I also enjoy planting small "easter eggs" for them...e.g. whenever we drive through the Holland Tunnel I hum the Super Mario underground theme, which I have explained simply as "tunnel music". One day they'll get it.
Someone close to me, however, was told a lot of such lies in their childhood, and continued to believe them into adulthood. When we met during our university years, I unknowingly debunked a few of those stories during casual conversations, and the person later thanked me and told me that, sadly, this completely shattered the trust they had for their father.
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[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
If none of the things you debunked were serious, then it may have been seed planting for later epiphanies.
I've made very sure that the kiddos I spend time with have a rich mix of truths, half-truths, and jolly equivocations to sort through in their life, and they have no end of fun working their way to proving me wrong.
I consider this an investment in their future development of bullshit filters to keep things running when mine have finally given up the ghost (May it not happen in the forseeable future).
Friend of mine felt this way when he learned the truth about Santa Claus. No joke.
Only to my 30s I began to realize how much of this non-contextual nonsense was put in my mind, from gums to proverbs to rules to… basically everything was a subject for reevaluation.
The correct way would be to intermingle jokes with truths and telling/laughing some time after they swallow the lies they should have doubted.
My kids seem to doubt everything they hear (pain in the bum for teachers), yet almost religiously believe everything I've told "for real".
What, being spun some BS by your parents?
My mother told me that picking my nose would result in my nose becoming like a cow's nose. She was right; my face is now indistinguishable from a cow's.
[citation needed]
