Parents Are Sharing the Most ‘Unhinged' White Lies They've Told Their Toddlers

Yahoo

29-05-2025

Who hasn't told their toddler a white lie or two, to cease a tantrum?
'My daughter doesn't like to eat meat, so I tell her that if she takes a bite of her meat, I'll give her a point toward Disney World,' Molly Brandt, the mother of a toddler, tells TODAY.com.
Brandt, who is taking her daughter to the theme park for her third birthday, adds that 'points' will be used to purchase souvenirs at the theme park.
'She's obsessed with princesses, so I said she could buy a Rapunzel dress,' says Brandt.
In a TikTok video, Brandt called for the 'most unhinged white lie you've told your 2-and-a-half year-old toddler because I'm running out of ideas.'
Parents dropped the white lies they've told their own children into the comments section:
'Elmo is napping, the park is napping, the pool is napping, everybody is napping. It works for now.'
'I use Google Translate, English to English, and type something like, 'The park is closed today, due to a fire' and then play the little microphone, so Siri says it out loud when I tell my daughter I'm calling the park to see if it's open.'
'You can only watch cartoons in cars. That's why they're called CAR-toons.'
'I let my daughter try black coffee and of course, she hated it. Now, if I don't want to share my food, I tell her it's coffee-flavored.'
''Blippi and Bluey are sleeping and only Curious George and Daniel Tiger are up. Do you want to watch them?' Less stimulating shows.'
''Every person has their own swear word. So, if you hear a grownup say one, it's theirs and you can't use it. You have to make up your own words' (Makes a nonsense word).'
'We can't watch 'Baby Shark' at bedtime/night because of child labor laws.'
'I told my daughter that spinach tortellini was green cheese and she loves it.'
'I told my daughter our family dog went on vacation to the beach and sent back sand as a gift. He actually died and those are his ashes.'
'When the ice cream truck plays music, it means they're out of ice cream.'
'If she sleeps in my room or I sleep in her room, we will both get smaller. We both want to get big and strong, so we have to sleep in our own beds.'
'Taylor Swift is her grandma. It's easier than explaining who her grandma actually is and it's low-key comical.'
'Sometimes, I explain the truth in so much detail, he just gets confused and forgets what's going on.'
Brandt tells TODAY.com the points system tames her daughter's picky eating habits.
It's also good enough for Brandt, who admits that lying made her uncomfortable in the beginning. She has since justified the light-hearted fib for a greater good.
Telling children white lies is generally innocuous until age 3, Dr. Deborah Gilboa, family doctor and resilience expert, tells TODAY.com.
'Very few people have really solid memories before age 3 or 4, excluding severe traumatic events,' says Gilboa, adding that in between the ages of 4 and 6, children start to apply reasoning to their lives.
Gilboa says white lies can undermine trust between family members and pave rationalization for kids to lie to their parents.
'We don't want kids to ever wonder whether their parents are telling the truth,' says Gilboa.
Instead of telling a white lie, Gilboa recommends these responses when kids ask questions that adults don't want to answer directly:
'I am not going to tell you that.'
'It's not yet a perfect time to talk about this.'
'It's none of your business.'
'The other problem with white lies is, they really only work with first children,' says Gilboa, adding that older kids may tell their little siblings, 'Mom and dad lied to you.'
According to Gilboa, there are two times when parents shouldn't tell white lies, even when kids are very young.
First: The death of a pet, which is traumatic.
'We want kids to count on their parents to talk about hard things,' says Gilboa. 'The more important the issue, the less valuable it is to use a white lie.'
Second: Threatening to leave a child in public, for example, when parents say, 'If you don't get in the car, I'm going to leave you at the park.'
The outcome of the threat is always negative: parents likely wouldn't leave — and their kids know it — or, kids might believe their parents will abandon them, says Gilboa, adding, 'Neither is OK.'
This article was originally published on TODAY.com