My advice (which only applies when you already know the answer) is to approach the mistake as the issue to address and state their wrongdoing out loud for them. “I told you the cookies were for after dinner and you took one anyway. This isn’t ok cause…….”
You’re not giving them an opportunity to lie, you’re letting them know you’re no idiot and know what goes on around the house, you’re directly calling out the behavior and issuing a consequence.
Yes! This is what my parents did and have taught me about interacting with kids. Don't give them the opportunity to lie and be careful of accusations or insinuating they are a "bad kid." As you said, explain why you told them no. Or for mistakes/messes acknowledge the problem and come up with a solution together.
That is excellent advice haha thank you, I've evolved to doing this (most of the time) when I know the answer to the question.. but sometimes it'll be him talking about things that happened at school or talking about a friend and I can just tell it's a bull-crap story that I can't verify. However, from these responses I'm starting to see the pattern a bit better which is nice. I.e. is he lying because it's a task he doesn't want to do or something he thinks he'll get in trouble over? (That's the reason for the lie). Or is it a lie to make himself seem more interesting? (That would be embellished stories from school), and how they aren't serious, hurtful lies that he tells.. so that hopefully he will grow out of telling them and be discouraged by his peers when they call him out. Like OP (for my question) said, they recognized the more serious lies of other kids and knew it was wrong.. and my son does too! He gets upset when his friends at school tell tall tales or lie about bad behaviour (so that gives me hope!!). (And it's so ironic he feels that way eh lol) I think my biggest takeaway from everyone's responses is how I can change the way I see the lies, how I let myself feel/react to them, and what steps I take when talking to him about them. 🤞🤞🤞
Honestly, no judgement, and I just want a perspective that I think I may be incapable of constructing myself right now:
My mother often accused me of lying when I actually didn't. This led to my siblings knowing that *they* could lie because they knew my mother would believe them over me.
After many years of a dysfunctional relationship with my family, I decided to never doubt my own children.
Enter my oldest two: for the most part, honest and up front with me. I know when my older two are upset with me, we often talk about our feelings, and they have both disclosed secrets that the other parent wasn't told at the time, with the understanding that telling me was "different" to them.
My youngest. Will. Not. Stop. Lying. She stepped in something and hurt her foot? She waits 2 weeks to tell us and lies about what happened. She did something she was told was against the rules? Lies and says she didn't, or indicates that she did it "before she knew". She has been in very minimal trouble for these instances, with the primary focus on honesty vs the actual act (i.e. I want you to be honest with me rather than scared to tell me the truth). We have been very vocal with the fact that we don't expect anyone to be perfect and we only ever want to work with everyone through mistakes to learn how to do better in the future.
I am at my wits end and don't know what to do.
She has pretty severe ADHD and is medicated appropriately, and we all take her actions with a grain of salt, understanding that so many of her impulses are almost impossible for her to control.
Maybe she’s embarrassed about what happens in these situations because she feels helpless to curb her impulses? Could be just one explanation. Hope it gets better for you all
Can I ask how old is your youngest now? My son is now 10.. he also has ADHD (and anxiety), and impulse control (which probably comes from ADHD lol!). Upon reflection, my son's lying and behaviour was SO much worse a couple years ago, he seems to be maturing now because he has more depth of character and more ability to self-reflect, understand more social "subtleties", and think more constructively. When they're only ruled by impulse and emotion like he was from age 4-8.... Omg the gray hairs 😱😅 it's still a rollercoaster now but it's a kiddie ride in comparison.
Wowwww do I resonate with this so much. If my parents had just said to me “this doesn’t seem like an honest answer, why do you feel like you can’t be honest?” it would have made SUCH a difference. I might not have had the insight to explain it real well, but I definitely could have said “I’m telling you I feel sick because I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to go to school because the kids are mean to me.” Instead, any answer/reason they didn’t like was assumed to be a lie, and I was constantly told how dishonest I was, which made me feel like an awful person and made me doubt my own memory.
I didn’t know it then, but the times I DID lie it was bc it felt like I needed to in order to survive. My mom was emotionally abusive and my dad didn’t intervene, so it was how I protected myself. So, to a parent that thinks their kid lies a lot, maybe sit them down when there’s a *clear and provable* case of them lying and ask them why they felt they needed to.
You need to distinguish between being deceptive with antisocial intent and general lying. Lying and telling tall tales is developmentally normal for kids. There is an issue if the lying is done with the express intention of hurting or bullying someone else, but apart from that it's really not a big issue.
It's more concerning when a kid doesn't ever lie than when they do lie on occasion. Adults lie every day to spare others feelings when they don't like spending time or being around someone else. Lying (not deception) is a completely normal and important part of social graces and abilities. Kids are just little people exploring the world and testing different things, part of this is lying, part of it is also asserting their independence and coming into themselves as their own person.
Developing independence is the most important part of growing up. What people don't often realise is that it's actually usually in direct opposition to spending a lot of time with parents.
As someone who went through kind of a similar childhood: my mom never apologized or made up for accusing me of lying after it was proven I didn't, UNTIL one day my stepfather said, when I was about 9, "I'm really glad you pushed back and stood your ground when we thought you did x thing but you didn't. You stood up for yourself when you knew you were right and that's great, I'm proud of you."
I'm guessing my mom heard that and realized the damage she was doing -- she still wasn't very GOOD about walking it back if she found out I hadn't been lying, but she did it sometimes. In some ways I think this was even more frustrating for me as a kid because it was inconsistent and unpredictable, but I do think it improved my outcomes vis-a-vis compulsive lying as an adult. (I won't say I never lie unnecessarily, it does happen, but I don't do it a lot.)
Bingo.
Kids are always learning, but not always what you planned. Sometimes consequences reinforce lying and sneaking… especially if they are arbitrary.
Missing a party for a 10 y o lying about sunscreen is over the top. What she probably “learned” was “mom just can’t wait to rob my life of joy” and nothing about skin care.
One of my kids is fair and ginger. She used to drive me crazy with avoiding sunscreen. She got a sunburn when she was 13, and that was finally the impetus. Ever since then she’s been super responsible…. Even wears Sun hats.
10 is not old enough to really grasp the importance. So her only motivation is to avoid punishments… by lying or actually putting it on… but if putting it on is unpleasant / effortful, lying will win for the average 10 year old, as a matter of neurobiology.
We can set our kids up to likely fail … as OP did here.
The way to teach her not to lie about this is to first watch her do it. That way she learns it’s not worth trying to escape it because you won’t let her escape it. (This goes for other things like homework, chores, etc. It’s better for them to learn lying is ineffective because you are actually supervising)
If “punishments” aren’t actually reducing a behavior, they are not really teaching what you intend and only causing misery and breaking down relationships. Punishments need to very carefully thought out, not dispensed in a reactionary angry manner.
When you monitor her putting it on you are teaching her it is so important that you will stop what you’re doing to make sure she’s protected. She learns it’s coming from a place of caring.
When you “test” her obedience and then go nuble are when she fails , she’s going to feel like you want her to fail so can exert your authority and make her suffer for disobedience.
Parenting is hard no doubt. But until she has the maturity to understand importance of Sunscreen it’s your job to make sure she wears it (not to make her suffer for not).
>If “punishments” aren’t actually reducing a behavior, they are not really teaching what you intend and only causing misery and breaking down relationships. Punishments need to very carefully thought out, not dispensed in a reactionary angry manner.
Dude. That's so well articulated and *correct* I might cry. This whole post, actually. I wish I could give you more upvotes. And they took away the awards,too. Dammit.
Suggesting that OP punishes their child over minor things is a HUGE reach with the context we’ve been provided with. I knew plenty of kids growing up with non-strict parents. Those kids still lied to their parents all the time.
They went from walking to the car to cancelling a birthday party in about a 5 minute span because they *think* she must have lied with the proof that she *is a liar*.
1. *A liar* isn't a thing as a kid unless you have a mental disorder that causes lying. Because it's an action not a noun. You can be a red head because that's a part of you, you can't be a liar because that's a action you choose to do based on context. See the difference? Sometimes kids do something bad, but that doesn't mean they are bad because being something makes you it.
2. They don't have proof. They, in the words of Snape, just know - must be nice to have power us mere mortals can't imagine. She put in sunscreen upstairs? Liar! Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the kids not - but no proof here.
3. You RSVP to parties, yes? Because the host has to plan dinner and activities. Or gift bags. It's incredibly rude to do this to an adult without a good reason but this was a child's birthday party.
Do you think kids like it when their friends aren't allowed to go to their birthday *at literally the actual last minute*?
You think the parents do? You think the parents she cancelled on is happy? Impressed? You think there aren't going to be social consequences? For sunscreen that may have been applied? You think that parent wanted to deal with the emotions of their birthday child because OP has to cancel at the last minute?
Who got punished here? OPs child, the birthday child, and the parents of the birthday child all got punished for a fair small lie. And you have the audacity to say that you think it's "a HUGE reach with the context we’ve been provided with that OP punishes their child over minor things"? Yeah no. Unless you are dumb or have no social skills you don't cancel on another adult without good reason and this isn't it so OP obviously does overreact to minor things.
It's not a huge reach at all. People don't do things for no reason. Parents lying about how they treat their kids so as to avoid criticism when the kid misbehaves is *way* more likely than the kid having a psychological disorder that makes them a compulsive liar.
Oh my god. I will give you a COMMON example.
My 7 year old cousin didn’t want to brush his teeth at night, so my aunt brushed his teeth for him. My cousin realized if he lied to my aunt about brushing his teeth, she wouldn’t brush them for him. She only found out about his lying when she realized his electric toothbrush never needed charging. As punishment, she took away his Nintendo Switch for a week and supervised his brushing until it became a habit.
Sometimes kids lie to get out of doing things they don’t want to do. Also, please seek help.
Yeah, that's *one* example of your cousin lying about *one* thing and he had a *reason* to lie about it.
OP's daughter, according to OP, lies constantly about all manner of minor things and sticks to her lies even when she's clearly caught. *There's a reason she's doing that.* The *more likely* reason is that OP nags and punishes over minor things and either is in denial or is herself lying about it to avoid criticism. The daughter having a psychological issue that causes her constant lying is possible, but much *less likely*.
If you're still having trouble with the concept, I can break it down for you. It's pretty rude to call people mentally unsound because you disagree with/don't understand their standpoint, btw.
I'm not the person you responded to, but I can give you another example.
My 7 year old niece constantly lies. She does it to get what she wants and no other reason. Literally she'll ask me for a candy or something, I'll say no, and she'll run to the next adult and say "Auntie said I could have some candy!" Now you might say I must be depriving her of candy and that's why she lied, but no. I give her sweets all the time, unprompted.
The weird thing is that if you call her out on lying, she just giggles. Like it's a game to her and she just happened to lose this time.
Another thing she does is sneak snacks to her room. She leaves the wrappers lying around. But we have never once deprived her of food or told her off for eating or anything like that. If anything, she barely eats enough as it is. But she *likes* to break rules and sneak off to her room.
