HOW TO OUTSMART YOUR KIDS

(June, 2023) Reddit asked, “Parents, what’s your best example of reverse psychology on your kids that actually worked?” Some of the responses:
– “My mom would put vegetables on her own plate and not ours. When we asked, she would be reluctant to share, saying things like, ‘That’s grown up food. But…I suppose I can let you have a little.’ We grew up eating vegetables.”
– “When I was a kid, I refused to get up in the morning. My mom used to wake me up and say we were going to trick my dad into thinking I was still asleep. So, she made me put on clothes and then hide under the covers and pretend to be asleep. Then my dad would come in to wake me up and I would ‘fool’ him because I was already dressed and ready. This worked on me for years.”
– “I took my 3-year-old son to get a shot. He was worried, almost to the point of tears. We got to the doctor’s office and a nurse let me know that my son was not just scheduled for one shot, but five shots. I turned to my son with an exaggerated smile and said, ‘Good news! They figured out how to take that one big shot you were going to get and instead break it up into these five little, tiny shots so it won’t hurt nearly as much!’ He stopped squirming and relaxed, took the first shot and even smiled and said, ‘It’s true! The small ones don’t hurt!'”
– “I used to tell my little toddlers that if they were fibbing, a black dot would appear on their tongue, but only their mother could see it. So if I suspected a lie, I’d just say, ‘Stick out your tongue!’ If they kept tight lipped, I knew I was right.”
– “My dad used to play a game to see who could match and fold the most laundry. He never, ever won.”
– “When I was in 5th grade, I won the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Medal and got to speak at D.A.R.E. graduation. When I showed my mom the medal, she laughed and said, ‘Aw, that’s cute, we’ll see how you feel about drugs in high school.’ That [ticked] me off to no end, so I never did drugs, just to prove my mom wrong.”
* Thank god kids are stupid.
* And parents are devious manipulators.
* If YOUR kids aren’t stupid, you can always bribe them with money.
* If you could collect a bunch of these it would make a nice Parenting for Dummies book.
* Here’s how that works on adults: “Concert tickets cost how much? It must be a great show – I’ll pay anything to see it!”
* PHONE TOPIC: Do you have a reverse psychology trick that worked?