Reason doesn’t often work when you’re trying to get children to behave. Hyperbole often does.

So a lot of parents have told their kids outrageous lies in order to elicit obedience.

You probably heard several such statements as a child. You know the ones. Santa Claus is always watching. Watermelon seeds will make watermelons grow in your stomach. Children in Africa were starving because you didn’t finish your spinach.

Cafe Mom recently asked mother to fess up to the lies they’ve told their children when hoping to get their kids to behave. Here are a few of the standouts:

• “If they’re biting their nails, we tell them that the little pieces they accidentally swallow would turn into worms in their stomach.”

• “My 5-year-old is scared to death of the queen from Snow White. I have a contact in my photo with her face, and I text this contact whenever he’s acting up. Changes his behavior.”

• “When my son went through his ‘loud phase,’ I would say, ‘Shh, you’ll wake him up!’ He’d immediately stop and ask who. I told him he’d find out if he didn’t be quiet.”

• “I told my son that if he kept being bad, all his toys would leave him and go play with good little boys because they didn’t like little boys who didn’t mind their parents.”

• “I told my kids that when they lie, a blue dot appears on their forehead that only Mom and Dad can see. Every time they lied, for almost a year, they covered their foreheads.”

• “The ice cream truck only plays music when it’s out of ice cream.”

• “When you cry, it makes the airplane go slower.”