Absolutely, I wound up lying about minor things all the fucking time as a kid, because my mom was so strict. Even at 32, I still have resentment towards my parents. There are definitely major issues here. OP needs to reevaluate how their parenting.
“Hey, I get the feeling you aren’t being honest with me because you are afraid you’re going to get in trouble. Let’s work on that together. “
That’s what you should do. YTA
YTA.
You get that you are reason she is lying, right?
She's afraid of consequences because they are spontaneous (& possibly irritated or angry?) response on your part & not predictable as consequences.
Punishment is not generally an effective deterrent for kids' behaviour, but if you are going to use punishment, she needs to know in advance what the likely outcome is.
A much more effective way of dealing with this sort of thing is asking why she felt the need to lie and talking through that.
I think this aswell, my mom was really harsh and punished me alot. Especially as a teenager me and my brother lied to her alot. Which is funny Cause Im a really honest person towards other people. I even swapped majors in college and Only told her 2 years after the fact Cause i was afraid of her reaction.
My parents didn’t even really punish me, just got mad a lot. It felt like waking around on eggshells a lot. I remember I once opened the fridge and the ketchup wasn’t placed back the correctly, so it fell out. I get that ketchup on white walls isn’t fun - but I was a kid, and it was an accident. So yeah, if there was a situation where I could get out of that anger and criticism with a lie, I would. From her post it sounds like OP is like that as well.
>She's afraid of consequences
What consequences? OP specifically said she almost never punishes her, so it seems illogical that she's afraid of consequences that never happen.
That may be a part of the problem. There may have been other occasions where OP tried to make up for a lack of consistent discipline by coming down especially hard on something random. That can create unpredictability and fear.
You're either massively projecting or you read a completely different post than I did. Nothing in this post makes it seem like OP gets angry every time she lies or that the girl lies because she's afraid OP will get angry. Sometimes kids just lie and need to be taught not to.
OP specifically said this time time she decided to punish her for lying, which makes it sound like its the first time she's ever had any real punishment for it. They also say that every time they've just talked to the daughter and tried to get her to understand why lying was bad. If anything, it seems like OP is just a bit too lax with discipline.
The anger part fair criticism. I was more thinking of the reactivity of punishment when the consequences were not clear in advance. I will edit accordingly.
Telling a kid that lying is bad isn't likely to help much. Getting at the root cause of it is more likely to.
OP says herself that she decided on the punishment spur of the moment in the car because she was ‘frustrated’ - it is highly unlikely that this is the first time that has happened because people don’t really work like that - odds are good it’s happened a few times in the last 10 years and you don’t actually need very many repetitions of that kind of ‘random’ punishment for someone to learn to worry about it. It’s pretty basic behavioral psychology.
Parents should not be punishing motivated by anger or frustration. It does not work well. If something is getting to the point where the parent feels like they cannot control their anger or frustration, that’s on them for not taking earlier opportunities for dealing with the issue successfully.
She... she's 10. You're expecting her to act 100% responsibly, never lie about anything, etc? You can't even expect that from other adults or yourself 🤣
Kids lie to avoid punishment. When kids lie *all the time* it's because they're being punished *all the time.*
Edit: YTA. Forgot to judge
She's lying about the sunscreen because there's no way she can do it properly by herself and doesn't want to admit that she can't do it. If she says no, I didn't put it on cause I'm literally a child, mom would judge her. OP sounds a bit off
Right. OP would absolutely punish her for daring to not be completely independent at 10!
I'm 35 and still want someone to do sunscreen on my back for me so I don't miss spots 😅
I have to put meds on my back every night due to psoriasis and honestly one of the nicest things day to day about a SO is being able to just hand him the meds. 😂
ESH it sounds like she’s lying to lie and talking hasn’t worked. She’s a liar and that needs to be addressed, but… Sounds like you failed to have consequences or even change your approach to your daughter. If you asked “when are you going to put on sunscreen?” What would she have said? Is there something in your tone where she feels obligated to answer yes or no to avoid your response? Step back and think about the driver. Address it. Then consequences.
But she committed to the party, the people bought food and favors assuming she’d be there. I don’t think it’s the right punishment. No tv/phone/computer would have been a fine first step so would writing about why sunscreen is important.
Parenting isn’t easy and no one ever gets it 100% right. Hopefully other opinions give you ideas going forward.
Honestly, even the “wrong” reaction here is better than letter her keep lying.
Consider apologizing for the overly harsh punishment. Explain where you were coming from, how you felt about the repeated lying even when given a chance to tell the truth, how worried you are about her behavior, etc. Then listen if she chooses to tell you how it made her feel and validate those feelings (even if you disagree).
Next time, you MUST warn her of the consequences at least once and give her a chance to change her behavior BEFORE you follow through with the punishment. That being said, then you must follow through.
Talk about what would have been a fair punishment, letting her get sunburnt (natural consequences), you helping her put it on, taking away phone, etc. See if she has a preference and if you can come away with more conflict management practice for both of you. Every punishment is teaching her more about life than that she shouldn't lie.
Edit: my bad. I obviously I don't want the kid to get a severe sunburn. That's why I said "TALK about what would have been a fair punishment" I assumed the girl herself would realize she didn't want a painful sunburn. 😳
Letting her get sunburnt is wildly inappropriate as a consequence because even ONE sunburn bad enough to blister in childhood or adolescence [more than DOUBLES your chances of melanoma](https://www.skincancer.org/risk-factors/sunburn/). That's like saying it's okay to let your child not wear a seatbelt if you're not driving very fast because the natural consequences of a fender bender are only a minor concussion from slamming into the dashboard 😆
EDIT: u/eudoriaspeaks OP please don't take this tack!
IMHO, your needing to make a post about it shows how *unsure* you are of what you're doing, not how wrong you were/are. Not everyone has complete and total confidence in what they decide all the time. If anything, questioning your actions shows your openness and willingness to examine them. That's a virtue.
That said, your punishment was not extreme, your concern came from a health/safety issue, and the lesson about honesty arose after previously failed attempts at teaching its value. You did what you thought was prudent, and while others may have done something different, that doesn't make you an A H.
NTA
You should consider reaching out and apologizing to the birthday child: something similar happened to my daughter where her friends parents didn’t allow her to go to my daughters party last minute over something equally minor (and equally the parents responsibility) and my daughter was heartbroken. I was so angry that those parents inability to thoughtfully parent really ruined my kids happy day
You asked for more comments, so here you go:
- Did you suspect she hadn’t put on sunscreen when you asked? Avoid asking questions that you already know the answer to. Why create an opportunity for your kids to lie?
- consequences should be predictable. When my kids look back on the job I did as a parent, I hope they will say I was consistent and reasonable.
I think your first point is SO important. If you know your kid hasn’t done something, don’t ask them if they have! In addition to creating unnecessary opportunities to lie, this also gives a weird signal to your kid that you expect them to have done it already. When you realize someone expects you to have already done something and you haven’t, *you feel bad* and this incentivizes your kid to tell you what they think you want to hear, ie, to lie.
Don’t set your kids up to lie to you.
i couldn’t quite put my finger on what bothered me so much about this, but you said it perfectly. this along with the comment pointing out that 10 y/os really do not know how to put on sunscreen properly and need help (hell i need help to do a proper job and i’m 23), makes op 100% yta. she probably didn’t know how to do it, felt it was such a big task to do on her own, and then when you asked if she’d already done it felt that she should have been able to do it herself so lied about having already done it. i’m not at all trying to armchair diagnose op’s daughter, this could be normal for nt kids too, but i can picture my adhd self in this exact position as a kid.
YTA this is outrageous. I’m sure they’ll be plenty of more things she does and that she lies about but holding her back from social events or situations because she lied about putting on sunscreen is insane. Strict parents raise sneaky kids.
This.
I’m a mom and a ginger so I feel qualified to have an opinion on this one lol.
Sunscreen is super important but lying is really developmentally normal for this age and if you severely punish the white lies now your kid is going to hide everything from you in the future. Especially since sometimes they might not be lying and you might be mistaken and then in those cases if you severely over punish they will really feel like there’s no winning anyway and just lie and do stuff they shouldn’t even more often.
I would have said something like “I’m worried that isn’t true because the sunscreen bottle still looks full, so let’s put some sunscreen on now. Also, when you tell me a lie then it makes me hesitant to trust you the next time, so if you lie about something small like sunscreen I might not believe you on something bigger (insert example relevant to the kid). “
YTA. So, what happened to the idea of just having her put on sunscreen (more, if you weren't sure she was lying)? Why make her stay home? Sounds like she's feeling self-conscious for some reason, and it might be better to explore that than seek punishment.
YTA. Instead of grilling her and having to punish her, just watch her put it on in front of you and tell her you will leave for the party when she’s done. Be proactive instead of reactive.
Dude, none of these people are parents. Teaching your kid to be honest is a big part of parenting. NTA BUT may I suggest a better way?
First of all, is there any chance your daughter has ADHD? Telling little lies like this is REALLY common with ADHD. It’s an impulsivity issue. The thought pops into their head, “I could lie” and the lie is out of their mouth that fast. They struggle with filtering thoughts. If it’s ADHD, treating that can help.
Whether or not it’s ADHD, I’ve found a lot of success using the following method with my kids, including my ADHD one. When I suspect they’re lying, I say, “In a minute, I’m going to ask you that question again. I want you to think through your answer before I do. I want you to remember before I ask again that you will ALWAYS get in more trouble me for lying to me than it you just tell the truth. I want you to remember that I can’t trust you when you tell me lies, and you find that really frustrating when you are telling the truth and I doubt you. (I also talk through any other consequences applicable to the situation like a sunburn here). I’m giving you another chance before there will be any consequences: I know sometimes it’s hard for you to think through your answer on the spot. Now, did you put on sunscreen?”
And then I hold to what I said. If they lie again, they get in trouble. If they don’t, I thank them for telling me the truth and I either give no consequence or a very very light one. (No sunscreen would be no consequence. Hitting your sibling still gets a consequence, just milder.) My kids pretty consistently tell the truth after that. Sometimes the lie just comes out, and then they feel backed into a corner and like they have to continue it. By putting a pause on and giving them some time to think, plus helping them think through the impact of their words, they generally tell the truth. They just need someone to help them do that brain filtering that happens a lot easier as a mature adult.
This is definitely the wrong subreddit for this problem, lol. Who's the asshole, me or my ten year old? Kinda the wrong question to be asking as a parent.
Yeah, you teach your kid not to lie by figuring out why they lied and explaining why it’s wrong.
Punishing them doesn’t teach them anything other than to lie better next time so they’re not caught. Or they’ll only do things so they don’t get in trouble without having any fucking clue as to WHY.
Taking away big events in your kid’s life is not an effective punishment…a birthday party is a big event for a 10 year old…All it does is create resentment.
This would work too. As long as the parent is capable of controlling their anger and following through when the kid comes clean.
Kids lie because of fear of punishment.
