What fun tricks have you taught your kid?

January 24, 2020 11:32 AM

What funny things have you taught your kids to do? I'm thinking of things like, "show me your tummy" but teaching them instead "where's your carotid?" (as a friend in medicine did with her toddler). I'm especially interested in toddler age, but older kid stuff is good too. What other party tricks can I teach my little kiddo?
posted by stillmoving to Grab Bag (31 answers total)

Ask the child to look in a mirror to see what he or she looks like with their eyes closed.
posted by SPrintF at 11:37 AM on January 24, 2020

The coat flip always catches people's eyes. He can do it himself but it's also fun to just toss his coat on the ground in front of him so he can just pick it up and put it on in one move.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 11:47 AM on January 24, 2020 [5 favorites]

It's super cute when kids tell jokes. We taught our son (who was three at the time, I think) this one:

Kid: Ask me if I'm a duck.

Grownup: Are you a duck?

(dramatic pause)

Kid: No
posted by number9dream at 11:49 AM on January 24, 2020 [10 favorites]

Taught them the mind reading trick where kid one places her hands on kid two's temples and mysteriously ascertains the secret number told only to kid two (who's secretly clenching her teeth the same number of times as the secret number). Think I learned it from a Boy's Life magazine in the 70s.
posted by Stig at 11:51 AM on January 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

When I was 2 or 3, my mom taught me to answer “What’s the square root of 25?” and “What’s the square root of 3?” with the correct answers. Didn’t know what a square root was, but I knew to say 5 and 3. She also taught me to answer “H2O!” when she asked me what water was.
posted by Weeping_angel at 12:06 PM on January 24, 2020 [4 favorites]

Somehow we taught our toddler to pretend to lay eggs (sometimes plastic eggs, sometimes KinderEggs, sometimes real eggs) with lots of dramatic grunts and then loudly announce, "That came from my cloaca!"

So there's that.
posted by whitewall at 12:11 PM on January 24, 2020 [36 favorites]

When my kid was getting picked on in preschool I taught them to say to the bully "you, sir, have the boorish manners of a YALE MAN!"

They would also say "Punch it, Chewie!" whenever I started the car.

I tried to teach them to make me a martini but my wife put the kibosh on that.
posted by bondcliff at 12:23 PM on January 24, 2020 [25 favorites]

When my husband's daughter was a toddler, he taught her to respond to, "Who do you blame?" with an excited, "I BLAME SOCIETY! I BLAME SOCIETY!"
posted by missrachael at 12:32 PM on January 24, 2020 [25 favorites]

Oh and I taught my kid jazz hands when she was a toddler.
posted by missrachael at 12:33 PM on January 24, 2020

We're getting some good mileage out of cultivating our child's natural interest in musical instruments. We were recently in a coffeeshop where they were playing jazz and my husband asked "Do you hear that? What instrument is that?" "A saxphone!" "What type of saxophone?" [pause] "Alto saxophone!"
posted by CiaoMela at 12:43 PM on January 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

Family members taught their son to answer "We are!" with "Penn State!" (Their BIL babysat over a weekend, taught the wee one to answer with "Notre Dame!" instead, and oh was the next holiday season full of hilarious drama...)
posted by librarianamy at 12:47 PM on January 24, 2020

I taught a friend’s daughter that when I said “disco” she needed to point a finger in the air. Excellent party trick, but did lead to me being known as “Disco Sarah” for a while, to disambiguate from all the other Sarah’s in her life.

Also, what do zombies say? “Bwains!”
posted by athenasbanquet at 12:48 PM on January 24, 2020 [3 favorites]

What counts as "funny"? I once taught a seven-year-old that, whenever she saw a police officer, she should ask why they hate black people.

One of my friends had a babysitter who taught his kids that if they heard their parents arguing about money, they should walk into the room and say "mo' money mo' problems".
posted by kevinbelt at 12:55 PM on January 24, 2020 [7 favorites]

I taught the three year old to use "obstreperous" and "being a sport" as the principle opposed terms in metadisussions about the argument over how much honey she's allowed to have on her oatmeal.

I also taught her to sing the chorus of "Dancing the Manta Ray" to her manta ray bath toy and the manta rays at the aquarium.

And in general I think song memorization and a moderate level of funny vocabulary choice are good tricks at any age as long as you're careful about them.
posted by implied_otter at 1:28 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

My artist friend taught my toddler son to make a tower of blocks, knock it over, point, and say 'avant garde.'
posted by unstrungharp at 1:28 PM on January 24, 2020 [7 favorites]

I asked my then-toddler nephew "Who's House?" and taught him to respond "Run's house!"

same kid also inadvertently learned the to lift his shirt up and say "SPRING BREAK '09" a-la the repeated Arrested Development gag, which was great until he did it in pre-school.

and he picked up on greeting me with "Hi [Uncle Dismas]! Want a beer?" from his dad, unintentionally.

