April Fool's Prank Ideas for Gentle Goofball Kid

February 27, 2024 1:37 PM

Every year, I play an April Fool's Day prank on my kid. I need a new one for this year. It needs to be something a clever/goofy 15 year-old would find funny, but it can't be mean-spirited. He's not overly gullible, either, so tricking him ususally doesn't work. At least not on April 1st.

We have burned through most of the old chestnuts and have gotten more ambitious.

Previous years have included: filling his floor with balloons, such that it was hard to get out; fake cake pops; a fake winning lottery scratcher; waking him up an hour early for school; a very realistic lemon with a moving eyeball; and playing the Purge klaxons and announcement. The Purge thing got laughs, but didn't fool him, obviously. The lottery ticket was rated as mean.

His absolute fave was when I woke him up early for school, hanging out with him while he had breakfast and got ready, then when he went to log in (COVID-times remote learning) enjoying his reaction when the clock on his computer revealed the truth. That one was a) funny b) not cruel and c) involved us hanging out. The eyeball lemon also got raves because it was just bonkers.

Any ideas?

posted by DirtyOldTown to Human Relations (40 answers total)

AI generated image of his school on fire with fake news story that it caught on fire overnight and school is canceled for the day. Sent via email at like 5 am.
posted by MadMadam at 1:59 PM on February 27

Or AI generated image and news article that his favorite snack is being discontinued. Show it to him a couple of days before 4/1 and then reveal truth on the day of.
posted by MadMadam at 2:01 PM on February 27

If you have a lot of family photos, replace every single one with Nicolas Cage. if you share social media, you could also replace all of your photos etc. with Nicolas Cage. (Or equivalent person.)

Googly eyes on every single thing in the fridge or kitchen. You can then take self-adhesive googly eyes out together, say...to the grocery store.
posted by blnkfrnk at 2:08 PM on February 27

A fake image of his school on fire might make an empathetic kid worry if there are classroom pets that stay there overnight. Maybe a fake image of a freak snowstorm that only hit the school's neighborhood and canceled school for the day? Or the googly-eye idea could be fun.
posted by lisa g at 2:16 PM on February 27

For you, for your family, hide all the televisions in your house and sit down to have a serious discussion about the dangers of film and media consumption/addiction. This is something you need to work on together, as a family. For your health.

Ideally I would like the TVs to be given googly eyes and glasses and be hanging out in a less used room, staged as if they're wholesomely reading books. For kid to find a little later.
posted by phunniemee at 2:22 PM on February 27

some colleagues plastered things with googly eyes and that gift keeps on giving

just the other day I was suddenly aware that my bluetooth headset has been featuring googly eyes on the left earpiece to every video call I've made, this is weeks after I noticed all the googly eyes (door locks, switch plates, plant pots, shared kitchen: toaster, inside refrigerator, etc)
posted by elkevelvet at 2:22 PM on February 27

Or buy (at least) 100 tiny plastic ducks and put them all over the house.
posted by phunniemee at 2:24 PM on February 27

I like the James Acaster story from a few years ago where he was staying with a friend, and the friend's kid put cabbage leaves into his bed.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 2:37 PM on February 27

The lemon is a dead ringer for Omega Mart at Meow Wolf. They have weird/fun merch.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 2:44 PM on February 27

Get ready to take him to school, then detour to someplace fun to play hooky together.
posted by homodachi at 2:48 PM on February 27

This was in the 90s when my graphic artist dad’s access to Photoshop was more rarefied, but the most effective prank he ever pulled on me was forging my middle school’s letterhead to make it look like I’d received some Very Official Correspondence informing me I’d have to retake my most hated class (gym) over the summer.
posted by Suedeltica at 2:49 PM on February 27

(Just want to comment that some of the suggestions seem mean-spirited to me.)

Do you usually do the pranks at breakfast or earlier in the day? If so, what if the prank is two parts: 1. pretending there's no prank ("You're too old for this" or "I forgot" or "We could never do better than the lemon") and 2. having the prank happen later in the afternoon or evening.

I love the idea of cutting out heads of his favorite band/celebrities and putting those over the faces of family members in a few photos around the house. Something silly and subtle. Another good one: swapping out some things if you can do this without creating too much chaos. For example, put out dress shoes where he keeps his sneakers.
posted by bluedaisy at 2:49 PM on February 27

Take all the laces out of his sneakers and replace them with longer ones. Or shorter ones. Or one longer and one shorter.