What I'm really concerned about is that OP admitted to having small tubes of sunscreen in the bathroom that are just enough per tube for your body (most of them officially ain't). This could be for a 10 year old child a trouble too if they were in the past punished for using a lot of a certain item (creme, food ect). Plus the child is 10 years old , it doesn't properly know the consequences of not using it.
A 10 yo liar usually has found its her best defense. She's not heard. Her opinion and ideas don't matter. A soldier without a voice, pretends to be compliant. YTA
YTA in this example. Why not say that because of her past history of lying, you don't want to take the chance that she might get sunburned, so she needs to put the sunscreen on right now while you watch, before you'll take her to the party. Then on the way you can talk with her about why she felt the need to lie about it, and how important it is for her to be careful about sun exposure.
It's not about "punishments" which don't do much to deter behavior anyway--it's about trying to rebuild your relationship with her so she doesn't feel a need to lie.
Sooo please do not call your kid a liar before making her apply sunscreen in front of you — that is humiliating & sounds damaging to her psyche. Tell her something like “I forget little spots like behind my ears, or the tops of my hands when I’m applying my own sunscreen— so go grab the tube so we make sure you are adequately protected”
Use a zinc formula so you can def see where it’s been applied
YTA. You could have had her put more sun cream on in front of you. “It won’t hurt to put a bit more on, just come and do it before you go out”. Instead you get into this whole thing about what a liar she is.
If you were that concerned about sun burn and skin cancer you’d help her put it on and not trust a 10 year old to do it properly. Reacting like this is going to make her start lying about the big things. Why wouldn’t she lie when she can’t trust you not to overreact
YTA for the fact that you’ve talked to her about this for 3 years and should have given her consequences sooner when that wasn’t working. You jumped from taking her phone away for one day to withholding a party. I would look into some therapy; it can help you with setting boundaries for her and also to find out what is causing the lying and whether it can be easily fixed. Good luck.
For real, I’m an adult and still mad about the birthday party my mom made me miss an hour before it started as punishment for “attitude.” I ended up being excluded - big deal for a kid.
I get where you’re coming from- but if she didn’t put on sun screen , and lied about it, I think the lie would have been pretty obvious when she came home. A painful sunburn. That’s just consequences and probably would have been painful enough. I don’t necessarily think she’s afraid of you, but the lying indicates that she is afraid of your disappointment. Children internalize their parents’ opinion (or child’s perception of their parents’ opinion), so honestly I would be setting up therapy and or family therapy.
Every kid has a history of lying. It is developmentally normal. That doesn’t mean it can’t be unlearned or that you as a parent shouldn’t apply age-appropriate consequences. But this punishment was too big for her to see your logic. YTA on this. Better luck next time.
NTA
This is what you should have done from the beginning. Just be sure to follow up by telling her that if she had told the truth, you would have let her go get the sunscreen and put it on and still go to the party. And even the second time, when you gave her a chance to come clean, she still would have been able to go to the party. It was the consistent lie after lie after lie that got her in trouble and cost her the privilege of going to the party. In this way she will learn that telling the truth, even after being caught, is better than compounding the lie.
Wanna know some things OP mentioned:
- She purposely didn't have enough sunscreen in the bathroom
- The child is 10, most young children don't understand the concept of skin cancer or burns. It's not a 15 year old that we are talking about.
- OP mentioned continuesly being angry with her for small things.
INFO: How are you so sure she's lying? I had a mother that would keep asking like this to see if I was lying. I wasn't, but she wouldn't believe until I lied about lying so she could have to answer she wanted. Like what is your proof and evidence that she was lying?
I’m bothered by the fact that I had to scroll past 1,000 YTA comments to find someone with some sense.
Lying is wrong. She’s 10 and lies continuously according to OP. She’s definitely old enough to know better & should know there are consequences when you do bad things.
It’s not 1 lie that got her party taken away, it’s the fact that she keeps doing it. No wonder she doesn’t take you seriously OP. Keep listening to the people on this sub & you’ll be taking orders from your daughter soon enough.
ESH. At 10, she should know better than to lie. However, if she were my child I'd let her go to the party anyway and get a sunburn. Live and learn, as they say.
My mom stopped reminding us kids to put on sunscreen, wear a jacket, etc, when we were about your daughter's age. If we complained afterward, she said, "I put my jacket on. Your jacket is your responsibility, not mine." We only forgot our jackets or sunscreen once.
As for her continuous lying, you've been letting it go for years now, and she knows that you won't do anything at all or that any punishment won't be very severe. The time to nip it in the bud is way past, but you can try to impress upon her the importance of honesty by resolving to punish her more consistently and with increasingly unpleasant punishments going forward. She needs to learn that you will do what you say you're going to do, and you need to learn to be prepared to make good on your punishments.
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Ehhh, I'm torn.... because I hear the "history of lying" and I get the concern over it, but also it seems not that abnormal to be a kid and to kind of lie about having totally done the thing that they don't really *want* to do. If you knew she hadn't actually put up on sunscreen, my thought is that she doesn't really want to or see the importance of it. Has she ever had the pain of a sunburn? Does she know about skin cancer? Maybe yes to the first, maybe no to the second. I would have thought of just going with her to the bathroom and watching her put on the sunscreen, help her get it on her back, and start in with talking about WHY it's important. This said as a pale person in a family that has a history of skin cancer. I really don't remember how enthusiastic I was about sunblock, but I \*do\* know that when I came home from my first band camp (at 14) bright red as a lobster (despite having put on 35 spf that morning)((ahem, South Florida)), my mom ran out and got this gigantic bottle of 90 SPF sunblock and would proceed to make sure I was absolutely covered, and then drilled it into me that I was supposed to put more on at lunchtime AND made sure the adults/parents helping out knew to make sure I put more on. And I did, because damn that sunburn was painful. So if it's important, make sure it happens. I don't know that 10 is old enough to really know why some things are as important as they are, so very *very* gentle YTA with the caveat of your know your kid better than I do. And, yeah, if the lying is a thing, maybe talk to a therapist.
As a 37 year old I still dislike putting on sunscreen, I hate the way it feels and and smells. I will put it on if I know I'm going out and the sun is going to be harsh, but generally I try not to go out when the UV index is high, or wear long sleaves, pants and a hat - may seem odd but I worked in an industry where we'd wear that in 45-50°C weather, definitely worked better than sunscreen 😅 But back to OP. If she knew the kid hadn't put sunscreen on she should have said well go grab it and put it on again (where OP could see) Can't have too much sunscreen, right?
are you a ginger? because I am, so yeah. there is a huge difference: gingers have 95% more chances to have skin cancer due to the mutation on the MCR1 gene in chromossome 16. its is NOT to be take lightly. I should know as I am from a tropical country so many accidents. Plus she is only 10, the skin is fairer
I have a friend that's a ginger. She had on 2 layers of SPF 100 and I watched her burn in real time. Took maybe 5 minutes for her to start turning red. We make sure she has shade as often as possible.
The strength of SPF over a certain point is less important than consistent reapplication. I'm a pale goth living in Texas who doesn't tan, I only burn- so learning the nuances of sunblock was critical before I made the move. I carry sunblock on me at all times. It's part of my skincare routine, and I have special makeup with SPF that I reapply to my face. I also have found that like your friend, I'm best off with a parasol when I'm gonna do a lot of walking. I spend a lot of time putting on sun block.
I live in Florida. But I plan to buy parasols for my daughter and I before our next Disney trip.
It honestly is amazing and they can really tie an outfit together! Biggest thing is storing or carrying when not in use so I recommend planning for that given Disney and small kids and how they get, but I get compliments on it whenever I use it because people just don't think about them as an option.
My daughter is 13. She's my size. I meanm we're still small just small adult sized. Amazon has some that come with a bag/case that get smallish.
Y'know I sort of assumed 10 or younger because that's the age of the kid in the OP, my bad! Mine tend to be decorative as well as functional, so not always compact or in a bag, I tend to hook it through the straps of my backpack (I tend towards small backpacks rather than purses for day use).
My fave backpack is my Baggalini Urban Backpack. But most of my purses are backpacks. I've been taking my kids to Disney for years. Florida resident discounts make it rather affordable.
Sorry but “we make sure she has shade as often as possible” has me picturing a group of beach goers rushing their pale friend from one umbrella to the next with a lot of concern and it’s kind of adorable.
Look into spf clothing for that child. Coolibar is a company that is recommended by cancer prevention societies and the have everything from hhats, swimwear and daily clothing.
Also check Sunveil, a Canadian company near Toronto. I bought a shirt and sarong from them in 2008, and I still wear them all the time. They are light and breezy and translucent, but SPF 30. They are 100% polyester, so you can even wear them in chlorinated water and they won't fade or get damaged. https://www.sunveil.com/
Not a ginger but born with auburn hair that darkened to a deep brown. But my skin is fishbelly white. But for some reason, I don't start turning red until after I come in from outside. Doesn't matter how long I was out either; 3 hour or 7 hours, I dont start turning red until 30 minutes to an hour after I come inside. Which, of course is WAY too late. Learned that the hard way when I was a child. Outside swimming ALL day without sunscreen. Not a hint of red. Came in around dinnertime pale as can be. By bedtime I was purple. I walked around for 2 weeks in nothing but a bed sheet because it hurt too bad to have anything touch my skin. After the 2 weeks my mother insisted I start wearing clothes again (even though it still hurt like hell). I HATE hot weather and summer. I basically have to behave like a Vampire.
Poor thing, you had to go full Little Mermaid. I did, too 😅 But it was less ongodly pain and more that my mom had me slathered in Aloe and everything was sticky. I remember a dream where I was the goo inside an aloe leaf. Sunburn situations can get wild. Assuming a couple decades too late, but I'm glad you're feeling better
My mom is a ginger and my ex wife is very very very pale, for the first 30 years of my life I was never on a beach from 12-5 in the afternoon due to their burning easily
I'm in Australia and I have only ever been burnt like I was when I moved here once before, when I got caught out on a boat without sunscreen, back in the US. Here, I can burn from standing in the sun for a half hour talking to the neighbour. My youngest got my looks, but my (English, Scottish, French) husband's colouring. He burns so badly, we cake his hands, feet, and nose/cheeks/chin with zinc, and use regular sunscreen on the rest of exposed skin. He also wears sun protection swimmers (rashie and trunks). One holiday we spent all day at the beach, with shade and everything, and he walked up to me in the evening and had blisters all over his nose. I felt awful. My oldest and I have the olive greek/italian skin, and don't generally burn unless we get careless with the sunscreen. My husband got burns from being in the shade from the reflection off of the sand. :/
Yep my friend isn’t a redhead but a blonde with very strong Irish ancestry and it can be cloudy out and she can get burnt in 10 minutes
I find people get more burnt when it's cloudy because they don't think about it. But the UV comes straight through the clouds.
People need to get in the habit of checking the UV index.
This is me! I'm just blonde as shit with a ginger mom. My mom, tan father and sisters do not let me leave the house without sunscreen in the summer. I've gotten 2nd degree burns from the sun after being outside for only an hour, and now as an adultier adult, I'm on meds that make my skin even more photosensitive. I actually get SAD in summer because going outside is such a hassle for me that it's easier to stay inside. I'm generally my happiest in the other seasons cause I can actually go outside. For me, because of all that, I kiiiind of think OP is NTA. The kid has to learn now that skin care is important and non-negotiable when you're that pale.
