11 yr old with lying and empathy issue

Can anyone advise how to handle this? I'm open to books, websites, talks, strategies, anything. My niece is driving my pregnant sister bananas. She has been habitually lying forever and instead of growing out of it has only become more skilled and consistent. My sister has tried being kind and talking about it, she has tried punishment and consequences, she has let things slide and she has spent a straight month just compiling consistent punishments to the point where there was nothing else to take away and she had weeks added on to her original punishment. But she just won't stop lying. She admitted that if she doesn't want to do something she just chooses not to do it, for example, her daily responsibilities. How do you handle that attitude? My sister has had many heart to hearts with her while my sister is crying and exhausted and my niece will just stone cold face or reply with what she knows she's supposed to say then go to her room and tell my daughter things like oh well I don't care. Additionally, yesterday her teacher texted my sister asking her to address my niece's outburst in school yesterday. During a Black History Month lesson my niece yelled out, "they're ugly" about the 4 Birmingham girls who were killed. My poor sister is beside herself. My kids, her cousins, are half black, and they are all very close. I don't think she said it out of a racist point of view but I do feel like she has a hard time being empathetic due to past incidents I've seen her in as well. I think maybe she did it to get attention and look cool, but how do you guide them away from this mean girl path? This is not the values my sister wants for her kids and she is only 11, she's worried that this will just keep escalating and become out of control. I suggested taking her to therapy because I just don't know what will work. I'm taking her for the summer to give my sister a little break. Is there anything I can do while I have her to help guide her? Nothing seems to be getting through to her. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NAiAgw

Ideas for a toddler who wakes up just be tucked back in?

He just turned 3, and he's had this habit for a month or so now. He'll quietly get out of bed and knock on our door gently, for who knows how long, until one of us wakes up. He hears us walking towards our door and by the time you open our bedroom door, he's halfway across the hall on his way back to his room. He lays back down in bed without saying a word, has us tuck him because in, says goodnight, and goes right back to sleep! It's simple, takes 30 seconds, and we both go right back to sleep for the rest of the night.At least we WERE! I'm pregnant again, and sleep is getting tough for me... It's hard enough to get comfortable with this watermelon tummy, and once I wake up, I cannot get back to sleep. So I'd like to prevent him from waking up in the first place.I thought the problem was just that his covers get out of whack, as sometimes they're on the floor, but I don't know if that's what woke him up or if that's from him crawling out of bed. The last week, I've tried tucking the blankets into the back of his mattress when I put him to bed (he's still in his toddler bed... Transitioned from a crib, so it's got three walls and the one open side), but he still woke up and the blankets were pulled out from being tucked in.This is better than him walking up and roaming downstairs and turning on the tv by himself like he was doing a couple months ago, so I'll stick with this if I have to... But I'll take any tips to try and help him stay asleep so I can stay asleep! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2GTqW2r

My daughter has been getting up before 6 am, I'm exhausted!!

I have a 3 year old daughter and a 6 month old son. My daughter regularly gets up anywhere between 4 30 and 6 am and my son wakes up several times a night. I am exhausted, I get on average 4 hours of sleep a night if I'm lucky.She goes to bed at 7pm and any later it's a complete nightmare to get her to bed. I've tried an alarm clock set to 6 30 for when she can come wake me up but she just unplugs it or ignores it and wakes me up at 5 anyways. She'll say she's hungry but doesn't eat what I give her till like 6 30 or 7.My son use to only wake up once in the night so it wasnt too bad but now he's waking up almost every hour and I have no idea why. I have to get some sleep or I'm gunna go crazy, please help!!! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NB3Q13

I think my child may be autistic

Parents of autistic children, how old was your child when you found out they had autism and what behaviours did they display prior to diagnosis?Background: my son is 19 months old and I’ve been noticing a few odd behaviours. First, he will go and sit on the couch or in other seats and throw his head back against the seat. Secondly, he was starting to learn words and say things like mama, dada, uh oh, oh no, hot, etc. but lately he’s just been kind of babbling and not really saying words, even ones I know he knows and used to say; he doesn’t even mimic us when we say things like, “L can you say…?” . Third, he’s very specific about what he wants to watch (idk if this is just a little kid thing but he will have a meltdown if I turn off certain YouTube videos). Lastly, in the past couple months he’s started fighting me and crying when I go to change his diaper and put clothes on him; it’s not an abuse thing, because he is with me 99% of the time (his dad and I aren’t together but he only goes to visit his dad for maybe 3 or 4 days per month). via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2NzZZBi

Bi-Monthly Surveys and studies - March 2019

This is a thread for researchers to publish their surveys, polls or studies that they'd like parent's to participate.Moderators from /r/parenting are not verifying the sources of these surveys, so answer at your own will and don't hesitate to ask for more information from the original poster.If you want to publish a survey that isn't relevant to a parenting subreddit, please try /r/SampleSize. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2BYHthj

The Momo Challenge Isn't Real

Earlier this week, "Momo" was the top new trending search team on Google for the US, Australia, Canada and the UK.However, to the best of everyone's knowledge, there's almost no evidence to prove it's actually a real thing.From a recent article in The Atlantic:“Momo” itself is an innocuous sculpture created by the artist Keisuke Aisawa for the Japanese special-effects company Link Factory. The real title of the artwork is Mother Bird, and it was on display at Tokyo’s horror-art Vanilla Gallery back in 2016. After some Instagram photos of the exhibit were posted to the subreddit r/creepy, it spread, and the "Momo challenge" urban legend was born.These trends are “part of a moral panic, fueled by parents’ fears in wanting to know what their kids are up to,” Benjamin Radford, a folklorist and research fellow at the Committee for Skeptic Inquiry, told Rolling Stone. And spreading them can actually end up causing harm.The problem is, these stories are only ever a distraction. They offer false reassurance and an easy fix to the wrong problem. If you can protect your child from the Momo challenge, the thinking goes, you can protect them from bad things on the internet. Unfortunately, maintaining kids’ safety online is a much more complicated and delicate task." via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2Vs3LPN

My 8yo son is finally catching the love of reading -- so excited!

Quick back story... My daughter is 11 and has some learning differences, and she's worked very hard to get where she's at. She's conquered her issues and strives in school plus is an avid reader. My 8yo son though, he's been saying for years that he hates to read and hates books. He's SO smart, exceptionally smart, and not just saying that. Teacher has said she'd jump him up a grade but his maturity hasn't quite caught up.​Anyway last week he started reading the first Harry Potter book. Well my wife read about 5 pages then made him read 5 pages on his own. He came back literally 5-6 minutes later saying he was done. My wife being rather skeptical took the book and asked some very specific questions, things that weren't in the movie (like Dudley's hair which is blond in the book), and he got every question right. Every since then each night before bed he wants to read, and this evening he sat there and read to me and my daughter out loud for almost 30 minutes! he's burning through the book, and as a dad and individual who has some issues reading as well (my daughter gets hers honestly) I can't be prouder. He and my daughter have had library cards since they were probably 5, and he's now asking to go to the library more often. We already go twice a month, so we'll kick that up.​So yeah, proud dad here looking at a win! Now if I can just get him to put that kinda effort into keeping his room clean ;-D​ via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2EEzJmm