To ask what lies do you tell your children?

[RevolutionofourTime]

I have always made up stuff for my kids. Recently I’ve been reflecting that when I was a kid, this was something my male relatives (dad, uncles, cousins) did.

DH comes from a different culture, and has no imagination, so I’ve taken on the role of maker-upper in the family. Who is in charge of the made up stuff in your household? I’m curious about the gender divide.

DCs are now 11 and 9 but I still manage to fool them, especially the 9 YO, and they both love it. It’s never mean.

Some of the things I’ve told them over the years, including recently:

• I have a degree from Magic School (this is very useful with smaller kids as you can then cure anything)
• I invented many fruits. Starting with the pineapple, then watermelon and eventually my masterpiece: the banana
• the tiny hatch in our bedroom ceiling (it’s for the electrics and ducting for the a/c) is the gateway to a secret living room that only DH and I use. It’s all decorated in pink with funky wallpaper and velvet sofas.
• WiFi is named after its inventor, William Fillian (borrowed that from Twitter)
• I also have a degree in Fire (bonfires, candles and such like)

What good lies have you told your kids? I’m not talking about the usual ice cream van bell stuff, but fun stuff that stimulates imagination and has ‘running gag’ potential.

Lockdown is boring! Let’s trick the kids 😁

@lovepickledlimes I can agree with that!

We knew he was winding us up and encouraged him to continue.

But that's the difference. How will OP's kids know she's winding them up about WiFi, or the other poster freaking the children out about the storm?

Sure, if you're telling crazy stories and your children are aware, loving it & having fun - great!

That's not what OP referred to tho. She talked about running gag potential ie trying to trick the kids intentionally.

"I am sure the government do care and do want the best for us even if we disagree about what that is"

"No darling, I don't know where all the Jaffa cakes went after you went to bed last night"

"I am not crying at this film"

Don't you have adult friends to have fun with? This is so weird..

We have a bath monster. The kids are renowned for not wanting to get out of the bath when it's time, so they 'know' that once the plug gets taken out of the bath the bath monster drinks all the water and if there happens to be a child still in the bath they may be gobbled up. Makes getting them out of the bath a lot easier , and no, they are not scared of the bath (although I did have a slight panic that I'd made a terrible mistake the first time I told them! Could have backfired...)

DS thinks some dogs can talk. He had a massive phobia and we are working on it.
Since I lied every day he wants to know what the kind dog is asking? Or where is he going?
DD age 11 a nightmare for completing school work, she believes her school is open to take homework dodgers in, I threaten to phone teacher to get her a place if she can't do it at home.

I don’t see how stuffing children’s heads with a bunch of silly lies will enhance and improve their childhoods.

It made JK Rowling a multi millionaire.

I don’t see how stuffing children’s heads with a bunch of silly lies will enhance and improve their childhoods.

OK how about this, I was with a friend at a pub, it was halloween but inthe day, a little girl came in with grandma, she wanted to look at the decorations but was too scared to eat in the room and wanted to go home.

I told her none of the monsters could havm her because she was wearing her special halloween dress.

Child was no longer afraid and gran could buy them lunch and not have to go home and start cooking.

I totally and utterly got this wrong

My mum was the best for this. One year she told us chesse grows on trees. She got a chesse plant and one night stuck chesse triangles to the plant.
Another one was black bags grow in fields. It was always light hearted and I love doing things with my 3 year old. Though he just looks at me and rolls his eyes like what is wrong with you crazy lady. 😂

Ds 6 would call us out on lies like that theres not much that gets past him.I do tell him that food is spicy though if I dont want to share

My sil used to tell niece and nephew I was a PF and could put them in jail, I was actually a defence lawyer, which they turned to their advantage once they became teens!!

Dd is only 18 months but if there's something she can't do I tell her it's sleeping. So if we are on the farm and she wants to go on the quad I say it's sleeping. She pat pats it and says shhhh and keeps going.

I don’t tell my DC a load of rubbish. Otherwise they’ll grow up to be the numpty who thinks WiFi was named after William Fillian, and people will laugh at them. Believing in stuff like Santa and fairies is one thing, but I don’t see any benefit in making up false scientific facts.

I was always unwilling to do this with my own children as it caused a big problem in our family. My dad was always telling my brother tall tales of fantastic things he had done and been. My brother then repeated these at school and was told by his classmates it was a load of lies.

Upset brother comes home and my parents had to break it to him that they were just stories, not real. One of my first memories is my brother saying ‘don’t believe anything Dad says, he’s a liar’

He was quite a shy boy and I think he found the whole thing hard to deal with.

Anyway some of these examples seem to just cause fun and excitement but it didn’t seem harmless to my brother (and then me) and I’m not sure where the middle ground is.