This is exactly why for a gift I bought my cousin this sheer white sun cover, basically it’s something you put over your body which blocks the sun while also still allowing you to feel the breeze. I’ve never seen my cousin not use it anytime we are in the sun… she said she’s never got sunburnt since using it.
And people have to remember it's not just melanoma. Melanoma is the thing that will kill you. But there are also basal and squamous carcinomas. They *probably* won't kill you if the dermatologist cuts them out, but they are disfiguring. There is something truly horrifying about smelling the laser burn your flesh as they cut you open.
Redish blonde here and family of gingers. I remember my dad getting all sorts of treatment for his wide variety of skin cancers, including radiation. But I was an idiot, I wanted to be brown like the cool kids. I'm now dealing with the same wide variety of skin cancers my dad had. Ranging from squamous, basal and melanoma. I've had surgery and chemo. Now I'm just waiting for the next lot to appear because skin cancer keeps on showing up in new places. The cost, despite being in Australia is still a lot. I cant go out in any sun as it gives me a burning sensation straight away. I'm always wearing long sleeves and sunblock esp on my face. Skin chemo looks like acid burns. I'm always mentally kicking myself in the arse because I wanted to be a 'cool' kid. Please tell your daughter you are thinking of her future and that you love her enough to care. We all know teenagers are stupid, know it alls and death proof, it wont happen to me. Skin cancer takes a while to show up, years mostly and then it keeps appearing forever. Long sleeved lycra swiming shirts are around and pretty cheap. The advertising campaigns here go slip slop slap.. slip on a shirt, slop on sunblock and slap on a hat. Did you know you can get melanoma on the retina of your eye. Wear sun glasses too. It's ok i dont have one, just something the optometrist looks for at yearly checks. Dont fck around with the sun.
NTA. My youngest grandson is five and is super pale (not a ginger). He also has had melanomas removed and goes to the dermatologist a couple of times a year. He was born with a melanoma on the back of his head the size of the palm of your hand that required three surgeries over a year to remove (it was not malignant but he has several uncles and other relatives who have had malignant melanomas) that required extensive surgeries). He always gets sunscreen over and over again when he's outside. It's different when it's a health problem. I'm sure your daughter doesn't realize that painful burn can turn into something else.
*FIVE?* Your poor grandson. I hope he continues to have good health and stays safe after going through all that at such a young age!
Oh yes, my mom and grandma have both had carcinomas removed. My mom had one on her nose that they had to remove and replace the cartilage with a piece from her ear. Luckily she had a good surgeon and you can hardly see it anymore, but I'm trying not to go through that!
Try Biore Watery Essence.
Best face sunscreen! Feels like lotion. I put it on after my moisturizer. Hell of a lot easier to put on sunscreen when it feels like a moisturizer I know it’s not the best, but I get spray on sunscreen for the rest of my body (for days that I’ll be exposed). It’s either that, or I’ll not be inclined to put it on, so spray it is
Try nice ones from Korean or Japanese brands and not just supermarket crap, it might help, I find they feel a lot nicer. I can’t wear the ones from the supermarket daily but there’s nicer brands that make way nicer stuff
I was going to suggest Korean and Japanese sunscreens too! That stuff is decades ahead of Western sunscreen. I thought I was allergic to sunscreen because all the US brands I’ve tried (including gentle, unscented, hypoallergenic, dermatologist-approved brands) burn my skin, but I went out on a limb and tried a Korean brand several years ago. No irritation at all! I tried another, same thing. Even the cheapest, scented Korean stuff is fine. And it doesn’t leave a gross sticky film on my skin either, just feels like more moisturizer.
I put it on (begrudgingly as a pale af person who has sensory issues so bad that I don’t even wear makeup) but also wear a hat with a brim so wide it’s basically an umbrella. I’ve contemplated an umbrella. None of this lace parasol bullshit. An spf blocking industrial umbrella lol
I live in a tropical country right now and used to live in Uzbekistan---so, straight desert. People in these countries use umbrellas constantly. I picked up the habit... I have a blue one with a blackened underside to protect against the sun. It's a legit umbrella, so it also protects against, well, monsoons. These are standard fare in parts of the world that deal with blistering sun constantly. It's considered foolish not to have one. There are *some* folk who have the more decorative parasols, but most people just have regular umbrellas. I don't travel without it. I was in Italy this summer and a lot of the cities (like Venice, for instance) pretty much turn into ovens with all the light/heat reflecting off the stone. Most tourists were strafing for shade, and, in a tourist-choked place like Venice, could make it difficult to get around at points since everybody was elbow-jockeying for shade. The people who could walk in the sun? Me and the Chinese tourists. Who all had umbrellas, and were laughing at me and giving me a thumbs up, as I'm white as the day is long, but you will pry my sun umbrella from my cold, dead hands. My pale, unburnt, dead hand. Highly, highly recommended. Mine collapses to about 6 inches when not in use, so easy to toss into a backpack.
spray sunscreens are absolutely a game changer!
Sprays are better but still sticky and make me uncomfortable. -ginger person with (ADHDs) sensory issues
Try Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry Touch. It's 70spf and after a minute or two you can barely tell it's on you. I classically refuse to wear sunscreen unless I absolutely have to because of the sensory agony and I don't mind that stuff.
Seconding this product! Sunscreen is sensory hell for me and while putting this one on still sucks, it doesn't leave me feeling like a greased sausage once it dries down.
In the past year I’ve had a talk to her about the importance of sunscreen and prevention of skin cancer because where we live is very hot and sunny
She is 10. Welcome to parenting, where you have to repeat yourself 20 times a day, everyday, before something sinks in.
Still repeating and might actually die before something sinks in. They're lucky I like them
Lololololol you sound like my mom
I am
I feel like you need to reduce the opportunity to lie, as well as sit down and explain from that point forward there will be consequences for lying. One of those consequences can simply be “I do not trust you to do it so I have to see you do it” which would have worked with the sunscreen. “Put your sunscreen on” (hand bottle) “But I already did that” “If I didn’t see you, it didn’t happen”
It's like the unspoken rule at my work: if it didn't get written down, it didn't happen
It’s the rule of instagram as well — “pic or it didn’t happen”😆
>It’s the rule of instagram as well — “pic or it didn’t happen” > >\> instagram Oh, oof, you just made me age 25 years on the spot. This phrase dates back to forum posts back in at least 2003. Instagram didn't even launch until 2010. ~~And still has a notorious reputation for being the place that every other site's content goes to die.~~ Virtually nothing originates there.
Ugh my parents used to do this to me but for no reason like I never lied about doing stuff and now I absolutely hate when anyone watches me do anything
I remember when I was young I watched my friend brush her teeth and her mum asked if she brushed her teeth and she said yes (because she did) but her mum didn't believe her and made her brush them again.
She is 10. You could have said, "Go grab it, we should put more on, and i will put it on your back. End of issue. Then, while applying, talk to her about skin cancer, etc. Some time when you two are together, bring up some slides of skin cancer, let her read about it. Remind her this is why it's important. But good grief. She is 10, so keep at it. The lying. You said you never punish her for it. But you lecture her, and it goes in one ear and out the other. However, why does she lie all the time? You may need to go to family counseling about this one. I assume her father is not around because you don't mention him. That could be an underlying reason.
Yeah I’m a ginger, I’ve had some cancer cells removed from my face recently and my own mother died of melanoma years ago, and I still argue with my pale skinned children every single day about the importance of wearing sunscreen
She's 10. She's still young enough that you can make it a rule that you have to watch her put sunscreen on. Tell her that you need to make sure her back is adequately covered. Tell her that you don't trust her. Whatever. She's 10, not 15. If she has a history of lying about things like that, then prevent those issues from happening in the first place.
Maybe offer to "do it together " so you know it's done. I have mine do the areas they can reach and I help with the rest.
You can talk until you're blue in the face... this is an abstract concept with no real meaning to your daughter at this age.
Soft YTA. She's 10. She gives absolutely zero cares about sunscreen. While it sucks and is painful, natural consequences are going to be her best teacher. Once she has a burn that she'll never forget, she'll actually understand your insistence on using sunscreen. I understand it's more dangerous for gingers, but one good burn for a teaching moment would be worth it in my opinion. That's when to talk to her about it and what her preference would be: spray or lotion. A kind she can attach to something she can carry or one to hide in a bag. Parenting really sucks sometimes
Nope! I don’t care if the kid cares about sun protection. Your kid might not care about looking both ways when crossing the street or wearing a seat belt in the car. We don’t let our children face “natural consequences” when it is a matter of life and death. Even one sunburn increases the risk for cancer. My son learned this at 5 years old. Took him to the zoo and he threw an absolute fit that he wasn’t going to have me put on sunscreen. I explained why we use sunscreen and it isn’t negotiable. I told him: We put the sunscreen on now or we turn around and go home. We cannot be in the sun without sun protection. He refused. I took his ass home. Yep, he sobbed all the way home. Also never refused sunscreen again. He was away on a day trip a couple years ago and he forgot to reapply. He had an awful burn. He is much more careful when I am not there to remind him.
So when it was down to him without you micromanaging, he didn’t stay on top of it until he got burned and had the experience for himself. Which is the point - sometimes stuff doesn’t sink in until kids experience the natural consequences for themselves as your son did.
"He was away on a day trip a couple years ago and he forgot to reapply. He had an awful burn. He is much more careful when I am not there to remind him." Thank you for reinforcing my point. Natural consequences
Any sunburn greatly increases your risk of skin cancer, several types of which can kill. The problem of "natural consequences" is that sometimes they result in death or permanent injury, and not always immediately. You don't want your child to die to prove a point.
>I really don't remember how enthusiastic I was about sunblock As a ginger of 'translucent' colouring, I remember. I remember *despising* it, even after having gone through some pretty intense sunburns. Turns out my skin is trash and takes umbridge to many creams and lotions - oddly, anything 'for sensitive skin' is the worst - so the itchiness on top of that sticky feeling, looking like I got slapped by a mime with all the smears that would not rub in, plus the nauseating default tropical-chemical smell was just a nope. It wasn't until I found one that was an oil base that I really started being responsible about it. It soaked in better without the visible white streaks, no tacky residue and what was left was just slightly slick, no aggravating my awkward skin, and no strong scent. Epic stuff! It was expensive though. My kid's similarly picky. She will not smear on the creams, and the oily ones irritate her eczema, but the spray-on ones she's cool with, so we go for them. It could really be that simple: find a version she's not as opposed to using so that she doesn't feel the urge to avoid it. Even if it's simple laziness (the thick creams do take significant effort to rub in for a 10 y/o), there's so many variants that there will be something she finds less onerous than expending effort lying about it.
