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Key points
- Social media likes to celebrate parenting hacks, but many of these involve tricking or lying to children.
- That creates an unintended consequence, which is that children learn feelings are intolerable.
- These tricks also promote lying as a viable strategy for immediate gratification.
I’ve been collecting parenting tricks and hacks, which are usually presented as fun and creative parenting victories. I find them amusing and ingenious, but something about them makes me wonder if they are a great idea.
What is your reaction to these examples?
I've come across posts on Instagram about tricking children. Here are a few examples:
- My friend wins parenting. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this and it’s hilarious. She said, “Sometimes I put movies on that are in Spanish and when my kids get really confused and ask why they can’t understand it I tell them they are just tired and should probably take a nap. Then when they wake up from the nap I put the same movie on in English and they think they are all better.”
- A mom in Orlando didn’t want her children to know how close Disneyworld was, so she drove in circles for three hours before stopping at a hotel near the park.
- “Any food that has a cartoon character on the package won’t taste good.”
- “The candy in the grocery aisle is just for decoration.”
- A friend told me about getting stuck in terrible traffic on the way to a giant fall harvest fair—with hayrides, corn mazes, animals, etc. The parents had talked up this fair for weeks to the three-year-old, but were ready to give up on the outing. They saw a tiny pumpkin patch on the side of the road—with nothing but a few raggedy pumpkins—and told their child it was the fair.
Did you find these funny, disturbing, or inspiring? Maybe all three?
Parent victories
There is certainly a way that these stories represent parent victories. Think of the meltdowns avoided, naps received, and whining ended. Parenting is exhausting. Sometimes we need a workaround to a flood of emotions, a way out of a not-this-again conflict, or a break from nonstop aggravation. A happy child (or a napping child) is, indeed, a win. Even parents who usually welcome big feelings need to resort to this kind of trick sometimes. I totally understand that.
The unintended downside
Unfortunately, the underlying message of these tricks is that emotions are intolerable. I can’t take your disappointment, your sadness, your neediness, your resistance to naps. I’ll do anything–even lie–to avoid those emotions. But if we can’t handle our children’s feelings, how can they ever learn to handle them? If we can’t bear for our children to cry because we say no, we are stuck never saying no or lying to avoid saying it. When children can cry about a limit while someone holds them compassionately, they recover their emotional balance and learn to handle frustration and disappointment.
That learning requires practice with small frustrations and disappointments, and many parenting hacks deprive children of practice. Then we get mad at them for not being able to manage those feelings! It’s so much better for emotional development to say: “It’s disappointing to stop what you’ve been doing and have a nap.” “You wish you could have candy.” “Those cartoons on the packages make the snacks look so special, don’t they?” “It’s hard when the answer is no.” “We are not going to be able to go to the fair. The traffic is too bad.” “I know this is sad, and I’ll be right here with you.”
After children cry or have a tantrum, with a warm and loving parent listening empathically, then they can relax into naptime, accept healthy limits on junk food, and enjoy the second-rate pumpkin patch. Without tricks.
We want our children to resist the easy allure of immediate gratification. So we need to resist parenting hacks that provide instant results but at a long-term cost. We don’t want our desire for a peaceful moment to backfire into a child who can’t handle disappointment or frustration.
Do we really want to celebrate lying to children?
There is a double standard about lying when it comes to children. We get bent out of shape when our children lie, but we celebrate parenting lies. Yes, they are designed to make children happy or to stop them from endlessly pestering us. (I won’t get into the Tooth Fairy or the man in the red suit.) But whatever our motivation, we are inadvertently teaching children that it’s ok to lie to avoid making someone angry or disappointed or to get whatever you want. It can feel cruel to be honest with children. But we can offer emotional support as they take in bad news—whether the bad news is no candy, no county fair, or naptime. Honesty is also important for more serious situations, such as a death in the family. We want to protect children from pain, but true protection is to let them know: pain is real and I will be here with you.
A thought experiment
Let’s imagine a social media account called Child Hacks, dedicated to children’s parent-manipulation victories:
- My mom was on the verge of getting really angry at me for not cleaning my room, so I told her I cleaned it, then my little sister came and messed everything up again. Now she’s mad at my sister and feels bad for me. Ha!
- Go into the bathroom and run the water for two minutes. Wet your toothbrush. Spit loudly. Come out and tell your parents you brushed your teeth.
- “I love you. You’re the best, Mommy. Can I hug you?” These magic words stop parents from being mad at you, no matter what you do. It works even better if you never say it unless you are delaying going to bed or getting out of trouble. #getoutofjailfreecard
Yikes!
Don’t take away all the fun
Okay, some parenting hacks are fun. But you can have fun without these tricks. Instead of nagging children about naptime, sing your request in a fake opera voice. Play Grocery Shopping for Others, where your child tries to sneak candy into your cart (or someone else’s cart) without you noticing. Lead your kids on a marching parade around the house chanting, “We want to go to Disneyworld every day!”
