MYFOXNY.COM -

Judah, 3, likes Thomas the Tank Engine, his "Cars"-themed tricycle and his mom, Marymount Manhattan Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Nava Silton.

"I have definitely told a lie to my children," Silton said. Just then, Judah rode his tricycle into the room and handed his mom a piece of plastic. "You know what, Judah, mom is talking to her friends right now. Can you go into the other room and play for a little bit? Thank you."

As a psychologist, Dr. Silton recommends setting boundaries for kids at an early age instead of lying to them. As a mother of two sons, she excuses the occasional fib.

"I recently told my two children that they could not go to the Thomas store to get trains because the trains were all sleeping," she said.

Judah and Jonah --- bless their hearts --- bought that tall-tale, just as all of us fell for similar lies from our parents and guardians.

"I was told my teeth would fall out if I didn't brush them," one woman said.

"I told my brother that I made the mountains," one man said.

"My grandfather always used to say he was 16, but that seemed wrong to me," another woman said.

"One time," another man said, "I asked my dad why does he lean when he makes a turn in the car and he told me that if he didn't lean, the car would turn over, so I spent the next 10 years being sure I leaned into every turn."

Silton says a lie can protect a child from developmentally inappropriate or harmful information. Many big kids, just now discovering the whoppers their parents told them, say they plan to carry on this tradition of lying with their offspring.

"Only if it's to my amusement," one man said.

And for those convinced their moms and dads remained pillars of honesty, refusing to utter a single lie for the entirety of their childhoods, they probably still haven't discovered the truth.