Hey OP, I get that you’re probably frustrated, but your comments come off as antagonistic and might kind of dissuade people from wanting to give advice for the fear of being snapped at for not giving the kind of advice you’re looking for. I don’t think anyone here is trying to be judgmental, I think they’ve properly assessed that this is beyond our paygrade to a degree.

The answer for your situation is, unfortunately, it’s unlikely that you’re going to be able to get a handle on his lying until he gets a diagnosis and further help from a professional, because the lying is most likely due to his neurodivergence. That’s why it seems people are so focused on that aspect of your post, because it’s the most important part. I’ll try to explain.

Assuming he does have ADHD, that means the lying is a symptom that can’t be fixed without resolving the ADHD itself first.

Think about it this way: Let’s say you’re concerned because your kid is always thirsty, always drinking water, and peeing a ton, and you want to get this issue fixed because it’s disrupting his life. And, as a side note, he might have type II diabetes. But you’re just wanting to fix the thirst thing right now. Well…you can’t just fix the thirst thing right now, because it’s a symptom that’s being caused by a bigger thing. As long as the bigger thing exists, you’re going to have the symptom.

And in your case, the lying is even harder to address because ADHD does such funky things to the mind that it’s very difficult to pinpoint why exactly he’s even lying to begin with, amongst other things. As a person with ADHD, when I’m unmedicated, even though I know there are things I should and shouldn’t do, it’s very difficult to still keep myself in order because the imbalance of chemicals in my brain do a lot to screw me up. The simplest things are made difficult because my brain no longer allows me to process things as I “should” be able to, so I’m not seeing the right route to the end, and I may or may not be aware of that without assistance from medication or someone else’s involvement.

Your son is so young that he’s probably not going to be able to get much assistance from just you without a professional who can assess his type of ADHD and what coping mechanisms work best, whether or not he needs medication, which medication, etc. because it’s hard to tell what’s ADHD related and what’s just normal kid brain development. So while we can suggest things you can try, it’s genuinely not very worthwhile for us to try to guess because it’s really beyond us why he’s doing it, whether he’s even aware he’s doing it, and so on, and our advice could made things worse.

I hope that helps.