Expert: Jennifer - 7/13/2008

Question
My child has finally been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on medication to help her stabilize her moods and rage.
She has done better since she has been on meds but wants all her priveleges restored ie phone car etc.  Unfortunately even though her moods are better she continues to lie to us about where she wants to go or with who etc.  how can we best help her to restore trust and not lie so she can get her privedliges back and help us regain trust

Answer
I'm going to assume that your child is a minor (under the age of 18), so if she's an adult let me know I need to redo my answer with that consideration.  
  No matter what anyone tries to tell you otherwise, children need to have structure, rules, and discipline in the home in order for parents to feel relatively confident that their kids will choose to make good decisions and behave even when their parents aren't standing over them to make sure.  Kids do not do well when parents try to be their friends before they've reached adulthood, and everything falls apart because that kind of relationship means there is no respect for either side.
  One thing that you need to remember is that in order to regain trust, you have to give the person the opportunity to do the right thing.  If they never have a chance to show that they can be trusted, how can any trust be possible to regain?  If your daughter wants to get her privileges back, she needs to recognize that she gets rewarded for honesty and that there are consequences for her lying.  Starting with the smallest of privileges is your best bet to both teach her and keep her safe.  If she can't be honest about who she's going out with or where she's going to be going, then she shouldn't be allowed to go.  However, in situations where she wants to go and hang out with someone that you don't particularly know or have an issue with, it's going to be important that you compromise when she's up front about who she'll be with - but with an earlier curfew set.  The fact of the matter is, there will always be the possibility for danger (even if they're at home) and risks that we all face if we leave our houses - but we cannot let those things keep us from having lives.  What parents need to do is teach their children to think for themselves, to respect, show compassion, to be honest, and everything that they will need both at home and in all the various situations that they will likely face when they walk out that front door.  It is better to have a child who knows what the rules are and the confidence to follow them even if they're the only one that is doing it, than to realize that your 'popular' child may be putting themselves in positions of serious risk to stay in the popular crowd.  
  Small steps will (hopefully) result in steady progress towards building the trust in your relationship with your daughter.  I'd leave giving her the car back until the very last; accidents caused by teenage drivers have skyrocketed since they stopped having a full drivers education program with behind the wheel training and so on as part of the curriculum in school - many districts have eliminated even the classroom portion to free up more money in the budget.  If she can't be straight with you regarding her plans and who will be there, she's obviously not mature enough to take the car.  One last thing - my parents thought that by giving me an excessively early curfew (I had to be home by 9-10pm on the weekends when I was 17) that they would have successfully prevented anything bad from happening, and keep me from getting myself in trouble.  The reality is, bad things and trouble aren't restricted to a particular time schedule, and that kind of thinking generally creates a better liar out of an otherwise honest individual.  It never works to keep a kid so sheltered from the possible, the maybe, the could happen to them, and everything else out in the world -  they just want to see for themselves more and more.  

Good luck, and let me know if you need anything further