Or buy (at least) 100 tiny plastic ducks and put them all over the house.

Reminiscent of an old prank - buy 10 plastic ducks and label them 1-10. Hide all but one around the house (hide the last one in a very, very secure place that he'll never find. At work or in a lockbox or something). Next April Fools, hide the last duck and act surprised that he didn't find it earlier.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 3:00 PM on February 27

If this is something you've been doing like clockwork every year, then yeah, perhaps the greatest prank is not doing a prank. Your kid could be nervous the whole day, cautiously opening every door, etc., and then nothing happens. Finally, at the end of the day, when he's like AUGH WHAT IS THE PRANK you can just go "Oh, right. April Fool's." and just totally deadpan tossing a handful of confetti or something.
posted by xedrik at 3:05 PM on February 27

The best pranks I've heard of:
- Bouillon cube inside the showerhead. (Downside is it's really your showerhead in the end, and I'm not sure how long it takes to fully rinse out the eau du boeuf. Plus it might be a little too mean.)
- Shrink wrapping some improbably large object of his. The one I saw was a car, but if he has a desk, that could work.

I wonder about something like rearranging the furniture in his room to be a mirror image of itself? That would have to wait til he's off at school for the day, probably.
posted by eirias at 3:15 PM on February 27

When I was a kid my mom made my breakfast one year for my birthday with all the wrong food colors - blue eggs, green pancakes, purple sausage patties - you get it. It mucks with your head more then you'd think!
posted by bookwo3107 at 3:24 PM on February 27

April Groundhog's Day: have some sort of light but highly specific April Fool's joke planned first thing in the morning. Next day: repeat exactly. Bonus points for strategically replaced newspaper/calendar.
posted by eponym at 3:28 PM on February 27

Do you pack him a lunch, or cook dinner? Maybe make all of the foods look like other foods. Something that looks like a cupcake, but is actually a meatloaf with mashed potato frosting, for example. Hot sauce for a strawberry drizzle?

Rearrange his room while he's sleeping, or maybe all of the rooms in the house have something changed around? Bonus if you can rotate him in his bed (head to foot) while he's sleeping.
posted by hydra77 at 3:38 PM on February 27

Level 1: Blue food dye in the milk. Say nothing. Wait for discovery.
Level 2: Gross flavored jellybeans with one flavor that is delicious mixed in, so you can sample one to show that they are delicious!
Level 3: Get baby food, ideally prunes, and leave a big pile on your kitchen floor or in the walkway to your house. Then ask your kid what kind of animal would leave that poop there - then poke it with your finger, smell it, and take a lick. Trust me - good prank.
posted by Toddles at 3:45 PM on February 27

A classic: paper over his bedroom doorway while he's asleep, so when he wakes up in the morning and opens the door he's greeted with a solid wall of newspaper (or something more decorative). It's weird and confusing first thing in the morning but not at all mean.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:50 PM on February 27

Our family's April Fools joke was a Dixie cup filled with small plastic dinosaurs that was balanced on top of various open doors (the bathroom was a classic) so that when the door was closed, the dinosaurs would shower down on the unsuspecting head of whoever was foolish/forgetful enough to not remember the annual tradition. It occasionally even got the person who rigged it, which was always the funniest, hearing the clatter, followed by laughter and/or muttered swearing.
posted by merriment at 4:08 PM on February 27

Obviously for my "duck" prank you need to reserve one of the numbers in the middle. Hide 1-3 and 5-10 around the house.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 4:20 PM on February 27

Replace a few things that receives daily use with almost identical items that are distinguishable in some way that does not affect their function (e.g. a different color) and pretend nothing has changed and he is misremembering what color his notebook, or whatever, has been all along.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:22 PM on February 27

+1 to the labeled duck or dinosaur prank. Number them erratically to make him think there's an intense quantity hidden in the house when really there's like 30 max but suddenly he finds an 85 and has to adapt.