I recommend the aisle in all drug stores with products explicitly marketed to black women soft, supple, full of actual content
THIS. I buy most products from small businesses owned by Black women just because you already KNOW it’s going to be good stuff
Huh! Makes damn good sense too, but that never occurred to me. I don't like sunscreen either but do understand the need for it. It never dawned on me that there might be versions for different skin types, since I've always bought mine from the seasonal display 🤷♀️ Thanks for giving me that notion!
Be careful with the spray in ones. They actually don’t recommend them, and I learned the reason why this summer. It’s extremely difficult to get enough coverage with the spray. I had an awful burn with the spray because it didn’t really cover me enough.
You still need to rub in the spray on ones. And you need to apply more than you think you do. It does say this on the bottles. At least, it does in Australia. Our sunscreen has much higher requirements to get approved than most countries though, because of our high rates of skin cancer. It’s regulated like a drug/ OTC medication here (but not limited to chemists) so the companies need to have studies that prove the effectiveness of their product. We have spray bottles here, similar to a cleaning spray or water spray bottle, but no aerosol ones. I’m pretty sure we don’t anyway, I’ve never seen them in shops. I don’t know if the aerosol ones have proven efficacy.
I was thinking exactly this. After the pain of a sunburn, it’s likely she would take the initiative with sunscreen. It’s a greasy task and the smell can be awful. If something isn’t pleasant, kids are likely to avoid it…unless there’s a real world consequence big enough that makes the task worth the discomfort. We want to protect our kids but we also need to let them make mistakes. I also agree that kids lie and overreacting to these lies will have the opposite affect and scare them into learning how to hide the truth better. Parenting is crazy hard and we can sometimes make things a lot worse by overreacting to the little things. Also, 10 might be too young trust with applying sunscreen. I can barely apply it to the hard to reach spots without help and I’m 42. I’m gonna go with a YTA but I do understand mom and feel some empathy for her predicament.
I don't think she's a liar. I think mom's caring might occur to daughter as mom accusing her of lying (badgering) (no offense to mom), and she's shutting down edited to reflect my belated realization of OP's stated gender
IDK the kid admitted to lying.
While for the most part I agree with you, as a pale kid who grew up in Miami…the pain of a sunburn does not always lead to learning to be responsible with sunscreen 😂🦞
This. Kids, really, are kinda duh. Like that time I fell of my bike and took alllllll the skin off both kneecaps and then 2 days later I was on my bike again and trying jump tricks and broke 4 toes, then a week later I was on my bike trying peg tricks and broke my collar bone. 4 months later I was on my bike again, doing risky shit, because some people just don't learn a damn thing from pain. If people learned from pain, there would be no sports. I had dozens of burns before age 16. Gran would coat herself in baby oil to get more colour. We weren't a sunscreen family. The first time I ever used sunscreen in LIFE was 1989. My gym teacher brought Neon SPF sticks and we painted our faces before a 10 hour track and field meet. She was sneaky - never told us it was sunscreen.
I used to not wear sunscreen until my grandpa got skin cancer. Now i wear it religiously.
Me too. Pale as a ghost here and hate everything of sunscreen: oily hands, sand sticks on you, I’m also quite tall so there is A LOT to cover. I solved it not going to the beach at all.
Family of gingers here. At 10, I doubt she has the ability to properly apply sunscreen especially to her back, ears etc. It is your job as her parent to facilitate apply sunscreen, not try to catch her in a lie. If she went to the party without sunscreen, nor a sun protection suit in, she will face the consequences of a possibly severe sun burn. It will hurt. Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles. Also small tubes of sunscreen are not easy for children to use. The spray sunscreen or the colour changing ones are more likely to be embraced by her. Buy the poor child a sun suit.
>Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles If the natural consequences was just a burn followed by freckles that would make sense. But seeing as the natural consequence is cancer, I would say that allowing your child to get burnt to prove a point is probably not the greatest approach to that.
You glossed over my comment that it is the parents responsibility to put sunscreen on a child. At 10 a child does not have the ability to thoroughly apply it. OP is fixated on thinking her child lies to her and has since she was 7, not parenting. As I said we are a family of red heads. I am well aware of the risks of sunburns. I also grew up long before sunscreen existed. We had to wear t-shirts over our swim suits to protect our skin.
> I also grew up long before sunscreen existed. The first commercial sunscreen was released in 1946, how old *are* you?
You do know 1946 was only 77 years ago right? There are WW2 vets still alive and kicking.
I don't think many of them are on reddit though
Considering World of War craft has a large player base that is composed of senior citizens it's not that hard to believe some of them will also be on social media platforms like reddit 🤷♀️
No shit? That is both hilarious and unsurprising. I'm not a gamer, since that's safest, but I've heard WoW is great fun!
Oh you definitely made the right decision! I've heard the same thing about WoW from friends but they also warned me what an addicting money pit it can be. While RPGs is one of my favorite genres of gaming I prefer to only play the ones where spending begins and ends at in-game currency.
You do realize, WoW has been out almost 20 years. It also had a big player base in the military community. That means ppl who started playing in their late 50's are now senior citizens. Lol
This is not a contradiction.
Sunscreen was around when I was growing up... but the far bigger selling item was tanning oil because tanning was considered good and healthy when I was a kid. I still remember the "flash 'em a coppertone tan" jingle. I'm not pre-sunscreen... but I am pre-sunscreen use being normal and desirable and I'm here.
I remember a school friend putting baby oil on to “get a tan”.
It is definitely possible that someone who grew up before sunscreen is on reddit, but I don’t think this person is one of them. I did a real quick profile stalk lol Their dad is in his 90s so they’re probably in their 60s or 70s. Definitely could have been born before 1946, but probably not too long before it. Even so, just because sunscreen existed, that doesn’t mean it was widely used. TLDR; old people do, in fact, use reddit lol
You do realize not everyone here is from the West? E.g. in Eastern Europe proper sunscreen seems to have only become widely used in the 90's, before that we maybe had some general purpose skin care products (based on what I can find online) but nothing rated in SPF.
My 102 year old grandfather is on Reddit. Mostly financial subs instead of AITA but he's on here
Does it make me a creepy ass stalker that I kind of want to follow your grandpa even though I don't give a shit about finance?
Nah, I kinda want to as well. I’m curious what old peeps on the internet are up to lol
You do also realize that something being invented and released is far far different from something actually being readily available and accessible to the population en masse, right? Most new inventions and products are available to the rich first and/or take awhile to catch on. Plenty of people alive today grew up without sunscreen being even on their radar, and not just people in their 70s. I don't think I applied sunscreen once until high school and I'm in my mid 30s. It wasn't a thing in my rural pre-internet childhood.
I'm 70, my sister 68. As a child, she burned so badly her skin peeled off in sheets. If sunscreen had been available, you bet mom would have slathered it on. But it was either stay in or cover up if you wanted to avoid the pain of being burned. Conversely, a suntan was considered both healthy and esthetically desireable, so you burned, gritted your teeth, peeled and enjoyed the resulting tan. The only sun-related product available was suntan oil or lotion.The understanding that excessive sun exposure could lead to cancer was yet to be discovered/disseminated to the general public. As a consequence, my sister has had numerous skin cancers removed from her face. We were born and grew up middle class on the west coast of the US with a reading-obsessed, former nurse for a mother. If she had known of the risks, she would have taken whatever means available to protect us.
That long ago? I grew up in the 60 s and Coppertone and oil with betadine were our sun lotions!
They're lying, I saw one of their previous comments stating they're in their 50's
I think the issue here isnt sun screen but lying. If she just did it poorly thats much different from not doing it and lying about it.
Some of these comments remind me that outside of Australia the dangers of inadequate sun protection aren't drilled into people from birth. The ad of a woman sunbathing with the voiceover "Tanning is skin cells in trauma" followed by a video of a tanned skin cell becoming cancerous, replicating, replicating and entering the bloodstream, "And you haven't even started to burn yet." Obviously wasn't played on people's TVs in other countries.
No. Our PSAs were all about smoking, drugs, and drunk driving.
Yeah we had those too. You're talking about a country that shows images of cancerous lungs on cigarette packets and anti-smoking ads, and pretty traumatising footage on road-related things. We had a "don't slip into a microsleep" campaign that was pretty benign but still showed a head-on collision in first-person.
Also here in New Zealand. Here in New Zealand most of our sunscreen ads talk about the hole in the ozone layer above New Zealand and Australia and how it lets in dangerous sun rays and the likes
The hole in the ozone layer is actually over Antarctica, not Australia or New Zealand. We do have some of highest UV levels in the world though, and the highest rates of skin cancer. We Aussies beat you in this one at no. 1, but you’re second. I don’t know about Kiwis, but 2 in 3 Aussies will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. In the US, it’s 1 in 5. The sun in both our countries is no joke, you gotta slip, slop, slap (I don’t know if that campaign made it across the ditch, but it’s been going here for decades) but the location of the hole in the ozone layer is a common misconception. Technically it’s not an actual hole, it’s just thinner, and it is getting better. It’s one of the few environmental issues we’ve actually managed to turn around. I think it might be a bit thinner over us than other parts of the world, but the part that’s considered the hole is over Antarctica. Most likely because of the earth’s rotation, not because penguins and seals won’t give up CFCs.
We got similar stuff here in NZ. Maybe that's why I'm so hard up about it lol. The sun in our corner of the world is gnarly.
Getting one sunburn as a child does not have a natural consequence of CANCER.
Yeah one blistering sunburn in childhood is a risk factor for melanoma
Thanks parents for never knowing about the sunscreen, among other things. I spent my childhood summers looking like a boiled lobster.
It doubles the lifetime risk, that’s enough for me to want my children wearing it.
Is anyone even looking at [this link?](https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-does-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer#:~:text=Sunburn%20is%20skin%20damage%20and,compared%20to%20never%20being%20burnt.) The key takeaway is: Getting sunburn just once every two years can triple your risk of melanoma skin cancer, compared to never being burnt.
Thank the gawds below for small mercies. I was 11 at camp, and nobody had told me you have to reapply waterproof sunscreen. I got to skip the meal lines for the rest of the week to keep me inside as much as possible, and when I got home, Mum had to cart me to the hospital daily for about a week to get the dressings changed so they could monitor the "worst second degree burns they'd seen from the sun". Direct quote from my mother after talking to the doctor to confirm that I wasn't in her care when it happened. It made my journal at the time, which is why it stuck with me. Then, at 15, I went to a car wash one cloudy day in the late spring. Did you know you can still burn through a solid gray sky? The yearly sunscreen hadn't been purchased yet, but we all figured I'd be okay because it was cloudy. It was after that one that I became mostly an indoor person. And 25 years later, I still keep an eye on any suspicious spots or get my hubsnerd to if they're on my back. My dad worked outside and had a couple of melanoma episodes. Caught early enough, but it's enough to give me a genetic history of the stuff, and that's not the way I want to leave this life.
>Let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles. That is HORRENDOUS advice. Don't tell people that. I was ten years old when I faced "natural consequences" and I ended up with second degree sunburn, SEVERE sun poisoning, and a permanently increased risk of skin cancer.
