As kids, parents are the ultimate source of how the world works. Whether you’re a parent or you were raised by one that needed just a bit of help persuading you to act right, little lies have often saved the day. There’s no denying that the following deceptions are rather ingenious, even if some parents disagree wholeheartedly with lying to their children for any reason (you guys must have only one kid). From getting kids to sleep on long car rides to avoiding the 87th Blippi episode, I forgive each one of these parents for taking the easy road. As a mom of four, I’ll even be filing away a few tweets from this Twitter thread and saving them for the perfect moment. Here are brilliant small lies that parents have told their kids, otherwise known as parenting hacks!

Convoluted Logic
I’m definitely going to try this one. Battling a kid with major FOMO (fear of missing out) at bedtime is nearly impossible! Plus, I know I’ve said, “Let me get the sleep out of your eyes,” at least a few dozen times to my kids when they have that dusting of rheum when they wake up.

Even if the logic jumps from point A to point B by way of point K, it still works out in the end, especially if they’re under five years old. This is such a simple way to avoid all the fuss and the eventual “threats” of “If you don’t close your eyes right now….” It’s not that much of a lie, as far as I’m concerned.