“[A lie my parents told me is that] if you cross your eyes they’ll get stuck, permanently being crossed. I was probably like six years old when I did it. I still cross my eyes because I didn’t believe them. I think one time my mom got mad in the car because me and my brother were trying to see who could hold it the longest. I found out it was a lie because I did it often so I just kinda realized.”

– Benjamin Peters (10)

“A lie my parents told me was that Santa was real. They told me this when I was around five years old. A funny story related to this is that one night I stayed up with my brother to see if Santa was real, and later in the night we thought we heard a noise and pretended to be asleep and once we heard “Santa” he was at the Christmas tree. When we got up to see the tree, it was my dad fully dressed up in a Santa outfit and he saw us and he fell into the tree on purpose. We didn’t notice it was our dad either and we ran back to our beds. I realized it was a lie three years later, when we kept on bragging about seeing Santa, and then our parents told us.”

– Joaquin Bejarano (11)

“Whenever I ate dinner when I was younger, I would not use a fork, because I was just that kind of child. My parents always threatened me with ‘Military Charm School,’ which I always thought of as a military school where they teach you table manners and social manners. I thought of it as the ultimate punishment. I was in elementary school. Whenever they would tell me they’d send me to Military Charm School, it would usually be at dinner when I wasn’t behaving and I would either cry or fear my parents for the rest of the night. They didn’t say it again for like… three years, and a couple months ago, they were like ‘yeah, we were always lying when we threatened to send you to Military Charm School.’”

– Ben Forte (10)

“When I was younger my parents told me that middle school grades actually accounted for how I would grow up and would determine the course of my life. I now know that to not be true. My parents told me when I was around kindergarten, when my grades started to matter that middle school grades would matter. When I did really poorly on a math test I was on the verge of tears because I thought it was going to matter. It really stressed me out for a long time. I found out in high school that it doesn’t really matter after looking into the college application process.”

– Clarence Lin (11)

“I was like eight. My parents told me that eating carrots help with your eyesight. They would make me eat carrots when I would watch TV in the dark. [I found out when] I looked it up online.”

– Samantha Lekawa (11)

“[My parents] told me that we had to match up our socks because there was a sock monster that stole single socks. I was like six. I found out because I actually started looking for and finding missing socks and they were usually just under my bed.”

– Maddy Herniter (10)

“Probably the biggest lie was if you eat a watermelon seed a watermelon would grow inside your stomach. I was probably in second or third grade… The first time I ate a watermelon seed it was very traumatizing; I tried vomiting it out and it didn’t work so I just crawled in my bed and waited [for something to happen]. I found out it was a lie when my stomach never got bigger.”

– Jason Lee (10)

“[My parents said that] a pelican delivers a baby when you get married. I think I was four or five. I really thought that’s how people have a baby, so I was telling my friends in kindergarten, and they believed it too. When I was in elementary school, my other friends told me a baby is formed when you kiss at a wedding (which is also not true) and then I realized it was a lie that a pelican brings you a human baby.”

– Connie Lim (11)

“My mom said if I didn’t wash behind my ears, broccoli would grow there. And I definitely believed that when I was a kid. I was five or six (or 37? 32?). I’m still not even sure. She might be right. I haven’t grown any broccoli though, and I’ve never seen anyone with broccoli growing behind their ears, so I’m suspicious it was a lie, but I can’t confirm. Maybe I just haven’t seen it. Or they just picked it and then put it in their salad.”

– Derek Larkins  (English Teacher, Soccer Coach, Colleague, Game Show Professional, Wizard)