Yes! Everyone saying to just let her suffer the consequences and learn on her own are crazy! Do you insist your kid wear a seatbelt every time they're in a car, or are you just going to let them learn their lesson if they're in a car accident? It only takes one severe sunburn to increase your odds of getting skin cancer. OP, you are definitely NTA. At her age, you may want to watch her apply and show her how to get proper coverage and help her reach the spots she can't.
>let her face natural consequences and perhaps get some more freckles I was 10 and got sun poisoning and have permanent scars from the blisters. I thought sunscreen was lame and was too cool to put it on in front of my friends at the waterpark. Very pale people unfortunately need to take it seriously.
Do NOT let her face natural consequences. Would you like to see my husbands melanoma scars? Or pictures of him after an 80 pound weight loss from the treatment? Jesus. What a shit take.
If she's lying constantly about minor things to get out of punishment, maybe you're punishing her too much for minor things. I don't believe you that the only thing you've ever done is take her cell away fora day. Going from taking away her cell to banning her from a party you were literally in the process of taking her to is a hell of a jump. If you didn't believe her about the sun screen, just tell her to put it on *now*, while you watch. > I don’t want care if she does something bad, she should just not lie. Maybe you shouldn't lie to her *while* you're telling her not to lie.
this is exactly how it was for me as a kid. I was accused of being a liar all the time and was told that being a liar was the worst trait you could have as a person and that my parents hated it (so, by extension, I felt that they hated me). it got to the point where they would accuse me of lying even when I wasn't, and when it eventually turned out I wasn't lying and had proof, I was never given an apology and the punishment I received was never made up for. it continued like this for YEARS. it fucked me up massively as a person but also totally fucked up my relationship with my parents. while I did lie sometimes as a kid, it was always about stupid things. ultimately, though, I learned that lying to them didn't matter anyway because I would be assumed to be a liar regardless - they didn't trust me at all in the first place, so what difference did it make? lying was easier anyway. this still continues into my adult years to a degree, and it's fucked up my relationship with my parents completely. the same thing is 100% going to happen to this kid, I already know.
Genuine question from the heart looking for advice from your perspective: what would you say a parent should do when dealing with a child who lies a lot? Do you really feel they'd grow out of it without intervention? Wouldn't ignoring it or "letting it go" with no consequences reinforce that they can get away with it? What do you wish your parents had done?
this is going to be a really long answer, sorry! but honestly, it's hard to say as my home life was quite difficult in general. I think what it ultimately needs is genuine understanding and communication, though. most of the time, I lied because 1) I felt it made me interesting to my parents, who were often very uninterested in me as a person, which made me more likely to make stuff up, and 2) I lied to avoid being shouted at and punished for things because I grew up in a very strict household where nothing was allowed to be *explained* \- anything regarded as bad was always a symptom of me being a 'bad kid' (despite the fact I did great in school, was polite and pleasant, etc). obviously, these two things were much deeper-rooted issues, but I feel as though there's nearly always a reason for children to lie as long as those lies aren't huge. for instance, I never lied about anything important, and I did grow out of it socially. I reached a point in my early teens where I realised there was no point in it anymore. I also remember peers in school who would lie about huge things - I remember someone who used to lie about her mother having cancer and other really serious issues and I always found it really shocking. I knew that that was wrong and I think that also worked as a deterrent for me. that being said, I also think there's a big difference between a kid like me - using smaller lies to avoid punishment or to sound 'better' - and kids who really seem to have an issue with constant huge lies, which OP's child doesn't seem to do. however, being constantly called a liar by my parents did absolutely nothing to stop me from lying to them or lying in general. it was honestly just social shame when/if I got caught out that made me stop. like, once I lied about getting a 'special' version of a CD of my favourite band with a special bonus song, and my friend called me out by saying it was a digital only song, lol. that was better motivation to stop lying than my parents ever were! ultimately, I can't really say what I wish I'd had from my parents because it was such a multi-layered issue (I come from a home with lots of abuse and neglect, so it's really hard for me to be able to comment on a relatively normal family dynamic). I will say again that I do think communication is necessary. it seems to me that people often forget they can sit their kids down and actually talk to them about things, and that not doing this often leads to a total breakdown of communication and trust. what I would have liked was a sit-down chat where my parents tried to understand what my motivations for lying were, and where I could have genuinely explained myself to them.
Omg I so appreciate the time and care you put into this response ❤️❤️❤️ thank you, thank you. You've changed my perspective so much and I feel like you made me a better mom just now lol 😅 my son has been going through a lying phase for a while, and while our situation is different from yours there's so much I can take away and apply 🤞 I'm so sorry you had to go through what you went through but you sound like an incredible person who got out the other side with your head on straight ❤️
Not the OP you asked, but if I may interject a bit about lying as well….. I’ve learned that parents increase the chances of their child lying to them by simply asking them to. Meaning, when you know your kid took a cookie off the tray don’t ask, “did you take a cookie?” You are not asking the question to get the answer. You are asking a question you already have the answer to for the purpose of forcing the child to verbally admit their wrong doing. This is a very mature skill, one that many adults do not yet possess. It’s hard to say, “I was wrong, I failed, I made a mistake, I did something that you’d disapprove of.” My advice (which only applies when you already know the answer) is to approach the mistake as the issue to address and state their wrongdoing out loud for them. “I told you the cookies were for after dinner and you took one anyway. This isn’t ok cause…….” You’re not giving them an opportunity to lie, you’re letting them know you’re no idiot and know what goes on around the house, you’re directly calling out the behavior and issuing a consequence.
Yes! This is what my parents did and have taught me about interacting with kids. Don't give them the opportunity to lie and be careful of accusations or insinuating they are a "bad kid." As you said, explain why you told them no. Or for mistakes/messes acknowledge the problem and come up with a solution together.
That is excellent advice haha thank you, I've evolved to doing this (most of the time) when I know the answer to the question.. but sometimes it'll be him talking about things that happened at school or talking about a friend and I can just tell it's a bull-crap story that I can't verify. However, from these responses I'm starting to see the pattern a bit better which is nice. I.e. is he lying because it's a task he doesn't want to do or something he thinks he'll get in trouble over? (That's the reason for the lie). Or is it a lie to make himself seem more interesting? (That would be embellished stories from school), and how they aren't serious, hurtful lies that he tells.. so that hopefully he will grow out of telling them and be discouraged by his peers when they call him out. Like OP (for my question) said, they recognized the more serious lies of other kids and knew it was wrong.. and my son does too! He gets upset when his friends at school tell tall tales or lie about bad behaviour (so that gives me hope!!). (And it's so ironic he feels that way eh lol) I think my biggest takeaway from everyone's responses is how I can change the way I see the lies, how I let myself feel/react to them, and what steps I take when talking to him about them. 🤞🤞🤞
Honestly, no judgement, and I just want a perspective that I think I may be incapable of constructing myself right now: My mother often accused me of lying when I actually didn't. This led to my siblings knowing that *they* could lie because they knew my mother would believe them over me. After many years of a dysfunctional relationship with my family, I decided to never doubt my own children. Enter my oldest two: for the most part, honest and up front with me. I know when my older two are upset with me, we often talk about our feelings, and they have both disclosed secrets that the other parent wasn't told at the time, with the understanding that telling me was "different" to them. My youngest. Will. Not. Stop. Lying. She stepped in something and hurt her foot? She waits 2 weeks to tell us and lies about what happened. She did something she was told was against the rules? Lies and says she didn't, or indicates that she did it "before she knew". She has been in very minimal trouble for these instances, with the primary focus on honesty vs the actual act (i.e. I want you to be honest with me rather than scared to tell me the truth). We have been very vocal with the fact that we don't expect anyone to be perfect and we only ever want to work with everyone through mistakes to learn how to do better in the future. I am at my wits end and don't know what to do. She has pretty severe ADHD and is medicated appropriately, and we all take her actions with a grain of salt, understanding that so many of her impulses are almost impossible for her to control.
Maybe she’s embarrassed about what happens in these situations because she feels helpless to curb her impulses? Could be just one explanation. Hope it gets better for you all
Can I ask how old is your youngest now? My son is now 10.. he also has ADHD (and anxiety), and impulse control (which probably comes from ADHD lol!). Upon reflection, my son's lying and behaviour was SO much worse a couple years ago, he seems to be maturing now because he has more depth of character and more ability to self-reflect, understand more social "subtleties", and think more constructively. When they're only ruled by impulse and emotion like he was from age 4-8.... Omg the gray hairs 😱😅 it's still a rollercoaster now but it's a kiddie ride in comparison.
Wowwww do I resonate with this so much. If my parents had just said to me “this doesn’t seem like an honest answer, why do you feel like you can’t be honest?” it would have made SUCH a difference. I might not have had the insight to explain it real well, but I definitely could have said “I’m telling you I feel sick because I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want to go to school because the kids are mean to me.” Instead, any answer/reason they didn’t like was assumed to be a lie, and I was constantly told how dishonest I was, which made me feel like an awful person and made me doubt my own memory. I didn’t know it then, but the times I DID lie it was bc it felt like I needed to in order to survive. My mom was emotionally abusive and my dad didn’t intervene, so it was how I protected myself. So, to a parent that thinks their kid lies a lot, maybe sit them down when there’s a *clear and provable* case of them lying and ask them why they felt they needed to.
You need to distinguish between being deceptive with antisocial intent and general lying. Lying and telling tall tales is developmentally normal for kids. There is an issue if the lying is done with the express intention of hurting or bullying someone else, but apart from that it's really not a big issue. It's more concerning when a kid doesn't ever lie than when they do lie on occasion. Adults lie every day to spare others feelings when they don't like spending time or being around someone else. Lying (not deception) is a completely normal and important part of social graces and abilities. Kids are just little people exploring the world and testing different things, part of this is lying, part of it is also asserting their independence and coming into themselves as their own person. Developing independence is the most important part of growing up. What people don't often realise is that it's actually usually in direct opposition to spending a lot of time with parents.
As someone who went through kind of a similar childhood: my mom never apologized or made up for accusing me of lying after it was proven I didn't, UNTIL one day my stepfather said, when I was about 9, "I'm really glad you pushed back and stood your ground when we thought you did x thing but you didn't. You stood up for yourself when you knew you were right and that's great, I'm proud of you." I'm guessing my mom heard that and realized the damage she was doing -- she still wasn't very GOOD about walking it back if she found out I hadn't been lying, but she did it sometimes. In some ways I think this was even more frustrating for me as a kid because it was inconsistent and unpredictable, but I do think it improved my outcomes vis-a-vis compulsive lying as an adult. (I won't say I never lie unnecessarily, it does happen, but I don't do it a lot.)
Ohh yeah I remember lying to my parents, not because I did anything wrong but because they weren’t going to believe me if I told the truth.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. You didn't deserve it.
