How do you tell if a client is lying?

How do you tell if a client is lying? Their lips are moving.

Today I took the GirlChild to the local public school for her hearing and eye test. I may have finally gotten everything in order to have her tested for a learning disability. We've got the reading level up but she still has a comprehension problem. My hope is that if we can figure out what's going on with her, that we'll be able to address the problem. If we can't fix it, at least we can give her the skills necessary to cope with it.

I don't know what the GirlChild's problems are. It is frustrating. I don't know how to deal with her problems. I do the best I can and I don't do a very damn good job. No one seems to know how to help her, or help us help her.

I am concerned her teacher is giving lip service to understanding and believing the GirlChild has any kind of problem. She told me at one point: "Don't let the GirlChild tell you she can't do the work." I have the papers. I've got the tests. I've done the reading with her and listened to her read the same sentence three and four times and still not be able to tell me what it means. I don't have to have the GirlChild tell me she can't do the work; I see and deal with it every day.

"If it makes you feel any better, the GirlChild isn't the worst in my class." I can't possibly imagine why she would think that would make me feel any better. My child tells me she feels stupid. She tells me she works all the time just to understand what everyone else seems to understand automatically. She tells me she works so hard all the time it makes her brain hurt. She tells me she wishes she had never been born. But somehow I'm supposed to feel better because there is some poor child in the GirlChild's class who feels worse than she does.

And most recently, in a note to me, the GirlChild's teacher said:

"The GirlChild told me she didn't study for the Science test, so I won't let her redo it to improve her grade."

The Science test was an unmitigated disaster; the GirlChild made a 47. I learned about the test on Friday; it was set for Wednesday. The Science book wasn't in her backpack on Friday. Frankly there was little indication they had even been doing any Science. We had Monday and Tuesday night to study about 25 pages of material. We did have a "study guide" I think the night before the test. It was in the GirlChild's harrowing handwriting, made little sense and had almost no relationship to what was on the test. This test came right on the heels of the Social Studies test (which I also did not learn about until a few days before the test) at which the GirlChild made a 67.

The GirlChild and I spent an hour maybe an hour and a half on the Saturday following the test going over it, redoing it, looking up the words she missed, reading the material so she could find the answers. The teacher had previously told me if we did that she would re-grade the test, any paper, to improve the GirlChild's grade. She didn't tell me that she intended to use some arbitrary rule about whether she thought the GirlChild had worked hard enough preparing for the test. The teacher didn't tell me this when I returned the test. Instead, the teacher told me this in a note, after I inquired about it.

It would be so simple for me to just give the GirlChild the answers when we redo her papers, tell her what's right and what's wrong. Instead we go through the material and she finds the correct answers herself. It is generally a painful process. She's tired, she's frustrated, and she doesn't want to do it again. But I think it is important that I not give her the answers.

Yesterday she got a Computer test back. Actually it was marked "retest." I didn't see the original so I don't know what that was like. The GirlChild made a 61% on the retest. I asked the GirlChild what we were supposed to have studied; I'd seen nothing covering the material on the test. She told me they had a sheet. I asked her why she didn't bring her sheet home to study. She lost it. I asked why she didn't get another one. Because the teacher said if you lost it you had to copy off someone else. For the GirlChild, whose handwriting skills are poor at best, I'm sure that was an overwhelming task. She told me she didn't have time. I believe that is probably true. I've watched her copy information from a book and it is an arduous task which often results in gibberish.

I told the principal this morning I wanted to talk to her. She didn't have time right then so I asked her to call me when she did have time. I was upset about the recent note from the teacher where she told me she was not going to allow the GirlChild to redo her Science test to improve her grade because she hadn't studied enough.

I was upset the teacher wants the GirlChild to redo her papers at school before going to centers and during her "free time." I wanted to clarify my definition of "free time."

This was actually a suggestion of the Director at Sylvan. I didn’t realize it was going to turn into something punitive when I suggested it to the teacher. I asked the GirldChild what "free time" meant and she told me it was her recess. I'm afraid the GirlChild will see having to redo her papers during recess as punishment.

I quizzed the GirlChild today about where she redid papers during her "free time."

"Sitting at the curb or that thingie with a roof over it." Gesturing with her hands to form a tent. I assume that means the gazebo they have outside the gym.

I asked, "isn't that what people who are in trouble have to do."

"No," she replied, "they just sit at the curb, they don't have to do work."

I'm concerned the teacher doesn't believe the GirlChild has a problem and instead of figuring out what it is the GirlChild doesn't understand will simply give her the papers to redo and cause more frustration. I wanted to know what we could do to make sure I knew what's going on at school so I can help her prepare, feel successful, not feel so overwhelmed by it all. I wanted to know what we could do so we aren’t blindsided by things like the computer retest. I wanted some reassurance.

Instead, I got a note from the Principal offering me times when I could set an appointment and a note telling "the third grade parents" that after much “reflection” they had decided to enlarge an already large class.

The GirlChild's principal called yesterday. I cried in her office a couple of weeks ago, after the GirlChild related to me how unhappy she was. I told her I was afraid if we didn't make her feel better about herself, get her up to speed, figure out how to help her that when she got older that sex and drugs and alcohol would became a much more attractive alternative to working hard all the time.

She seemed to have some good thoughts. She made suggestions on how to improve the situation. On Monday when called she related all the wild and wonderful things she was going to do to assist the GirlChild and us. She didn't want me to think she'd forgotten about us and our problems.

She failed to mention that additional student she was going to allow to join the class. An honest person would have said, "I'm doing all these wild and wonderful things. I'm also doing some things I know you aren't going to like but I have to tell you about it. We are going to add another student to the already overcrowded class." An honest person would have then dealt with any fallout because that's part of their job.

I expect the people who deal with me and my children to be honest with me and even tell me things they think I don’t want to hear. I don't think that is an unrealistic expectation.

The class was at 25. She assured me at one point earlier in the year that the class was full. "Closed" was, I think, the word she used. They weren't going to allow any other students in.

The principal is not an honest person. I have lost all respect I had for her; gone, dried up, over, fini, finished. The lie about not letting anyone else into the class room is almost acceptable; the priest pressured her to do it, the archdiocese wants this particular catholic family happy and that's what they want the list is endless. The lie by omission, however, is still a lie. I think it's worse because she knew when she called she was going to do it, she knew I wasn't going to like it and she made the decision not to tell me.

If I lied to a judge like that, they would take my license. The principal lies to me and her response is not going to be "oh man I fucked up. I'm sorry, please forgive me and how can we go forward from here." Instead, it is going to be "I knew you would be upset about us adding this one little student."

The director at Sylvan told me she was concerned about the number of students in the GirlChild's class. I assured her that they had told me they weren't adding any more students, the class was CLOSED. She looked at me like I'd lost my mind and asked "and do you believe them?" Yes, of course, I believed them. They had been nothing but supportive. They had been nothing but helpful. Why would they possibly lie to me?

At church we say a prayer which includes the line "he has spoken through the prophets." The director at Sylvan will be glad to learn she has been elevated to the level of a prophet. I thought I could trust these people; I guess I was wrong.

How do you tell if the people at the GirlChild's school are lying? That's right, their lips are moving.