Creativity is one of the most important skills a parent can have!
It helps them come up with clever white lies that get kids to bed on time and backs up strict rules .
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It also helps them with meal time — the bane of any parent’s existence.
Read on for 19 ways parents tricked their children to eat healthy!
The special eating leaves
This mom was the one who kicked things off on Twitter by sharing her story of “special eating leaves.”
We really need to eat more salad and vegetables, so can someone trick us with the same story?!
The dinosaur eggs
“I convinced my sons that Brussels sprouts are dinosaur eggs and that they were savage beasts by eating them,” this dad tweeted . “Now they get excited for dinosaur eggs with dinner.” What happens if the kid wants to see one hatch?
The meat yogurt
Some people don’t like fruit in their yogurt, so this is taking things to a whole new level! Thankfully, yogurt is used in a lot of savory dishes, so it wasn’t like the little girl was basically competing on Fear Factor .
The tree stars
“When we were little we were obsessed with The Land Before Time and how the dinosaurs ate ‘tree stars,'” this Twitter user wrote .
Their mom let them take lettuce leaves out of the dinner salad and put them around the living room so they could crawl around and eat them like dinosaurs.
The Hello Kitty eggs
This is pretty clever. After all, what little girl wouldn’t want Hello Kitty eggs to go with their Hello Kitty lipgloss and Hello Kitty backpack? The Twitter user even wrote that she’s sixteen now and still asks for them.
For dragons only
“My son is only 2, but I can already tell ‘special’ isn’t gonna work on him,” this Twitter user wrote . “They need to be ‘forbidden’ or ‘magical’ or ‘for dragons only’ or something.” Sounds like we’ve got a fantasy author in the making!
Baby tree bones
It’s stuff like this that makes people change their minds about having kids.
Once they see how creative they can get, it seems fun. Plus, with a little three-year-old making dinosaur arms and sounds, it’s dinner and a show!
Nature’s wine
“My children always drank water with their meals, visiting friends turned their noses up until I told them it was ‘nature’s wine,'” this Twitter user wrote . Don’t forget that Jesus turned water into wine!
Popeye’s spinach
Alright, creators of Popeye. Enough time has passed that you can finally get real about why his character was created.
It was clearly to trick little kids into eating their vegetables! Now that we’re older, though, we see right through those lies and opt for Popeyes chicken instead.
The frozen peas
“My baby brother use to eat rocks so Mom gave him a bowl of frozen peas instead,” this user tweeted . “He had a bowl every night before dinner until he was 10.” We’re still stuck on the fact that he used to eat rocks.
The magic trick
This Twitter user shared how their parents got them to eat what was on their plates. They were told that eating food was magic: it disappeared when you tasted it. Can magic also get rid of these extra 10 pounds?
Cat food for humans
“My 3yo nephew refused to eat anything but cat food after he saw the kitty being fed cat treats,” this woman tweeted . “So my husband handed him human food and said ‘Here, this is cat food for humans!’ and then he was happy.”
Apple fries
This is so cute and clever! It just goes to show that anything tastes better when it’s in fry form. Potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Zucchini. Since Burger King introduced apple fries, one Twitter user questioned if this lady’s son headed that campaign.
The painting
“I got the ‘you are painting a picture in your tummy’ dinner story,” this woman tweeted . “Had to have different colors and objects in the picture. Garbanzo beans were snowballs, broccoli was trees, etc.” Brilliant!
Spaghetti and bugballs
Growing up with four brothers prepared this mom to handle picky eaters!
In order to make spaghetti and meatballs sound more appealing, she said that the noodles were worms and the meat was bugs. Sounds disgusting, but it worked!
The bunny rabbits
“My mom got us to eat lettuce by playing ‘bunny rabbit’ and putting little bowls on the living room floor for us to snack on while we hopped around,” this woman tweeted . Bravo, Mom! Another dinner and a show.
The monster ravioli
If you want your kid to eat something, simply make it seem challenging! This is a next-level parenting hack that makes children eat things they never would’ve eaten otherwise, like lobster ravioli.
Power Rangers milk
“I was told that as a 2 or 3-year-old in playgroup I didn’t like the milk they gave us,” this user tweeted .
The instructors said that it was Power Ranger’s milk. While it worked at the time, they wrote that they’re not a fan anymore since they don’t know which Power Ranger got milked for it.
White broccoli
After a parent tweeted that they told their kids that ham was “pink chicken,” another chimed in and said that they used a similar trick for cauliflower. They would say that cauliflower was white broccoli so the child wouldn’t get suspicious.