I would really only rec the first one of these, but contextually the other two were really funny. the kid is SUPER straight laced as a sixth grader.
posted by dismas at 1:32 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

If you sang the O'Jays refrain "moneymoneymoney...." our toddler daughter would sing the loud part "MOH-NEE!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXE_n2q08Yw
posted by nkknkk at 1:53 PM on January 24, 2020 [1 favorite]

The best kid-party-trick I ever saw was this toddler at the Jazz National Park in New Orleans, singing jazz wearing pink bunny slippers and some random penguin hand doll
posted by Thisandthat at 2:22 PM on January 24, 2020

The dark-haired parents of several other dark-haired children taught their only red-headed three year old to clearly say "Recessive genes!" whenever she was confronted by nosy strangers who always asked "And where did you get your red hair?"
posted by Jade Dragon at 5:24 PM on January 24, 2020 [13 favorites]

My grandfather loved to give us a very complicated math problem and then tell us in advance the answer. It involved a series of instructions - start with 5, add 3, divide by 4 etc. often with a multiply by zero so he didn't have to keep track either.

Special bonus if the answer is "42" and then you ask "what's the question?" Correct question being "what's the answer life, universe and everything" per Douglas Adams. Younger child might be get away just an excited "Everything!"
posted by metahawk at 6:58 PM on January 24, 2020

Stolen from Terry Pratchett, and taught to my kids... I used to entertain my kids with knock-knock jokes while we were waiting in line. They were not amused and my 6-year-old would pull this one out.
Kid: Knock-knock.
Me: Who's there?
Kid: Your child.
Me: Your child who?
Kid, deadpan: YOUR CHILD WHO DOES NOT WANT TO PLAY KNOCK-KNOCK JOKES.

Snorts of laughter from people around us.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:14 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

Taught my toddler to point at someone's shirt, when they looked, he's holler Made you look!
posted by theora55 at 8:16 PM on January 24, 2020

I taught my friend's kids johnny whoop when they were 5 and 7
posted by brujita at 9:25 PM on January 24, 2020

I knew someone who taught her toddler to scream “RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!” whenever she was having a tantrum.

It was pretty great.
posted by corey flood at 11:10 PM on January 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

We got our child to "beep" "beep" "beep"(like a warning sound)instead of demanding down. It was very useful at the I can climb up but not down stage and she would say it aloud attempting dangerous maneuvers of the toddler kind. This happened accidently, my spouse beeps when lowering her to the ground and she picked it up.
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:23 AM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm a little teapot,
Short and stout.
Here's my handle,
And here's my other handle...
...Oops! I'm a sugar bowl!
posted by Jane the Brown at 2:53 AM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

We accidentally taught the two year old to HONK HONK and chase people largely at random. Also if you ask her who or where the naughty goose is, she'll just smile this secret smile and whisper "honk honk" at you.

Also we taught both kids to do a cornu and shriek it in falsetto if they ever have to say "METAL!!"
posted by Jilder at 3:04 AM on January 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

When my brother was about three, he really liked a particular wooden puzzle meant for adults, and solved it until he could do it almost with his eyes shut.

Then, at dinner parties, we would invite the adults to try, and they would inevitably struggle because it was quite tricky to do the first time. And then we'd get my brother in who would do it in a minute flat.
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:00 AM on January 25, 2020

A parent I know taught their toddler to say “ciao bella” instead of goodbye and it’s glorious.
posted by donut_princess at 8:34 AM on January 25, 2020 [4 favorites]

I learned "salute" from my neapolitan godfather when I was a toddler.
posted by brujita at 11:28 PM on January 25, 2020

I've noticed that here is a spectrum of tricks that people teach their kids. On one end is tricks that empower them with genuine new skills (like teaching them where their carotid is). On the other end is tricks that make kids the butt of the joke. Most of the answers in this thread are on the good side of the spectrum, but I will gently observe that one or two of the suggestions cross a line I would personally be uncomfortable with.

Once my kids had learned the alphabet, I taught them a simple mind reading trick. Somebody would whisper a number from 1 to 10 in my ear. I would ask my kids what the number was. And my kids would always know, because I would cue them with the first letter of my question.
"And can you tell me the number?" (A is the first letter of the alphabet. The number is 1.)
"Bet you can't tell me the number." (B is the second letter. The number is 2.)
"Can you tell me the number?" (C is the third letter. The number is 3.)
Etcetera.
posted by yankeefog at 5:02 AM on January 26, 2020 [3 favorites]