The Liar and The Stupid One

I am so frustrated these days. I desperately want to be a good parent and I just don't know how. Alexis and Bailee have chore lists (make bed, eat breakfast, clean up room etc.) and they have been struggling to get it done. The last two days they have done so much better!! This makes me so happy. They have been rewarded accordingly. BUT... Alexis continues to lie to me on a daily basis. I am so sick and tired of being lied to. Not huge things mind you but little things. Now I know choose your battles but everytime I ignore a silly lie she pops up with more just to test the waters. I'm afraid if I don't address them all she will get worse AGAIN. I'm trying to focus on the positive and encourage good behavior but balancing the bad with the good sometimes seems impossible. This is how things went down today and why I am venting now.

Alexis comes upstairs and wakes me up only 15 minutes before Tyler is due home. This is the one time of week she is expected to babysit. She informs me that she has completed all of her homework except for some practice CRT tests that need to be done on the internet. Now normally I would tell her to wait for Tyler but we have a wedding reception tonight and I don't know if there will be time. So I roll over and ask her to hand me the computer. She unplugs the power cord then picks it up. I say to her with simple curiosity in my voice, "Alexis why did you unplug it?" This is where it all begins instead of saying I don't know or something like that she lies to me and tells me it yanked out when she grabbed it. I know what I heard and saw. She thinks I'm too stupid and too tired to figure it out. She is right on the too tired bit. So after trying to get the truth a bit more I inform her that I am just too tired to fight her and that I know that she knows this and that this is why she is holding on so tightly to such a silly lie she knows I will give up in favor of sleep. I tell her that if she had told the truth it would have been no big deal and we would have moved on and now that she has lied she has made herself even less trustworthy and to remember this next time she is telling the truth and I don't believe her. I also tell her that I should punish her but that she is right I'm too tired and I just want to go back to sleep. She finally admits to lying. I am more sad than mad I get back in bed and ask her a simple question.

M:  Alexis what do kids in your class do if they don't have the Internet? (I figure the teacher would have answered this when giving out homework instructions)

A:  She takes away a ticket. Victoria lost a ticket today because she couldn't do it last night. (Tickets are the teachers reward system)
She just makes stuff up on the fly. She has lost the ability to tell the difference between the truth and what she believes to be the truth and she will make up lies to support her version of the truth. So I called her on yet another lie and explain to her that the teacher cannot discriminate against kids that can't afford the internet. She looks like a dear in headlights and is unable to come up with another lie.

She think I'm too STUPID to catch her lies.

Trying to balance out their good behavior with their bad...

I think I'm failing as a parent.