Things we tell our kids.

In My Humble Opinion
1

The other day I poured my daughter some pink lemonade.
“Daddy,” she said, “Where does pink lemonade come from?”
“Pink Lemons,” I replied.
“Well, where do pink lemons come from?”
“Pink lemon trees.”
She thought for a moment then asked, “What about blue lemonade?”
I looked at her, smiled, and replied, “Now that sounds silly.”

Anyone else do stuff like this. Feed silly information to their children like Monkeys are in the ATM machine counting the money, or something like that? What type of things do you tell them?

2

When my nephew was 3 my dad told him that after dark the flying dogs come out and if you are outside they will bite you. Now he is 4 and he just recently stopped believing that.

I told him the classic one that clouds come from the smokes tacks of factories and that they were cloud making factories. He only believed that one for a day or so though. When I was a kid and my dad told me that one I believed it for years until we learned about clouds in elementary school.

3

If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is “God is crying.” And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is “Probably because of something you did.”

-Jack Handy Deep Thoughts

I tell my kids outrageous things every day. It’s one of the perks of being a parent, to have constant and gullible companions. :wink:

Seriously though, when it’s just silly rather than frightening, and they know (or shortly realize) that you are playing around- it’s a lot of fun for both of you, and I think it encourages imagination and alternative perspectives. When they start catching on and reciprocating, some of the stuff they come up with is priceless!

4

I think so too.

5

My parents had a portrait painted of my older sister when she was young and I wasn’t born yet. Before they had one done of me which they eventually did they the painting of my sister was next to a painting of a bird. I deduced that this was my portrait and that I was born a bird and gradually evolved into being a little girl. My parents agreed with me and let me believe this until I was about 21.

6

Yep, I totally agree. It’s reached the point where my kids don’t believe most of the things I tell them any more, if it’s at all unbelievable to them (such as when I relayed to them that “when I was a boy, televisions didn’t have remote controls, we had to get up and walk across the living room to turn it on and change the channels”).

On the other hand they have a distinct blind spot when it comes to their own past. Even my highly skeptical five year old daughter (now turned six) would believe almost anything I told her about herself when she was 1 or 2 years old, like that she used to have a tail and used it to help her crawl around, but lost it about the time she started to walk.

7

Years ago, my youngest would ask me "How do they make . . . . "

It became a game between us, where I would begin with something like, “Well, first you have to go to Venezuela, and mine some bauxite.” (assuming that the thing was primarily aluminum, you understand.) The explanation would go on for as long as I could plod through the details of obtaining and processing various components of the object in question, never for a moment allowing for the possibility that someone else might have already done some small part of the process. (“Then you have to build a dam, and install generators. You might have to involve some federal agencies in that part.”)

He would patiently listen, and in later years would solemnly add observations like, “You can use oak instead of teak. That way you don’t have to go to Java.”

It is a fond memory, for me, and I think for him, as well.

Tris

“You could park a car in the shadow of his ass.” ~ Geena Davis, in Thelma and Louise ~

8

I do this all the time. I call it “developing critical thinking skills.” My kids call it, “Dad is goofy.”

My kids are now old enough to play along and it’s a fun game. It’s right up there with answering “what’s for dinner” with answers like “chicken lips and possum tails”

9

I did something similar with my little sister when she was small. We were Christmas shopping with Mom, and sister was restless and bored. So she asked me where something came from and I started a long, drawn-out (but very simplified) explanation. Then she asked me about something else…this went on the whole trip. I got really tired and my brain was about to assplode! :eek:

10

I just realized I didn’t include any examples…they’re really too numerous to list, so just a few random examples:

-We didn’t get a new jar of peanut butter of the same brand. Rather, the squirrels stayed up all night chewing nuts for us and refilled the jar to surprise us.

-Birds sit on poles and wires to absorb phonecalls, then fly to other poles and wires to pass them on. Evidence in point-“A little birdy told me.”

-When my daughter was four and had a strange distate for picnic tables, I convinced her picnic tables were just regular tables who were also on vacation or visiting the park, and would be sad if nobody used them. They forgot their chairs, so they just lowered their sides for us to sit on (I think it was the benches which put her off.)

-The dog routinely cooks me omelettes and other wonderful breakfasts when they are not there in the morning (days they are at their mom’s).

One day my son, then seven, visited a home with a waterbed, and expressed the desire to have one. I told him he couldn’t get a waterbed, because then we would have dolphins and pirates and mermaids hanging out all night and nobody would get any sleep. He replied, in a reproachful voice “Daaad! Everybody knows that the pirates sank on their ships in the river a looong time ago. Besides, if a pirate were here today, he’d be like <raspy, deathbed voice> 'Uhhh, give me your gold…</rdv> because he’d be like a thousand years old!”.