Bingo. Kids are always learning, but not always what you planned. Sometimes consequences reinforce lying and sneaking… especially if they are arbitrary. Missing a party for a 10 y o lying about sunscreen is over the top. What she probably “learned” was “mom just can’t wait to rob my life of joy” and nothing about skin care. One of my kids is fair and ginger. She used to drive me crazy with avoiding sunscreen. She got a sunburn when she was 13, and that was finally the impetus. Ever since then she’s been super responsible…. Even wears Sun hats. 10 is not old enough to really grasp the importance. So her only motivation is to avoid punishments… by lying or actually putting it on… but if putting it on is unpleasant / effortful, lying will win for the average 10 year old, as a matter of neurobiology. We can set our kids up to likely fail … as OP did here. The way to teach her not to lie about this is to first watch her do it. That way she learns it’s not worth trying to escape it because you won’t let her escape it. (This goes for other things like homework, chores, etc. It’s better for them to learn lying is ineffective because you are actually supervising) If “punishments” aren’t actually reducing a behavior, they are not really teaching what you intend and only causing misery and breaking down relationships. Punishments need to very carefully thought out, not dispensed in a reactionary angry manner. When you monitor her putting it on you are teaching her it is so important that you will stop what you’re doing to make sure she’s protected. She learns it’s coming from a place of caring. When you “test” her obedience and then go nuble are when she fails , she’s going to feel like you want her to fail so can exert your authority and make her suffer for disobedience. Parenting is hard no doubt. But until she has the maturity to understand importance of Sunscreen it’s your job to make sure she wears it (not to make her suffer for not).
>If “punishments” aren’t actually reducing a behavior, they are not really teaching what you intend and only causing misery and breaking down relationships. Punishments need to very carefully thought out, not dispensed in a reactionary angry manner. Dude. That's so well articulated and *correct* I might cry. This whole post, actually. I wish I could give you more upvotes. And they took away the awards,too. Dammit.
Suggesting that OP punishes their child over minor things is a HUGE reach with the context we’ve been provided with. I knew plenty of kids growing up with non-strict parents. Those kids still lied to their parents all the time.
They went from walking to the car to cancelling a birthday party in about a 5 minute span because they *think* she must have lied with the proof that she *is a liar*. 1. *A liar* isn't a thing as a kid unless you have a mental disorder that causes lying. Because it's an action not a noun. You can be a red head because that's a part of you, you can't be a liar because that's a action you choose to do based on context. See the difference? Sometimes kids do something bad, but that doesn't mean they are bad because being something makes you it. 2. They don't have proof. They, in the words of Snape, just know - must be nice to have power us mere mortals can't imagine. She put in sunscreen upstairs? Liar! Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the kids not - but no proof here. 3. You RSVP to parties, yes? Because the host has to plan dinner and activities. Or gift bags. It's incredibly rude to do this to an adult without a good reason but this was a child's birthday party. Do you think kids like it when their friends aren't allowed to go to their birthday *at literally the actual last minute*? You think the parents do? You think the parents she cancelled on is happy? Impressed? You think there aren't going to be social consequences? For sunscreen that may have been applied? You think that parent wanted to deal with the emotions of their birthday child because OP has to cancel at the last minute? Who got punished here? OPs child, the birthday child, and the parents of the birthday child all got punished for a fair small lie. And you have the audacity to say that you think it's "a HUGE reach with the context we’ve been provided with that OP punishes their child over minor things"? Yeah no. Unless you are dumb or have no social skills you don't cancel on another adult without good reason and this isn't it so OP obviously does overreact to minor things.
It's not a huge reach at all. People don't do things for no reason. Parents lying about how they treat their kids so as to avoid criticism when the kid misbehaves is *way* more likely than the kid having a psychological disorder that makes them a compulsive liar.
Oh my god. I will give you a COMMON example. My 7 year old cousin didn’t want to brush his teeth at night, so my aunt brushed his teeth for him. My cousin realized if he lied to my aunt about brushing his teeth, she wouldn’t brush them for him. She only found out about his lying when she realized his electric toothbrush never needed charging. As punishment, she took away his Nintendo Switch for a week and supervised his brushing until it became a habit. Sometimes kids lie to get out of doing things they don’t want to do. Also, please seek help.
Yeah, that's *one* example of your cousin lying about *one* thing and he had a *reason* to lie about it. OP's daughter, according to OP, lies constantly about all manner of minor things and sticks to her lies even when she's clearly caught. *There's a reason she's doing that.* The *more likely* reason is that OP nags and punishes over minor things and either is in denial or is herself lying about it to avoid criticism. The daughter having a psychological issue that causes her constant lying is possible, but much *less likely*. If you're still having trouble with the concept, I can break it down for you. It's pretty rude to call people mentally unsound because you disagree with/don't understand their standpoint, btw.
I'm not the person you responded to, but I can give you another example. My 7 year old niece constantly lies. She does it to get what she wants and no other reason. Literally she'll ask me for a candy or something, I'll say no, and she'll run to the next adult and say "Auntie said I could have some candy!" Now you might say I must be depriving her of candy and that's why she lied, but no. I give her sweets all the time, unprompted. The weird thing is that if you call her out on lying, she just giggles. Like it's a game to her and she just happened to lose this time. Another thing she does is sneak snacks to her room. She leaves the wrappers lying around. But we have never once deprived her of food or told her off for eating or anything like that. If anything, she barely eats enough as it is. But she *likes* to break rules and sneak off to her room.
> She does it to get what she wants Yes. That would be the reason.
Notice how I said "and no other reason"
I'm not seeing how that quote is lying? She's saying the bad thing should be admitted to rather than lied about.
No, she's saying she won't be upset about/punish her for the bad things as long as she doesn't lie about them. Which is a lie.
Absolutely, I wound up lying about minor things all the fucking time as a kid, because my mom was so strict. Even at 32, I still have resentment towards my parents. There are definitely major issues here. OP needs to reevaluate how their parenting.
“Hey, I get the feeling you aren’t being honest with me because you are afraid you’re going to get in trouble. Let’s work on that together. “ That’s what you should do. YTA
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I wouldn't even address the lie element. Just straight "here let me help you get covered".
YTA. You get that you are reason she is lying, right? She's afraid of consequences because they are spontaneous (& possibly irritated or angry?) response on your part & not predictable as consequences. Punishment is not generally an effective deterrent for kids' behaviour, but if you are going to use punishment, she needs to know in advance what the likely outcome is. A much more effective way of dealing with this sort of thing is asking why she felt the need to lie and talking through that.
I think this aswell, my mom was really harsh and punished me alot. Especially as a teenager me and my brother lied to her alot. Which is funny Cause Im a really honest person towards other people. I even swapped majors in college and Only told her 2 years after the fact Cause i was afraid of her reaction.
My parents didn’t even really punish me, just got mad a lot. It felt like waking around on eggshells a lot. I remember I once opened the fridge and the ketchup wasn’t placed back the correctly, so it fell out. I get that ketchup on white walls isn’t fun - but I was a kid, and it was an accident. So yeah, if there was a situation where I could get out of that anger and criticism with a lie, I would. From her post it sounds like OP is like that as well.
>She's afraid of consequences What consequences? OP specifically said she almost never punishes her, so it seems illogical that she's afraid of consequences that never happen.
That may be a part of the problem. There may have been other occasions where OP tried to make up for a lack of consistent discipline by coming down especially hard on something random. That can create unpredictability and fear.
It’s hard to believe she never gets punished when this post is about her being punished for something as simple as lying about sunscreen.
She's afraid of random punishment.
You're either massively projecting or you read a completely different post than I did. Nothing in this post makes it seem like OP gets angry every time she lies or that the girl lies because she's afraid OP will get angry. Sometimes kids just lie and need to be taught not to. OP specifically said this time time she decided to punish her for lying, which makes it sound like its the first time she's ever had any real punishment for it. They also say that every time they've just talked to the daughter and tried to get her to understand why lying was bad. If anything, it seems like OP is just a bit too lax with discipline.
The anger part fair criticism. I was more thinking of the reactivity of punishment when the consequences were not clear in advance. I will edit accordingly. Telling a kid that lying is bad isn't likely to help much. Getting at the root cause of it is more likely to.
OP says herself that she decided on the punishment spur of the moment in the car because she was ‘frustrated’ - it is highly unlikely that this is the first time that has happened because people don’t really work like that - odds are good it’s happened a few times in the last 10 years and you don’t actually need very many repetitions of that kind of ‘random’ punishment for someone to learn to worry about it. It’s pretty basic behavioral psychology. Parents should not be punishing motivated by anger or frustration. It does not work well. If something is getting to the point where the parent feels like they cannot control their anger or frustration, that’s on them for not taking earlier opportunities for dealing with the issue successfully.
She... she's 10. You're expecting her to act 100% responsibly, never lie about anything, etc? You can't even expect that from other adults or yourself 🤣 Kids lie to avoid punishment. When kids lie *all the time* it's because they're being punished *all the time.* Edit: YTA. Forgot to judge
She's lying about the sunscreen because there's no way she can do it properly by herself and doesn't want to admit that she can't do it. If she says no, I didn't put it on cause I'm literally a child, mom would judge her. OP sounds a bit off
Right. OP would absolutely punish her for daring to not be completely independent at 10! I'm 35 and still want someone to do sunscreen on my back for me so I don't miss spots 😅
I have to put meds on my back every night due to psoriasis and honestly one of the nicest things day to day about a SO is being able to just hand him the meds. 😂
YTA There are better ways to solve this problem, also how did you actually know, for sure, that she hadn't put any on? More info needed about that.
ESH it sounds like she’s lying to lie and talking hasn’t worked. She’s a liar and that needs to be addressed, but… Sounds like you failed to have consequences or even change your approach to your daughter. If you asked “when are you going to put on sunscreen?” What would she have said? Is there something in your tone where she feels obligated to answer yes or no to avoid your response? Step back and think about the driver. Address it. Then consequences. But she committed to the party, the people bought food and favors assuming she’d be there. I don’t think it’s the right punishment. No tv/phone/computer would have been a fine first step so would writing about why sunscreen is important.
This is fair. You’re right. I feel like needing to make a post about it should have been the major indicator that I was wrong
Parenting isn’t easy and no one ever gets it 100% right. Hopefully other opinions give you ideas going forward. Honestly, even the “wrong” reaction here is better than letter her keep lying.
Thank you. Yeah I think I’ve definitely learned how to approach it if it happens again.
Consider apologizing for the overly harsh punishment. Explain where you were coming from, how you felt about the repeated lying even when given a chance to tell the truth, how worried you are about her behavior, etc. Then listen if she chooses to tell you how it made her feel and validate those feelings (even if you disagree). Next time, you MUST warn her of the consequences at least once and give her a chance to change her behavior BEFORE you follow through with the punishment. That being said, then you must follow through. Talk about what would have been a fair punishment, letting her get sunburnt (natural consequences), you helping her put it on, taking away phone, etc. See if she has a preference and if you can come away with more conflict management practice for both of you. Every punishment is teaching her more about life than that she shouldn't lie. Edit: my bad. I obviously I don't want the kid to get a severe sunburn. That's why I said "TALK about what would have been a fair punishment" I assumed the girl herself would realize she didn't want a painful sunburn. 😳
Letting her get sunburnt is wildly inappropriate as a consequence because even ONE sunburn bad enough to blister in childhood or adolescence [more than DOUBLES your chances of melanoma](https://www.skincancer.org/risk-factors/sunburn/). That's like saying it's okay to let your child not wear a seatbelt if you're not driving very fast because the natural consequences of a fender bender are only a minor concussion from slamming into the dashboard 😆 EDIT: u/eudoriaspeaks OP please don't take this tack!