Observe the potential.
posted by The Adventure Begins at 6:09 PM on February 27

Peach/yogurt eggs
Toilet paper spider
posted by BoscosMom at 6:55 PM on February 27

If it is not considered mean, rotate the orientation of laptop / pc monitors? Put them in portrait mode and blame the popularity of Tik-Tok for the "upgrade"?
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 7:00 PM on February 27

I put this story into a previous thread about April fools' pranks for kids:

One day, my father said to me my brother:

"Hey, kids! Did you know you have an Aunt Anna?"

"No," we said.

"Well, you do. How'd you like to go see your Aunt Anna right now?"

"Right now? Where is she? We can meet her right now? How come we've never heard of her before?"

"Just come outside here and you can see your Aunt Anna," he said.

We followed him out. For some reason he was pointing to the roof - no, the chimney?!? "Is she standing on the roof? Is she hiding behind the chimney? What? Why are you pointing up there?"

Finally, one of us figured out that he meant the TV antenna that was attached to the chimney.

There were groans, but I still haven't forgotten it. It's been probably more than 20 years since then.

Clearly, this depends on your pronunciation of the word "aunt". We all say it just like "ant".
posted by amtho at 7:11 PM on February 27

Dress like his “twin.”

Next level- convince him of a Freaky Friday situation
posted by raccoon409 at 7:24 PM on February 27

My regular prank to my dad was that I'd tell him I got accepted or rejected from something, but I'd make the story outlandish. One year I told him that I got a fast track through to Australian citizenship (I wasn't even a PR yet at this point) but the condition was that the Mayor told me I had to work in the logging industry for a few years (I have no interest or experience in anything tree related). Mum would figure it out right away but Dad took a while to catch on.

So maybe there's some news you could announce that starts off normal but then ends up being wacky?
posted by creatrixtiara at 8:23 PM on February 27

Candy in the ice maker..
There is a video.
posted by BoscosMom at 8:55 PM on February 27

I bought THREE hundred plastic ducks. I'm going to put them in his bag, his coats, his shoes, his drawers, his cereal, and in heaps on his bed.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:18 PM on February 27

A piece of black shiny cardboard taped over the front of his phone? Cotton balls stuffed into the toes of his shoes?
posted by meepmeow at 10:26 PM on February 27

I’ve had fun with hiding small things around his space, in his backpack, etc, and the kid had fun finding them (and discovering a few later in April).

This year I was thinking of talking up brownies for dessert and serving E’s cut from brown paper—brown E’s (actual baked goods hiding in the wings after the silly joke). Friends who did that one said everyone enjoyed it, especially if there are real brownies in the end.

My kid enjoys a good Rickroll.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:09 AM on February 28

I like the idea of doing things to his room or bed while he sleeps, mainly because of how fun it would be if he catches you, he’s at a great age to be shaking his head and your dorkiness.
posted by Iteki at 5:28 AM on February 28

Ask his help to fix a serious leak under the sink.
posted by snarfois at 8:46 AM on February 28

Plastic cockroaches everywhere (these are a gift they can pass along in the future!)
Cover the a desk or a whole room in aluminum foil or post it notes

make a wall of paper cups that they have to walk through to get out of their door in the morning or into the bathroom

Just be hanging out wearing an inflatable dinosaur costume or a classic sheet ghost when they get home from school
posted by wowenthusiast at 10:39 AM on February 28

> I bought THREE hundred plastic ducks.

Get one of his friends to plant some in his desk at school as well.
posted by sebastienbailard at 11:18 PM on February 28

So yes: for my annual April Fool's Day prank on our kid, I bought 300 rubber duckies. He woke up as I was surrounding him with them in bed and thought that was a solid prank.

But wait until he opens his bookbag and piles of them fall out.

Or reaches in his coat and finds his pockets full of them.

Or sits down at lunch and friends cover his tray.

Or in math when they show up on his desk.

Or in English.

Or at his appointment at the dermatologist's office.

Or at his bass guitar lesson tonight.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:51 AM on April 1

He just messaged me from school with a pic of them on his desk. The message just says "HOW?"
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:53 AM on April 1

Thank you for the follow up! What a wonderfully charming prank. I just mentioned it to colleagues who were complaining about mean-spirited or confusing April Fools jokes and used it as an excellent example of something where the joke is enjoyed by all and is done with love and affection. Cheers!
posted by bluedaisy at 11:18 AM on April 1