POLL LIES - fibs that Parents tell their kids, in the USA or China, apparently...

my uncle used to do the policeman will come and get you things to his kids but then he got pulled over for speeding w/ his kids in his car and when the cop came up to the window he rolled it down and one of his kids got all freaked out and shrieked "kill the policeman!!!!!!"

this is bad parenting. have done some of them, mostly walking away from tantruming kids in public.

when we took Joel's dummy away we told him Mrs Tweedy from Chicken Run had taken it, cos he hated her anyway

Have never done any lies, certainly not the ones listed.

Both were never the 'tantrum' kind of kids, they were both exemplar.

Also, Alice has a verrry good memory.. We'd left her (and Amber) to stay with Grandma/pa over a half-term where we had no childcare in our area. One of the things we mentioned was "Never promise Alice anything that you don't do" "Oh, that's a shocking thing! I would never promise and not do something for them! How dare yo even suggest.." "Ahem, no you do not understand.." anyway after five mins we dropped the subject.

Following week: "Oh my goodness, I see what you mean now! I took them into town, we had a meal out, play-park, shopping, etc, just as I was tucking ALice up for the night she says "You Said We Could Have a Biscuit at Tea Time!"

I've lied to my son about the death of pets before, so the "uncle" one I guess. We used to lie to him about his goldfish dying. Wife would keep him distracted and I would run out to PetSmart and try to find an approximate duplicate. We went through 3 versions of one fish before we finally let her die. R.I.P. Pam. We don't lie about goldfish anymore though.

We had a more recent incident in which the cat knocked over the hamster cage, setting them free for a minute before completely eviscerating them. He missed out on the carnage, thank god. I had to put one of them down myself. To prevent bad feelings between him and the cat, we told him that they escaped into a hole in the wall and probably went out to live in the wild, or with the mice in the abandoned house next door.

http://santarchy.com/new-york-welcomes-santa/

"what we all learned from santa:

we learned about lies. santa is all about lying.

every one of us, of our own volition, participates in a mass lie to the entire body of the children of america. we all pretend that there’s this big fat guy that lives on the pure mass of ice that is the north pole, in sub-sub-zero temperature weather, building them all toys, and starring in tons of tv specials, he can fit down chimneys, he has a flying sled pulled by red-nosed reindeer, he turns snowmen real, etc. why? i can hardly say that stuff to kids with a straight face, yet say it i do. without even thinking about it.

but when i do think about it, it strikes me as a really interesting cultural mechanism we’ve developed. to teach kids about lying. i mean, we’re surrounded by lying. people lie. advertisements lie. our friends and loved ones lie, the president lies, even mommy and daddy lie. the cynical kids figure it out first, then clue in the more trusting ones. then they figure the easter bunny’s a fake, too. it’s a real lesson in being fooled. and how to fool people. the kids start to think, “hey, i wonder what else people tell me is bullshit?” well, that’s not such a bad thing, is it? so let’s just stop for a minute and thank santa for the one true gift he’s given us all: cynicism.

THANK YOU SANTA! HO HO HO!"

"If you don't quiet down and start behaving, the lady over there will be angry with you."

How is this untrue? Certainly if I'm "the lady over there" in question.

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"That was beautiful piano playing."

Variation on this:

"how many more minutes do I have to practice violin?"
clock shows 5 more minutes
"two more minutes big guy, you can do it!"

Good on yr, you 4

"If you don't put your seatbelt on, the police will put you in gaol where they give you horrible dinners" was one