It was hilarious, especially his “old man voice”. Also, the fact that mermaids and dolphins got a free pass, but pirates were just too much of an anachronism to let go without objection. Duh. :stuck_out_tongue:

He also told me that no, in fact his stepdad had not gotten a new job, rather monkeys borrowed his car every morning, and apparently stepdad roamed the alleys behind the house, staying out of sight until the monkeys returned the car, occupying his time by knocking on people’s doors and asking if he could eat lunch with them.

Oh, the insights in to a child’s mind and their developing sense of the world from such seemingly meaningless conversations…

11

My kids love it when I engage in the absurd with them. Kids have a natural affinity for absurdity, and it’s fun for adults, too!

I tell mine stuff like how various household objects hate each other and argue when we’re not around; stuff like The microwave said to the oven “you’re fat and slow”, the oven said “you’re just a little box with a light bulb in it” The toaster said “The refrigerator thinks he’s cool, but he’s just screwing up the ozone trying to cool off all daddy’s beer, that’s not too cool, is it”? The fridge said “yeah, well, the toaster’s just got burnt crumbs up his butt, anyway”…

12

We (a whole campground of us) once had all the kids convinced that there were carnivorous burrowing ducks in Indiana. They’re attracted to the sound of children screaming, and then they rush out of their underground tunnels and bite them (the children) on the ankles. Adults’ voices are lower pitched, so they don’t bite us.

The campground was a lot quieter after that! :smiley:

13

After he figured out the whole Santa Claus schtick, I told my son he should now be leaving beer and hookers for Santa instead of cookies and milk.
“Dad, why are all the old movies in black and white?”

“Because, before 1964, the whole world was that way.”
The light and noise of thunderstorms is really my parents up in heaven fighting (he knew they had a bitter divorce).
I would steal a bite of food from his plate, and call it “the Dad Tax”. When he got his first paying job, he really understood what taxes were…
Not really a tale tale, but he and I used to ride a very popular urban trail on a regular basis. Since he was the stereotypical hormonal adolescent, our joke was that we were going out to make cleavage inspections.

I taught him well, and I can hardly wait to see what he pulls on the future grandkids…

14

I had The Kid believing for many years that when she was born I immediately grew eyes in the back of my head. Only other parents could see them.

We were at my parents’ house one day and she was talking to my Dad. “Grampa, Mom says she has eyes on the back of her head and I can’t see them!” He confirmed the whole thing which, in her mind, cemented it as fact.

When she was little she was deathly afraid of storms. We pretty much had it worked out when hit by a bad storm up the cabin. My Mom told her it was just God bowling. The Kid, bless her 5 year old heart at the time, rolled her eyes and informed her God doesn’t bowl. He’s to busy. It’s the hot air and cold air fighting, geez Gramma, you should know that!

We also play with the long drawn out explanations for little things, but now that she’s a teen they often go like this:
The Kid: “Where did this box of stuff come from?”
Me: “Well, when a Mommy box and a Daddy box love each other…”
The Kid: “GGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH”

15

My husband told my son that to grow a beard he needed to rub cornbread on his face. We laugh when we see the tell tale crumbs on his chin.

16

:rolleyes:
EVERYONE knows that chicken lips are served with lizard hips. Sheesh!
:wink:
Our current favorite “goofy” is when checking if the kids did their nightly routine (jammies, toothbrush, night-time medicine) is toss in a random task to see if they’ve done it. The wilder the better. e.g. “mow the lawn”, “wash the car”… also we gripe about having to ride dinosaurs to school rather than comfy busses.

17

There’s a great book called Great Lies To Tell Small Kids that has a bunch of these. Stuff like:

You have to name every ant you see, for your whole life.

There’s no such thing as kangaroos, they’re just mice standing real close.

Milk feels pain.

Every day a new sun floats across the sky and lands over there. There’s a whole pile of 'em behind that hill.

18

My husband has taken to telling my 8-year-old son to “drive carefully” when we head out to school/camp in the morning. I’m hoping it will really sink in after about 8 more years.

19

Another I like to say is when I go and pick up the kids from the grandparents at the end of the day. When we get home and they say “How did we get here so fast?”
“We took the tunnel,” I’d reply.
“What tunnel? I didn’t see any tunnel.”
“I guess you weren’t paying attention, but we took the tunnel.”
Sometimes after I pick them up they ask if we can take the tunnel. I reply, “It depends if it’s open or not.”
“How do you know if it’s open,” they ask.
“I don’t, it depends on the traffic.” So far that’s all it takes, but I think they already have an idea about how I like to have fun with what I say. They sometimes know when I’m picking with them.

20

The Princess believes in zombies, ghosts and aliens. I’ve convinced her that a quick spritz of lavender or coconut scented air freshener around the house repels all of these undesirables.