I remember as a child telling a teacher in front of everyone that my mother was 21 years old. In reality she was well into her 30s but that's what she told me so. I was a bit embarrassed when I found out that I didn't have the youngest mother in my class.

Oh God @PeaPeaEeByGum that sounds so sad! I would have memories of 'making a fool of myself' (my words, about myself, and not due to anything my parents told me) because I got something wrong / repeated something incorrectly in school that I'd heard somewhere.

Parents just can't set their kids up to be made feel foolish & embarrassed.

Seriously, it’s right there in my OP they both love it. It’s never mean.

Some of you need to unclench a little. I’m not starting a cult FFS, I’m just stimulating my kids’ imagination.

No, I don’t let them believe stuff that would be dangerous or would make them look stupid.

Yes, some of these made up stories have gone on for a long time and have become family running gags. Years on, and DCs still ask questions about my Magic degree and the invention of fruit. Of course they know it’s not true. They’re in on the joke.

I don't like telling silly lies as DD has ASD and believes what she is told

I have a bronze statue of a mother and baby. I told her as a little girl about 2 it was us. She was telling everyone so aged 6 I had to tell her it reminded me of us not actually made for us. She was not happy and confused at that one.

Also, one of the results of all this is you'll make your kids feel like idiots at some point:

Because this only happens if you tell your child a white lie?
I felt like an idiot as a child loads of times eg falling over, getting the answer wrong etc. After about a second you get over it.

The only thing really is I say there's a tooth monster that comes if we don't brush our teeth.

I used to think that the channel tunnel train went directly through the water (rather than through a tunnel) because my dad would point to the dark windows and pretend he could see fish and sharks and things. Not particularly damaging but not exactly clever either. It just made me feel really frustrated because I couldn't see what he was seeing.

I don't think it's going to scar kids for life or anything, I'm just not sure what's so big and clever about lying to kids, getting them to believe you, then laughing at them behind their back because they believed you (of course they did, they trust you). I did get to an age where I sort of stopped believing a lot of what my dad said because he would lie as a joke sometimes and I never knew what was real and what wasn't.

On the other hand, lies to manipulate (scare) children into doing things they don't want to do are not okay. I feel very uncomfortable hearing Father Christmas used as a blackmail/behaviour control technique. In our house, Father Christmas visits but he's not attached to good behaviour, and we certainly wouldn't 'tell Father Christmas' about naughty behaviour. etc. The concept of Elf on the Shelf as a little spy in your house for a month does not sit right with me either 🙄

Christ alive. I’m glad my family weren’t like some of you joyless beings who see childish imagination as ‘habitually filling kids’ heads with lies.’ 😆 your poor kids.

My childhood was filled with magic, whimsy, tricks, fibs and imagination. And I loved it and have a great imagination now. And I will do my best to inject some of that magic into my baby’s life.

The world can be a dark and frightening place, why not allow them to enjoy some magic while they can?

So you see on Twitter that WiFi was named after William Filliam.
You tell your kids it’s true.
They believe you.
Someone tells them it’s bollocks and they feel stupid and embarrassed.

How is that stimulating their imagination?
You didn’t imagine something weird and fantastic and wonderful. You copied something on Twitter.
Your children aren’t doing something creative or magical or life enhancing. They are believing some stupid bollocks off the internet.

I don’t care who thinks I’m a killjoy, I actually find it disturbing. Exploiting your kids and confusing them about what’s real for your own entertainment.

Stimulating their imagination would be telling them stories and engaging in pretend play.
A story about magic school that develops and is an ongoing source of fun would be lovely. Telling your kids it’s true is really unpleasant.

Another here with the joyless ones! Lies are lies what ever the motivation. I'm particularly unfond of made up monsters to scare children into doing things. I was brought up in a house full of lies, some lighthearted as you put it and some more serious, it has left me untrusting of anything my mother tells me still at 38 years old.
I do not lie to my son. I explain things in very simple terms and believe his understanding will grow. We play imagination games pretending or imagining what ifs kinda thing, improving imagination in 2ays that are clearly framed as such.
I have to admit we've joined in the santa lie though, it's so unavoidable. I'm quite prepare to explain how santa is a feeling not a person as soon as he asks if he's real or not, which he hasn't yet.

And I loved it and have a great imagination now.

Oh you must do! It's clear from your post and how it was so accepting of how the lies and manipulation might not work for everyone.

I tell them they're adopted.

When I forgot the tooth under the pillow the other night, I told DS that the tooth fairy was socially distancing.

That my grandfather was a Long John Silver (long running family story).

We're farmers and from a very young age I encouraged both DS to stand in a field and shout "Get off my land" in real thick west country accents just because it amuses me.

I also taught them to howl at the full moon.

I hope that such silliness continues down through the generations.