Raising kids is no easy task, and your whole life turns upside down at least until your tiny human turns eighteen and is capable of dealing with responsibilities himself. Before he or she does, you, as a parent, are responsible that your cute kid turns out to be a good member of society and a wise human being. Now, we are not going to tell you exactly how parenthood works, but we can share a little secret - if necessity is the mother of invention, then lies are invention's older sibling. How do you get your kids to behave? How do you get them to eat vegetables? When reason fails, necessity provides a solution: white lies.
Of course, we are not advocating keeping the truth from your kids, as the little lies that we've compiled below are more like embellished truth, conveyed in an easily understandable way. And though sometimes these little lies are means of convincing your misbehaving kid into doing something he'd rather not, in other cases these parenting examples are just testing the little one's sense of humor.
This list by 22words is based on a Reddit thread of a similar name and contains the most excellent actual lies parents have used on their kids.
(h/t: 22words)
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Little Lies About Lying
My mom did a similar thing. She told us if we lied our tongues would turn black. So if she suspected we were kyung she would ask to see our tongues. If we refused, she knew. Simple & effective.
Load More Replies...My mom used this on my sister, but it was that her nose grew like Pinocchio when she told a lie. My sister would like while smashing her hand against her nose to make sure it didn't grow.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Would you rather completely replace the toy and spend more money?
Load More Replies...after this lie,you might never want her to learn about technology at school
My mom used to say that. “It’s those small batteries that they don’t sell”
Load More Replies...White Lie About TV
When my boys were young enough to ride the shopping cart simultaneously, I told them the cart didn't work when they stood up. That worked so well, I told them that I couldn't drive the car if their back seat argument got too loud. Hey, you only have to pull over once... maybe twice... and once when they had a rambunctious friend with them.
LOL, this one has the opposite satellite as others, most TVs are sensitive to rain
I used to tell my boys, who are only 1.5 years apart, that the shopping cart didn't work if they stood up in it.
They shouldn't be travelling in the body of it anyway - it's not hygienic!
Load More Replies...They're soon going to see through that one if it stops raining while they're watching!
White Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I loved to sing in the car on long journeys, when I was young and when he got fed up with it, my Dad would stop the car and let me out, saying that my voice was so good that he thought everyone outside would like to hear it. When I had had enough, he let me back in and we continued the journey.
You're dad had a better strategy than just shutting you up :) That was very nice of him.
Load More Replies...My son was a talker too, and asked a TON of questions. So I told him it was illegal to ask a question after 7. If he did, I'd look at my watch and say sorry, it's after 7. he'd say SHOOT!! LOL
I bet your kid became really popular after that. Because, you know, to get friends you don’t have to… you know… talk to people
I'm glad that isn't how it works in real life...imagine if you had to do a speech?
I wonder what happens if you speak more than one language. And I reckon if this were true we would've heard people run out of words on TV by now.
Little Lies To Make Kids Feel Better
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
7 year old me totally would have wanted to watch a documentary about citrus fruit tho..
Quite the contrary, It has a world record for the most f-bombs in a film ever (271 times)
LOL. Would get yourself in trouble if he developed an intellectual interest in oranges...sounds like it with the word "pulp".
I bet this same dad said A Clockwork Orange was about an orange with a wind-up key.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Embellishing Food Names
My sister wouldn't eat asparagus, so my mom called them Italian radishes. It worked for a while
Classic Parent Lies
after this your grandpa might never want you to learn science at school
Little Lies About Food
kids hate eating vegetables because they are too raw! put them in soups or steam them!
I love raw carrots over disgusting cooked carrots. Only in a soup or pot pie is cooked ok. Someone tried caramelized brown sugar ones on me, I barely could take a bite. Give me a bag of raw baby carrots and i could eat the whole bag.
Load More Replies...That's something I know from experience. Very few food items beat a fresh homegrown carrot.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Once my parents told me if I ate too many cookies, my voice would vanish. I told them I didn't believe them, but the next day I saw them eating cookies, and they didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. It scared the s**t outta me.
Load More Replies...Kinda true. My brain never learned how to properly say, "dove" and a bunch of other words, because I learned them by reading. So I always say, "duh-ve".
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I was freaked out by Santa Claus : a stranger entering the house by the chimney? Han han, no way! Even if it's to bring gifts, it was way too weird for me. My parents tried very hard to make me believe it was a great man, but still, I had to sleep with them if they didn't want me to have a panic attack. So the Santa myths didn't stay for many years, they told me early that in fact it was them and no stranger entered the house once a year.
