As a member of Netflix’s #StreamTeam, I get to showcase fantastically curated content each month. April’s theme is Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Which I cannot relate to in my household at all.
I’m lying.
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I may not have a PhD or anything (in fact, nothing even remotely resembling a PhD), but I’m a downright brilliant expert on one very specific part of my life: I know exactly when my children are lying to me. I don’t even have to be in the room to see what did- or didn’t- go down. My kids are still at that beautiful age where they actually believe I have physical eyes in the back of my head. (The truth is much, much scarier: my awareness transcends physicality. I’ll leave them their sweet little beliefs for now.)
And while their infractions are relatively harmless (“Who peed here?” “Did you take the bow with the snowflakes?”), we’re still doling out a healthy dose of Crime and Punishment and Truth or Consequences and Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire Go Stand in the Corner. My kids have what we in the business refer to as A Tell. Nora’s is a clenched jaw, nervous laugh, and immediate confession for anything that occurred in the past 30 days. (She’s gonna make a great spy, that one.) Susannah’s is a way-too wide-eyed declaration of “I don’t THINK so!” (“Zu, did you color on his face?” “I don’t THINK so!” “How do you not know?” “I don’t THINK so!”) Jasper, so far, is perfect.
Nothing to see here, Mom.
And while I’m decent at exacting appropriate punishments (loss of a bedtime story/loss of all the ice cream in the freezer, consumed after bedtime), it’s also nice to be able to lean kinda heavily on Netflix and their parenting skills- er, gentle programming for reinforcement:
- I love the Care Bears. (I still have a book on my shelf from 1987 when I had to get my tonsils removed. That’s staying power!) And the series reboot is just as adorable as you’ve remembered. The episode Untruths & Consequences features teensy Wonderheart and a little girl named Riley who can’t stop “fibbing,” as Nora calls it, and “making things unnecessarily difficult for herself,” as I call it. Digression.
- And have you guys seen Little Princess (based on the bestselling books by Tony Ross)? The episode I Didn’t Do it was cute as heck- unfortunately, I missed some of it due to the stress hives that hearing “I didn’t do it” caused.
Now it’s your turn: What downright Dostoyevsky-esque programming do you turn to for guiding your little criminals- uh, kiddos?
(And yes, The Bling Ring counts.)
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