God grant me the serenity...

...to accept the fact the my 8 year old is a compulsive liar. Seriously - I'm at my wit's end w/ Hannah...I once again busted her this week for hiding papers w/ bad grades in her backpack. This is the THIRD time she's gotten in trouble for this and the THIRD time we've had to punish her for it....what am I doing wrong??!! Our standard "punishment" for papers w/ a "C" grade or worse is the child has to tell us what went wrong (i.e. rushing, sloppiness, not reading the directions), correct the paper then no TV for the rest of the evening. Of course, if the paper was related to a new subject or something they're having difficulty with, we just help them correct it and try to explain the material - then move on, no punishment.

The majority of Hannah's issues are directly related to rushing, not paying attention to the details, etc. The crazy thing is, Hannah doesn't even really like watching TV so why she hasn't caught on that she should just take the small punishment is beside me! Instead, she gets into waaaaay bigger trouble by lying...I'm very frustrated at this point. Not only am I disappointed in her, I don't know how to make her stop. We've tried what seems like everything - positive and negative reinforcement - however, we keep coming back to this same issue. With everything else, she's a great kid!!!

Of course, I'm thankful that I have 4 healthy, happy kids and I know I shouldn't be griping but I'm just reaching out to see if anyone has any better ideas....at this point, I'm open to any suggestions!