20+ Parents’ Tricks That Prove You Can’t Fully Trust Adults

Being a parent is not an easy job and sometimes moms and dads have to use some tricks and even lie to their children. Most of the time, they do it so well that the deception isn’t revealed until many years later.

Internet users who are now adults recalled the most unusual parenting tricks that they still remember from their childhood and we at Bright Side were absolutely blown away by some of them.

• My grandmother always said that if I left a book open, I’d lose all of my memory. Now, I’m not a superstitious person at all, but every time I see an open book, I flinch. © ontozhka / Twitter
• My daughter is 3 years old. And she always wants to eat snow. So, we have come up with a story that if she eats snow, there will be no snow in the world. This year, we had some snow, we went for a walk and she started eating it, as usual. The next day, the snow melted and we reminded her that she ate it. Now, we’ve had some more snow and my daughter is staying strong and hasn’t eaten a bit yet. © AnaShaLSP / Pikabu
• My mother told me that every time I lied, a piece of my tongue would fall off. She would convince me by putting a piece of meat on her finger (without me seeing), reaching in my mouth, pulling it out, and showing me. I’d cry for hours. © pandatitties / Reddit
• When I was 3 years old, my mother made soup, but I put a red pepper in the bowl. I asked her what it was and she said, “It’s a berry.” I ate the whole thing. IT WAS NOT A BERRY! © PrOzichka / Twitter

• One day, my wife, 2 boys, and I were at Party City. The boys were about 5 and 8 at the time.
  The younger one walked up to a basket of candy and asked if he could have some. I answered “No.” He kept asking for candy and I said, “Son, if you ask for one more piece of candy I’m going to go back in time and take away the candy you had yesterday.” This seemed to satisfy him and he stopped asking. Well, the 8-year-old knew that this wasn’t possible and smugly looked my way and declared, “Okay, do it to me!” I hadn’t thought that far through — I was just making an empty threat and now I was being called out on it. We locked eyes. Somehow I blurted out, “Fine. Do you remember that Snickers bar you had yesterday?” “What?? I didn’t have a Snickers bar yesterday!” “Exactly.” And I patted him on the back as we walked out of the store, his face twisted in furious thought. © William Wayne / Quora
• To be quiet when hunting mushrooms, because they would go back into the ground. I was in my early 20s before I discovered it was a ruse to just get us to be silent for at least a little while. © MethodMZA / Reddit

• If we didn't brush our teeth before bed, mice would climb into our mouths, and eat the food between our teeth. That's why your mouth tastes gross in the morning when you don't brush, the mouse poops in there. © canada_mike / Reddit
• My dad would often distract me with something in the winter when we were outside and then put a tangerine on a tree branch. I was the first person to notice it and I was always surprised at why nobody had noticed it before me. I was sure that tangerines grew on maple trees. © aquarelnyi_che / Twitter

• My childhood dentist asked me if I knew what it felt like to get bit by a baby alligator, he was then SHOCKED that I had never been bitten by a baby alligator and that I had no idea what it felt like, like it was something that everyone had experienced but me. When he explained that the numbing shots felt just like getting bit by a baby alligator, I practically begged him for it. © jellofiend84 / Reddit

• To get me to eat fish, they told me that it contained phosphorus and that I would glow at night. And I tried to stay awake for as long as possible, but couldn't, and in the morning my mom would tell me that I was glowing. © grantm / Pikabu

• That parachutes are formed by keeping backpacks closed for a long enough period of time. If it were opened, it would disrupt the process, like a caterpillar's cocoon being prematurely opened. I waited for 4 months. I guarded that backpack with my life, screamed at anyone who ALMOST opened it. I found out that my dad was not to be trusted on matters of parachutes, when I jumped off a playset with my finely aged backpack. © iaiftw / Reddit

• My babysitter in the kindergarten lied to me a lot: when I didn't want to eat something there, she would take a spoon, put it in the middle of the plate, and say that I could eat one part but not the other one. Hundreds of kids have been deceived by her. © Dima-34 / drive2.ru

