Harmless fibs to tell kids

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I work as a law firm librarian, and a few weeks ago, I was asked to give a short tour of the library to some kids on “Take Your Child To Work Day.” One of the assistants had a whole day of activities planned out for them, including a trip through the law firm and visits in the different departments, as well as going to the fire station across the street, and, when they finished with me in the library, a short tour of the downstairs bank.

I asked who was excited about going to the bank, and none of them perked up too much. Then I said “I bet your parents never told you this, but if you go the bank, you can ask for free samples of money, and they’ll give it to you. They don’t like to make a big deal about this or everybody would come around asking, but I’m sure they’d give money to a bunch of kids if you all ask politely.”

They were all really excited after that.

22

A friend of mine had his kids convinced he was a wizard when he would approach the car after shopping and say “open sesame!” and the trunk lid would open. It took the kids several years to realize that the key fob was the “magic”.

23

A tale of mu utter worthlessness as a father…

One time, when my daughter was 5 or so… we were in my mom’s (Grandma’s) back yard…

When I was a kid, it was a farm hazzard zone… scrap metal, rusty parb wire, animals of less than freindly intent etcetera. Things had changed with the arrivail of grand children, though. There were berry and fruit trees, a swing set, a sand box, and all hazzards were removed.

Lotus Blossom commented on how nice it was… and, well, I couldn;t help myself…

With out thinking I said “Well, it was nicer when I was a little boy, there were fairies and elves everywhere, but Grandpa Bill sprayed poison on them, as they were bothering his naps…”

Little wide eyes full of horror and filling with tears… “Nooooooo!”

It took me a LONG time to explain I was kidding, and that the real reason that there were no fairies and elves was that they were all away at a conventionat the north pole…

Lotus Blossom is 16 now, and still brings that one up…

Guilty Regards
FML

24

I used to tell my son when he was very little that I had eyes in the back of my head so I could see what he was doing when I wasn’t looking. That made him very well behaved until he tried to find the eyes. I told him that they hide when he tries to look, but they’re there alright. Of course then he would do things when I wasn’t looking just to test me and then the game was up. It was fun while it lasted!

25

My twins (age 3) are convinced that flowers repel monsters. So do Christmas trees (got both seasons covered, see?).

For a while I had them convinced that Swiper (Dora’s nemesis) couldn’t get into our house to steal their toys because he didn’t have an opposable thumb. Upon closer inspection, it turns out the little rodent does have thumbs after all, but fortunately that neurosis passed.
It’s kind of funny, because often the TRUTH is less frightening than fiction. Dinosaurs croaked long before man came along (those whackadoodles in KY are gonna scare the crap out of a LOT of kids), and wolves and witches are just plot devices that make stories more interesting.

26

Well, I’m pretty proud of the corpse prospector story I pulled over on my little sister, once.

27

Funny, I was thinking about this only a few days ago.

I was thinking it’s be cool to tell a kid that…

“Ravens can talk like human beings. Thing is they rarely say anything in their entire life. Those that do speak only do so when thay have some life-changing advice to give to a human being”

28

When the kids were quite little, if we were driving somewhere and stopped at a red light, I would watch when the opposite light was changing and then say something like, “OK, I’m tired of being stopped here!” and snap my fingers… and the light would change.

It took them a while to figure it out.

Also, I teased with my kids a lot and they knew it. I wouldn’t call it “lying” so much as “tall tales.” They loved it. But a neighbor kid who was a friend of our daughter’s was raised in a different environment and had no sense of fancy and little imagination. She got upset whenever I would say something outrageous, deny it, and even cry. So, I think that teasing with wild stories depends on the kids.

29

Thanks for the reminder! I’ve just sent a copy to my friend who teaches grades one and two. :slight_smile:

30

I asked for it via interlibrary loan. :slight_smile:

31

Electricity tastes like chocolate.

32

If you type ‘Google’ into google, you’ll create a rip in the fabric of space/time which will destroy the universe.

33

Hummingbirds aren’t actually birds, they’re really big mosquitoes

34

My son refused to believe in the tooth fairy until my wife convinced him that the teeth were collected to make piano keys.

