I recall in 1969, I was watching the moon landing on TV and I thought if was cool and I remember my mother, who was probably sick of me talking about it (I was 5) said: “Mark, why don’t you go outside and try to see them.”
So I was like “OK,” and I ran outside in the back yard and was trying to see them on the moon. My mother was like “You can see them, you’re not looking hard enough.”
Or I remember one time, I think I was 4, I loved birds and my mother told me to go out and catch one. I must’ve spent an entire month chasing birds trying to catch one. She even said she’d give me FIVE DOLLARS, if I caught one and brought it to her. Can you imagine a 4 year old actually being able to catch a bird. Especially since all we had were wrens, robins and blackbirds or grackles.
So what things that are obviously untrue do you tell your kids, just to be shed of them for awhile. Or vice versa what did your parents tell you.
I must admit, running around the yard for a month was good exercise and it kept this 4 year old busy and out of mum’s hair for a month till I gave up.
At 4 or 5 yrs, I was told that if you sprinkle salt on a bird’s tail, you’ll catch it.
I quickly realised that if I was close enough and the bird slow enough for me to do the salt thing, I could very well just reach out and catch the darned thing.
Not actually kids, but my husband. We were driving in the car one day (I was driving, he was the passenger) and he just wouldn’t shut up. Eventually I said ‘I wonder how many houses we can find with satelitte dishes outside?’
Next thing you know, he was deeply focussed on finding satellite dishes, and I enjoyed the rest of the trip in relative silence. Bliss.
Well, this wasn’t to get rid of us, but it always bothered me.
When I was 10(1988), I went to a Christian camp in northern Michigan. When all the kids were collected together and the leader was giving welcoming messages and so forth, there was a time we all sang together. Camp songs, Christian songs, and stuff like that.
Anyway, just above the stage in the chapel, there was a real moose head mounted. It was actually kind of cool. Anyway, the leader told us that when we sing the next couple songs, we should look up at the moose head. He told us that if we sing loud enough and make eye contact with it, it might sing along.
Well, as we did that(being silly kids), I noticed a photographer taking pictures of us, probably for a brochure. The moose, not even being a puppet, did not sing or move at all, obviously. However, we dutifully looked at the moose.
Even at 10, I remember thinking, “Wait. Are they trying to get a picture of us looking ‘up to God’ while singing for their brochure? He lied to us to get us to do this.’”
I’m sure they were, of course.
Always bothered me. I’m still a pretty conservative Christian, and it bugs me that anyone would deceive a group of kids to get a publicity still of them caught up in the moment of worship.
When we were kids, driving in a Texas summer with no air conditioner, if we complained that we were thirsty and wanted her to stop for something to drink, she’d tell us to save up our spit.
Not to make us (all 5) go away, but probably more to shut us all up–our mom had us count all the railroad cars whenever we were stopped at a crossing. I’m sure it cut down on intra-sibling warfare occurring in the backseat(s) of the old Chevy station wagon…
With my very hyper 4-5 year old, I used to tell him to run as fast as he could to the tree on the far side of the yard then run back to me and tell me what it felt like. He would, but upon his return I would ask him questions that he didn’t think to find the answer to about the tree, “were there any ants on it?” or “how many cracks were in the bark under your hand?” When he didn’t know right off the top of his head he would run back to do it all over again, and of course my next question would be something else necessitating running back to the tree…until he was all tuckered out and ready for a nap.
After a few months he caught on to the trick and started requesting my list of questions before he ran to the tree for the first time. It wasn’t nearly as fun for Mommy after that.
Not being a parent myself, I haven’t done anything, but my mom’s old favorite is how she used to bet me that “I couldn’t be quiet for five whole minutes!”, like it was a really fun game.
A different type of story but still in the category of “clever things adults do/say to manipulate kids”…
One year in band camp (yeah, all right, move on) I mentioned to one of the chaperones, a parent, that my lips really hurt, especially in the corners. She told me very seriously that it was because I was not eating enough vegetables. Burning in the corner of your lips is a sure sign of vitamin deficiency.
I must have been 15-17 years old and I TOTALLY bought this. I ate more veggies at meals that week, and also passed along this advice to other kids.
It was at LEAST a year or more later before I realized that standing in the sun for 8-10 hours a day will give you sunburn, and sunburn on your lips can make your lips feel all burny.
The Quiet Game! Are there even any children who didn’t have to play that at least once?
My own children were smart asses from birth so when I suggested the quiet game one of them would invariably blurt out, “You win!” or “I lose. And then…” and go on babbling happily. It never worked out well for me, I am afraid.
But my middle child believed me when I told him that talking too much gives you a stomach ache so you need to make sure you take frequent breaks so that doesn’t happen. It may have been awful of me, but that child talked from the time he woke up until he passed out again at night and sometimes talked in his sleep! It worked out in my favor one car trip where he was starting to feel a little car sick. Instead of getting sick or upset about it he decided he must be talking too much because his stomach hurt just like mom said it would. So he announced his intentions to be quiet for a while and that seemed to work. (Really what worked was that the road smoothed out and he ended up taking a nap.)
I hope this isn’t too much of a threadcrap, but these are sort of reminding me of Johnny Carson’s snappy comebacks to whiney children (not that anybody would be mean enough to actually use them, I hope):
Whiney Kid: Why did you have me, anyway?
Mean Parent: We didn’t know it was going to be you.
and
WK: I didn’t ask to be born!
MP: And if had, the answer would have been “No.”
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