London, Oct. 22: The average parent will tell their child almost 3,000 little white lies as they are growing up — just to get their own way.

A study of 3,000 parents found that every day each mum or dad will tell at least one lie to get their offspring to comply with their wishes.

Among the classic white lies wheeled out in homes around the country are that Father Christmas only gives presents to good children, spinach gives you big muscles and sitting in front of the television for too long gives you square eyes. Others include eating crusts puts hair on your chest and that the jingle of an ice cream van signifies that it has sold out of lollies.

Kathryn Crawford of The Baby Website said: “The funny thing is that most of the little white lies we tell our own children are ones that our parents told us and chances are, they came from our grandparents too.”