Black piano keys were the made from bad teeth collected from the dentist

35

My father was full of these gems. One night over dinner he told my youngest sister that kielbasa was actually from a long skinny animal called a basa. And the name was actually ‘killed basa’ but had been shortened. The next day my little sister proudly announced to her 1st grade teacher that she had “dead basa” for dinner for the first time last night and really liked it. Her teacher, a rather elderly Polish Nun, did not appreciate my father’s bit of misinformation and told him so when he picked my sister up from school. I would have paid money to watch a 60 year old, 5’ tall Polish nun dress down my 6’5" father.

My father relayed so much fascinating misinformation, on so many subjects that as my siblings and I got older we found we couldn’t quite trust what our father said. My father then started to use that distrust to advance his mischievous agenda. He would tell the truth in a rather dramatic manner and then watch as we ignored his sound and truthful advice.

I recall a hot summer day years after the ‘basa incident’, my brother, who was about 18, had put a beer in the freezer to cool it down quickly and forgot about it. Several hours of yard work later we’re resting on the porch enjoying a few cold ones. My brother remembers the freezer beer and retrieves it. It hadn’t frozen but was very cold. My father warns, “Don’t open it now. It’s too cold.” My brother gives dad a disbelieving look. “The contents are under pressure which means the freezing point is lower. It won’t freeze in the freezer but as soon as you open it, you will relieve the pressure and it will turn into a beer slushy.” My brother sensing one of dad’s stories says “No it won’t” and opened the beer.
Ice crystals formed almost instantly along the sides of the bottle forcing some of the beer out, creating a rather messy beer slushy.

So if you work this right and start when they’re young you can have 20 years of good clean fun at you children’s expense.

36

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I convinced my little sister that The Beatles’ song “Eight Days a Week” was a reference to the fact that due to the metric system, the British in fact have eight days in their week.

37

For 7-year-old mudgirl, it’s more effective to let her come up with her own “wrong” information, and then I just validate it for her.

For instance, I’ve been doing a lot of selling on eBay lately. Being the curious/geeky/wants-to-investigate-everything type that she is, she was questioning me closely about the shipping labels I print out, and different shipping options (Media Mail is used for a minority of my auctions, the rest go Priority). So I explained to her that Media Mail is the slowest, and it goes by truck, but Priority is faster and has to go by plane. So she, all by herself, decided that the “P” on Priority labels stand for “Plane”, so the mailman will know to put it on a plane, and the “M” on Media stands for “Mail-truck” so they’ll know to put it on the truck. :stuck_out_tongue:

I also still have her convinced that you can change stop lights from red to green by blowing on them. This started when she was very young, and I’d watch to see when the opposing light turned yellow, then blow on the red light in front of us, magically turning it green. Then it got to a point where we’d pull up to a red light, and she’d insist I start blowing right away. So I told her that some lights require a more complex pattern of blowing and blinking. There’s one really long light around here that requires six blows followed by five blinks, sometimes as many as five times.

38

And now…Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey:

When a child asks me “Why is it raining?” I think a funny thing to tell them is that “God is crying and the rain are his tears.” And when that child asks me “Why is God crying?”, I think another funny thing to say is “It’s probably because of something YOU did.”

39

Just yesterday, after getting caught in a rain storm, my three year old son asked me why I came in all wet.

“Because it’s raining outside.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
“Well, I can’t stop the rain. I can’t control the weather.”
“Is there anybody who can?”
“Well, some people believe there’s an invisible Man In The Sky who controls the weather.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His name is Dennis. Don’t get him angry.”

He didn’t believe me for a moment. However I have trained all three of my children (the eldest being about to turn 8) to do a visual check for trolls under every bridge they cross (by foot).

40

Weekend before last, I went to a fund-raising event at a local gymnastics and circus-arts school. Lots of families in the audience, including little kids.

I buy my ticket to get in. Box office lady says, “Here’s your ticket.”

Little kid next to me, complete stranger, maybe five years old, says, “You have a ticket?”

“Yep.” I show it to him.

“Where are you going?” asks the kid.

“I’m going to the moon!” I say.

His mother, next to him, chuckles.

Kid says: “You’re going to the moon?”

“Yep,” I say.

“You want some cheese?” says the kid, grinning brightly.

“Actually,” I say, seriously, “the moon isn’t really made out of cheese. People just invented that story.”

“Oh,” says the kid. “Really?”

“That’s right,” I say. “Actually, it’s full of bacon.”

Kid pauses, working this out. Mom is stifling a laugh.

“The moon… is full of bacon?”

“Yep,” I say. “Enjoy the show.” And I go in and find my seat.