My brother said if Santa got lasagna they would get extra presents. My sis-in-law hade to make it every year or the kids would cry. lol
Load More Replies...Santa at our house isn't a sweets fan, and is allergic to milk. He left a note telling our kids that he likes chips and soda though!
My family put our a beer & a martini for the same reason: Santa gets tired of milk & cookies!
My brother told his kids that if Santa got lasagna they would get extra presents. My sis-in-law had to make it or they'd cry. lol
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
The rumble strips act as braille on the highway for the blind drivers to have a sense of direction
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
bad idea! why:because you will not be able to study after 6pm in highschool!
Sometimes when I have after-school activities, I don't get home until 4:30, so I need to be able to study after 6 pm
Load More Replies...😂😂😂love it ! I told my girls that the music on the ice cream truck meant there out of ice cream 😬😉😂
They're soon going to see through that if they see you on it after then!
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Jesus... how to make a child paranoid from an early age. That is really horrible.
The paranoia wasn't already in place by "he sees you when you're sleeping / he knows when you're awake" or "be good, Jesus is watching you" or "God is everywhere & sees everything you do" ... or there was some fairy who waited for your teeth to fall out & then crept into your room to buy them out from under your sleeping head?
Load More Replies...Creepy. Like the Beast in "Belle and The Beast" with that horrifying mirror.
you mean Beauty and the Beast, Yuya Matsushita sang a song called Beauty & Beast, but doesn't say it in the song
Load More Replies...until your brother asks:where did you get a tv channel from and can other people on tv see your channal?
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I would just eat them by myself. kids cannot appreciatethem enough anyway:)
I don't like eating calamari legs cuz I think they look like a fried baby octopus
In my opinion it also taste good with ketchup, hot sa use, and soy sauce .
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
My dad used the word hibiscus as another word for horse droppings. I was so disgusted as I saw a hibiscus tea..
Wow, what’s his problem? It’s made to stay long. A lot of situations when you have to keep it for long
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
When I was in university, a girl sneezed & puked at the same time! That was hilariously disgusting!
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
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Load More Replies...Especially with your picture.. glad you survived kittenhood..
Load More Replies...bad parenting! probably worse than cigar parents! "I learned it by watching you" - Drug PSA, 1988
Also a great way to determine if your child is a future serial killer
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
That's sad. Once my mom said when I was eight, "if you wake up thirty minutes earlier than you are supposed to every day, I will get you a pet." That never happened. But I was laughing at the very end when it said "just a boulder the size of a minivan outside of his house that still gets watered every day"
gess after this lie,your dad would hope logic and science never existed
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
My kids have happy meals. They are fit and healthy. Get off your high horse.
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
My mom told me it was because our planet was suddenly spinning too fast. I remembered until my first real geography class in fifth grade when I screamed at my teacher that my mom was always right *facepalm
after the lie,your mom hopes you do not learn about the planets at school
No mom hopes you will know that she told you that so you wouldn't be scared of earthquakes.
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Omg but I love eating scallops and dolphins(I don't mean EATING Dolphins) ahhhhhhh
That's sad, because she could have just told them that they could eat some but they were hers.
he or she will hope the kids never ask:why do they even serve dolphin balls?
Then your kid would just ask why the f**k your eating a dolphins balls
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I had a marijuana gif (thought it was just pretty leaves) as my background on my Ipad, i was so happy,I even showed it to my teacher.
My parents freaked out when they found it tho lol
Load More Replies...Reminds me of neighbours I has in my early 20s. The father was immensely proud of his 2 sons' gardening abilities and the enormous cannabis plants they had in the garden. I forget what they told his it was but it sure wasn't cannabis!! He wanted to show it to everyone who came over.