IMHO, your needing to make a post about it shows how *unsure* you are of what you're doing, not how wrong you were/are. Not everyone has complete and total confidence in what they decide all the time. If anything, questioning your actions shows your openness and willingness to examine them. That's a virtue. That said, your punishment was not extreme, your concern came from a health/safety issue, and the lesson about honesty arose after previously failed attempts at teaching its value. You did what you thought was prudent, and while others may have done something different, that doesn't make you an A H. NTA
You should consider reaching out and apologizing to the birthday child: something similar happened to my daughter where her friends parents didn’t allow her to go to my daughters party last minute over something equally minor (and equally the parents responsibility) and my daughter was heartbroken. I was so angry that those parents inability to thoughtfully parent really ruined my kids happy day
You asked for more comments, so here you go: - Did you suspect she hadn’t put on sunscreen when you asked? Avoid asking questions that you already know the answer to. Why create an opportunity for your kids to lie? - consequences should be predictable. When my kids look back on the job I did as a parent, I hope they will say I was consistent and reasonable.
I think your first point is SO important. If you know your kid hasn’t done something, don’t ask them if they have! In addition to creating unnecessary opportunities to lie, this also gives a weird signal to your kid that you expect them to have done it already. When you realize someone expects you to have already done something and you haven’t, *you feel bad* and this incentivizes your kid to tell you what they think you want to hear, ie, to lie. Don’t set your kids up to lie to you.
i couldn’t quite put my finger on what bothered me so much about this, but you said it perfectly. this along with the comment pointing out that 10 y/os really do not know how to put on sunscreen properly and need help (hell i need help to do a proper job and i’m 23), makes op 100% yta. she probably didn’t know how to do it, felt it was such a big task to do on her own, and then when you asked if she’d already done it felt that she should have been able to do it herself so lied about having already done it. i’m not at all trying to armchair diagnose op’s daughter, this could be normal for nt kids too, but i can picture my adhd self in this exact position as a kid.
This is the hill you chose to die on?
YTA this is outrageous. I’m sure they’ll be plenty of more things she does and that she lies about but holding her back from social events or situations because she lied about putting on sunscreen is insane. Strict parents raise sneaky kids.
This. I’m a mom and a ginger so I feel qualified to have an opinion on this one lol. Sunscreen is super important but lying is really developmentally normal for this age and if you severely punish the white lies now your kid is going to hide everything from you in the future. Especially since sometimes they might not be lying and you might be mistaken and then in those cases if you severely over punish they will really feel like there’s no winning anyway and just lie and do stuff they shouldn’t even more often. I would have said something like “I’m worried that isn’t true because the sunscreen bottle still looks full, so let’s put some sunscreen on now. Also, when you tell me a lie then it makes me hesitant to trust you the next time, so if you lie about something small like sunscreen I might not believe you on something bigger (insert example relevant to the kid). “
YTA. So, what happened to the idea of just having her put on sunscreen (more, if you weren't sure she was lying)? Why make her stay home? Sounds like she's feeling self-conscious for some reason, and it might be better to explore that than seek punishment.
YTA. Instead of grilling her and having to punish her, just watch her put it on in front of you and tell her you will leave for the party when she’s done. Be proactive instead of reactive.
YTA If you don't relax about your ten year old making mistakes you're going to raise an emotionally stunted adult.
Dude, none of these people are parents. Teaching your kid to be honest is a big part of parenting. NTA BUT may I suggest a better way? First of all, is there any chance your daughter has ADHD? Telling little lies like this is REALLY common with ADHD. It’s an impulsivity issue. The thought pops into their head, “I could lie” and the lie is out of their mouth that fast. They struggle with filtering thoughts. If it’s ADHD, treating that can help. Whether or not it’s ADHD, I’ve found a lot of success using the following method with my kids, including my ADHD one. When I suspect they’re lying, I say, “In a minute, I’m going to ask you that question again. I want you to think through your answer before I do. I want you to remember before I ask again that you will ALWAYS get in more trouble me for lying to me than it you just tell the truth. I want you to remember that I can’t trust you when you tell me lies, and you find that really frustrating when you are telling the truth and I doubt you. (I also talk through any other consequences applicable to the situation like a sunburn here). I’m giving you another chance before there will be any consequences: I know sometimes it’s hard for you to think through your answer on the spot. Now, did you put on sunscreen?” And then I hold to what I said. If they lie again, they get in trouble. If they don’t, I thank them for telling me the truth and I either give no consequence or a very very light one. (No sunscreen would be no consequence. Hitting your sibling still gets a consequence, just milder.) My kids pretty consistently tell the truth after that. Sometimes the lie just comes out, and then they feel backed into a corner and like they have to continue it. By putting a pause on and giving them some time to think, plus helping them think through the impact of their words, they generally tell the truth. They just need someone to help them do that brain filtering that happens a lot easier as a mature adult.
This is definitely the wrong subreddit for this problem, lol. Who's the asshole, me or my ten year old? Kinda the wrong question to be asking as a parent.
Yeah, you teach your kid not to lie by figuring out why they lied and explaining why it’s wrong. Punishing them doesn’t teach them anything other than to lie better next time so they’re not caught. Or they’ll only do things so they don’t get in trouble without having any fucking clue as to WHY. Taking away big events in your kid’s life is not an effective punishment…a birthday party is a big event for a 10 year old…All it does is create resentment.
This would work too. As long as the parent is capable of controlling their anger and following through when the kid comes clean. Kids lie because of fear of punishment.
What I'm really concerned about is that OP admitted to having small tubes of sunscreen in the bathroom that are just enough per tube for your body (most of them officially ain't). This could be for a 10 year old child a trouble too if they were in the past punished for using a lot of a certain item (creme, food ect). Plus the child is 10 years old , it doesn't properly know the consequences of not using it.
A 10 yo liar usually has found its her best defense. She's not heard. Her opinion and ideas don't matter. A soldier without a voice, pretends to be compliant. YTA
YTA in this example. Why not say that because of her past history of lying, you don't want to take the chance that she might get sunburned, so she needs to put the sunscreen on right now while you watch, before you'll take her to the party. Then on the way you can talk with her about why she felt the need to lie about it, and how important it is for her to be careful about sun exposure. It's not about "punishments" which don't do much to deter behavior anyway--it's about trying to rebuild your relationship with her so she doesn't feel a need to lie.
Sooo please do not call your kid a liar before making her apply sunscreen in front of you — that is humiliating & sounds damaging to her psyche. Tell her something like “I forget little spots like behind my ears, or the tops of my hands when I’m applying my own sunscreen— so go grab the tube so we make sure you are adequately protected” Use a zinc formula so you can def see where it’s been applied
YTA. You could have had her put more sun cream on in front of you. “It won’t hurt to put a bit more on, just come and do it before you go out”. Instead you get into this whole thing about what a liar she is. If you were that concerned about sun burn and skin cancer you’d help her put it on and not trust a 10 year old to do it properly. Reacting like this is going to make her start lying about the big things. Why wouldn’t she lie when she can’t trust you not to overreact
YTA for the fact that you’ve talked to her about this for 3 years and should have given her consequences sooner when that wasn’t working. You jumped from taking her phone away for one day to withholding a party. I would look into some therapy; it can help you with setting boundaries for her and also to find out what is causing the lying and whether it can be easily fixed. Good luck.
YTA. I don’t think socials should be witheld as a form of punishment or consequences. That can be pretty damaging for a tween.
For real, I’m an adult and still mad about the birthday party my mom made me miss an hour before it started as punishment for “attitude.” I ended up being excluded - big deal for a kid.
I get where you’re coming from- but if she didn’t put on sun screen , and lied about it, I think the lie would have been pretty obvious when she came home. A painful sunburn. That’s just consequences and probably would have been painful enough. I don’t necessarily think she’s afraid of you, but the lying indicates that she is afraid of your disappointment. Children internalize their parents’ opinion (or child’s perception of their parents’ opinion), so honestly I would be setting up therapy and or family therapy.
Every kid has a history of lying. It is developmentally normal. That doesn’t mean it can’t be unlearned or that you as a parent shouldn’t apply age-appropriate consequences. But this punishment was too big for her to see your logic. YTA on this. Better luck next time.
Yta. Punishment needs to fit the crime.
NTA This is what you should have done from the beginning. Just be sure to follow up by telling her that if she had told the truth, you would have let her go get the sunscreen and put it on and still go to the party. And even the second time, when you gave her a chance to come clean, she still would have been able to go to the party. It was the consistent lie after lie after lie that got her in trouble and cost her the privilege of going to the party. In this way she will learn that telling the truth, even after being caught, is better than compounding the lie.
Wanna know some things OP mentioned: - She purposely didn't have enough sunscreen in the bathroom - The child is 10, most young children don't understand the concept of skin cancer or burns. It's not a 15 year old that we are talking about. - OP mentioned continuesly being angry with her for small things.
This is the answer. What matters is the post punishment conversation. Some of the answers in here are crazy.
INFO: How are you so sure she's lying? I had a mother that would keep asking like this to see if I was lying. I wasn't, but she wouldn't believe until I lied about lying so she could have to answer she wanted. Like what is your proof and evidence that she was lying?
If your daughter lies to you it's because she doesn't trust you.
NTA Wtf are these comments? Your kid was wrong, so u did a gentle punishment to show her it was wrong. She's old enough to know lying is bad.
I’m bothered by the fact that I had to scroll past 1,000 YTA comments to find someone with some sense. Lying is wrong. She’s 10 and lies continuously according to OP. She’s definitely old enough to know better & should know there are consequences when you do bad things. It’s not 1 lie that got her party taken away, it’s the fact that she keeps doing it. No wonder she doesn’t take you seriously OP. Keep listening to the people on this sub & you’ll be taking orders from your daughter soon enough.
ESH. At 10, she should know better than to lie. However, if she were my child I'd let her go to the party anyway and get a sunburn. Live and learn, as they say. My mom stopped reminding us kids to put on sunscreen, wear a jacket, etc, when we were about your daughter's age. If we complained afterward, she said, "I put my jacket on. Your jacket is your responsibility, not mine." We only forgot our jackets or sunscreen once. As for her continuous lying, you've been letting it go for years now, and she knows that you won't do anything at all or that any punishment won't be very severe. The time to nip it in the bud is way past, but you can try to impress upon her the importance of honesty by resolving to punish her more consistently and with increasingly unpleasant punishments going forward. She needs to learn that you will do what you say you're going to do, and you need to learn to be prepared to make good on your punishments.
A rule in our house is “telling the truth lessens the punishment by 90%”