• When I was a child, my parents would tell me that the milk foam in cocoa was chocolate. And I always made myself eat it, it was gross but it was chocolate! © StusVasyl / Twitter
• My mom had her 6 kids trained to only buy things that were on sale. I believed that if an item wasn't "on sale" it wasn't "for sale." © jacksonjeep / Reddit
• In my childhood, when I didn't want to eat, my mom would tell me that a new picture would appear on the bottom of the plate. I believed her and ate everything. The picture never changed but always believed her. © mylittlekoti / Twitter
• My mom told me that if I kept hitting the horn in the car, it would run out of 'beeps,' we'd have to buy a new one, and we couldn't afford that. I didn't know any different until I was 17 and learning to drive... © deleted / Reddit

• You know those big hair-dryer contraption things that women sit under at some salons? My father told us that if we misbehaved while he was getting his hair cut, he'd stick us under one of those things and it'd shrink our heads. According to him, we sat pretty still and quiet. © two_bit_trevi / Reddit

• I didn't want to try butter but they told me that it tasted like ice cream. I was happy and took a whole piece AND IT DIDN'T TASTE LIKE ICE CREAM AT ALL. So, I couldn't eat butter until I was around 12. © Kotik_i_arbuz / Twitter

• My parents brought back a whole rotisserie chicken and 6 extra drumsticks from the market. For a month, my dad convinced me that they finally managed to mix the genes of a chicken and a centipede and have chickens with multiple drum-sticks. I still wish it was true. © kiko22 / Reddit

• On our way home from kindergarten, we drove by the fire station. Like most kids, I wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up. So for some reason, I always wanted to know what they had for lunch. Anyways, my mother pretended there was a sign outside that said what the firefighters had to eat, and "coincidentally" my mother always made what the station had that day. I felt awesome eating the same food the firefighters had. This went on for a few years until I learned to read in elementary school. © akki1904/ Reddit

• My parents told me that if I ate spinach, I would be as strong as Popeye. I would then eat it, try to lift the table, and it would lift almost a foot and a half into the air! They were lifting the table up with their knees. I still love spinach to this day, some 20 years later. © letsbooboo / Reddit

• A trick my mom used to get us out of her hair was, "You can catch a bird by putting salt on its tail." I'd spend hours running around the yard with a salt shaker, looking like a fool. I tried this trick on my son and he just looked at me like I was nuts. © TinglyThing / Reddit

• My daughter used to believe in a fry tax. Meaning, she had to give me 10 of her French fries if we went to get fast food. My son now believes this about M&Ms. He must give me 10. © RaChernobyl / Reddit

• The ultimate thing my parents came up with was that chocolates and candies are tiny toys that aren't to be messed with and that would choke me if I ate them. This was for my own benefit because my immunity was weak. They repeated telling me this lie every day and emphasized its consequences before I went to school. So, when I confronted this fancy sweet stuff on the birthdays of my fellow classmates, I would happily take them home to play with them. Even decades later, this aversion continues and I still don't like eating candies or chocolates. Although I treat myself occasionally with chocolate milk and desserts of my choice, I don't like eating candies and chocolates. I am planning to continue this family tradition if I have kids of my own in the future. © Visalakshi Veerappan / Quora

• I learned to count when I was little and my mother used it when I didn't want to eat. She would say, "Eat 5 more spoonfuls of soup and you can go." Of course, I ate them and then it was time for the next move, "Now, let's count how many spoonfuls of soup there are left." I didn't think of using another bowl, so I just ate the soup and counted. So, everyone was happy: I was happy with my math skills and my mom was happy I ate everything. It was only when I was 10 that I realized what she was doing.

• When I was like 8 years old my mom got sushi for dinner once. I asked her what the green stuff was and she told me it was avocado and she loved it, so I ate a spoonful. Worst experience of my childhood. I didn't eat avocados for 10 years after that because I thought I hated them. She tells me that she really did think it was avocado. © purple_sweatshirt / Reddit

Do you remember any cases from your childhood when your parents said some weird things to you just to trick you and get you to do something?