I had a friends Dad come to pick her up at my house. He was standing outside his car and pointing up to my bedroom window and saying Isn't that marijuana plants?" I said "No, that's..uh..mariGOLD plants. I was afraid he was going to tell me to bring one down for him to see, so I said "I bought them from some man who was selling them out of his car. They're for my Mom.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I would tell my kids the same thing, but it would be Dr Pepper, not Coke. Also, I'd tell them that it tastes like milk mixed with water... (evil laugh)
same. and this one time i put food dye in water and served it up to my siblings
instead,say:if you drink coke instead of milk,you will get a desiese when they grow up
When my daughter was little (like 18 mo) she wanted to dip her burrito in salsa. But this salsa was spicy, so I told her no. But she absolutely insisted and threw a big fit. So I was like "fine here ya go". She burnt her mouth (I gave her water and cuddled her of course, and I was eating it and I'm a wuss, so it wasn't that hot) and got super sad. But from then on, if I told her she wouldn't like something she believed me. I had that kid convinced soda was gross until she was like 5. Even if someone offered her some she would say "no I don't like that, its gross"
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
oh my goodness, my dad told me the exact same thing! I was so annoyed that it never worked, but then he'd be like, "No, it's working! There's one right there. It's really, really little though. Only I can see it, because I eat carrots." Of course Kid Me never made the connection that without his glasses he's legally blind..
I was told eating spinach gave us muscles like Popeye and that eating the crust of your bread gave you hair on your chest. Idk why my grandfather thought to tell us girls that. We didn't want hairy chests. We wanted Popeye muscles though.
My friend's Hungarian mother told me spinach makes your breasts grow large...
Not going to work if they don't want hairy chests! Indeed, I believe they've somewhat gone out of fashion anyway for hygiene reasons
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I was told it would stay glued in my stomach, waiting for other gums to be swallowed until my stomach would be full and I would have to be given a new stomach.
Never got as far as my stomach would be full but I was told it stayed glued inside too. Sad thing is my mom told me it 'cause she believed it was the truth and I was the one to explain it in my teens.
Load More Replies...I was told that gum takes seven years to digest. I still don't know if that's true. Off to look it up in the Funk & Wagnalls ;)
It just goes right through you. You swallow a gum... An hour later, there's pink speckled poop.
Load More Replies...That would have made me swallow my gum ! 😂
Load More Replies...My kindergarten or pre-K friend told me if I swallow toothpaste everything in my stomach would slide around and I would throw up
i was never told any lies and my parents don't lie about anything to anyone because lying is wrong
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Oh my god it's hilarious, I imagine the face of the kid searching frenetically for his parents hand. Well played guys. Lets just hope that no parent having lost a child read this because they will go on berserk mode, but really, its funny.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I have no clue why americans are so fuzzed about a perfect yard. Making wreaths with dandelions is amazing.
Most Americans just mow the lawn when it gets too high, I'm pretty sure it's just the higher classes who care about perfectly manicured lawns.
Load More Replies...Exactly, my dad has had huge dirt patch in his front yard for as long as i can remember. My mom did lie to us that she liked when we picked the dandelions for her and put them in a paper cup of water for her.... I realize now that they never made it to dinner time the days we gave them to her.
Load More Replies...dude... my family has the most unperfect yard in the whole neighborhood and there's never been any issue, also what did you do with the dandelions because you can eat the things :P in summer i'll eat the leaves fresh off the plant and they're bitter but good :)
I once had a dream where my parents told me to go out and pick dandelions, and I said "You want flowers or dandelion clocks?"
That's soon going to backfire when they see someone else's yard with dandelions!
Not all people from the U.S.... quit being a snooty b***h.
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
A friend of my mother told her kids that when the ice cream truck came down the street playing music it meant that it had run out of ice cream. Evil woman.
I told my son that when the ice cream van played music it meant the driver was saying sorry for running out of ice cream
I was always scared of mascots once on Easter there was a festival and an Easter bunny man came and as soon as I saw him I booked it
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
your dad will never want you to learn about the birth of people at school
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Yeah right! I would have asked a black lady to adopt me!
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Whenever we were at the mall my mom would tell me the security guards were there to arrest naughty children. I always froze whenever I saw a security guard :))
sounds like that old D**k Van Dyke kids movie where they put the kids in a paddy wagon and took them away
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
I told my kid Chuck E Cheese burned down. Imagine my surprise when she ran in and told me they rebuilt it because she saw it when she was riding with her grandmother!
You just told them that they were never going out to get chuck e cheese. You need to rethink the meaning of the term "Special occasion".
Load More Replies...I used to tell my kid that you are only allowed to go to Chuck E. Cheese if it's someone's birthday. It worked out well. He got to go 3-4 times a year and stopped begging to go constantly.
Reasonable fear. I would just tell my kids that those costumed guys freak me out. Because they do. Even sports mascots freak me out, and I'm one of the biggest sports fans I know!
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
You go back in time one day. Just as it clicks, you are forgetting everything that happened to you tomorrow. Unfortunately, because you forget everything that made you decide to rewind the day, everything always goes exactly as it did before you push the reset button.
Load More Replies...lol I was always told that if you mess with that it will turn off the power to the whole house, and that houses were like Christmas lights. If the power to our house went out, every house up the street after us would lose power and I'd be in big trouble. Apparently being told "you could get electrocuted and die" was not enough to stop 6 year old me from touching the power outlets.
It just rests the energy flow to the oulet and if you turned the outlet off, it turns it back on. I apologize if I got any facts wrong .
ithe outlet has a circuit breaker in it. if water gets into the circuit or any type of surge in power it trips the breaker and shuts off the electricity to the outlet in an attempt to protect your devices that are plugged in or a person from the surge... the reset button lets you turn it back on once the issue has been resolved.
Reminds me of a dream I had when I was about five or six. I was afraid of loud noises and I had a nightmare that I pulled a plug out while a CD was playing and it made a loud horrible noise. When I woke up I asked my dad, "What happens if you unplug a CD player while it's playing?"
What kind of noise? A scratching noise? A screeching noise?
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
My mother used to tell me that if I cried and the bath the small hair in the tub will transform to spiders
1. That's just awful lol. 2. Why was there a small hair in your bath??
Load More Replies...Partially true. A dome light being turned on in a car at night can result in the lighting screwing with the eyesight of the driver of the car.
I tell me.son that I can't see thru the window when the light is on while I'm driving. Works up to now
people who told the lie will never want their kids to learn about eyes at school
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
My mum was told if she didn't eat all her rice at dinner her boobs wouldn't grow. She definitely ate all her rice.
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
Well she got the two meanings and combined them making it drag racing. So she's technically not wrong
for people who have no idea what drag racing really is, it's a thing where men or trans/bi/pan women dress up as women with makeup and stuff and put on a play
Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
i'm american and i have so much royalty in my blood
Load More Replies...Lies Parents Tell Their Kids
When I was 3 my parents got me to stop using a pacifier by saying that the garbage man's baby doesn't have a pacifier, so you should give him yours. So I threw it away in the garbage thinking I had done a good deed for a poor baby without a pacifier.
When we didn't finish our oatmeal in the morning Pop fried it up for lunch and told us it was duck burgers.
My dad used the word hibiscus as another word for horse droppings. I was so disgusted as I saw a hibiscus tea..
i could never resist the ears of chocolate bunnies, so i told my son his baskets were from the Easter Gopher. It worked until he entered kindergarten.
We told our son that if he didn't eat certain vegetables that assorted body parts would fall off. He said he knew what happened if you didn't eat meat cuz his vegetarian dad went bald.
Our parents told us if we ate our potato skins we would be able to whistle when we grew up.
I told my daughter the hospital gives all new moms Santa's phone number.
My friends told me that her grandma told her that any time she forgot to switch off the lights a bunny rabbit dies :')
This is kinda of silly, but my sister and I always believed that she left her 'blankie' in a store when she was 5. I'm 35 now and recently I mentioned it, and I was blown away when my Mom said that actually wasn't true. She threw it in the garbage. LOL. Well played. We believed that for 30 years.
When I was 3 my parents got me to stop using a pacifier by saying that the garbage man's baby doesn't have a pacifier, so you should give him yours. So I threw it away in the garbage thinking I had done a good deed for a poor baby without a pacifier.
When we didn't finish our oatmeal in the morning Pop fried it up for lunch and told us it was duck burgers.
My dad used the word hibiscus as another word for horse droppings. I was so disgusted as I saw a hibiscus tea..
i could never resist the ears of chocolate bunnies, so i told my son his baskets were from the Easter Gopher. It worked until he entered kindergarten.
We told our son that if he didn't eat certain vegetables that assorted body parts would fall off. He said he knew what happened if you didn't eat meat cuz his vegetarian dad went bald.
Our parents told us if we ate our potato skins we would be able to whistle when we grew up.
I told my daughter the hospital gives all new moms Santa's phone number.
My friends told me that her grandma told her that any time she forgot to switch off the lights a bunny rabbit dies :')
This is kinda of silly, but my sister and I always believed that she left her 'blankie' in a store when she was 5. I'm 35 now and recently I mentioned it, and I was blown away when my Mom said that actually wasn't true. She threw it in the garbage. LOL. Well played. We believed that for 30 years.
