Dad shares hilarious parenting hack behind getting son to smile for his first day of school photos

Editor's note: This article was originally published on September 23, 2022. It has since been updated.

Adam Perry is quite familiar with the parenting struggle of getting your kid to smile properly for the camera. As every parent who has ever tried to take a decent picture of their child knows, something about being photographed seems to trigger a deep-rooted brain signal to their facial muscles, urging them to arrange themselves in the most awkward and uncomfortable fashion possible. The result is often a strained grimace with their lips pulled over their teeth and existential angst in their eyes. Fortunately, Perry has figured out a way to sidestep this brain signal.

In a tweet that has been liked by more than 297,000 people on Twitter, Perry shared the hilarious parenting hack he employs every time he wants his son to flash his natural angelic smile for the camera. "My son when I tell him to smile vs when I yell out 'poop,'" he captioned two side-by-side pictures of his preschooler son. Speaking to Good Morning America, Perry described the young boy as "shy" but also "sweet and silly" with a "fun sense of humor." Sharing the story behind his now-viral tweet, he shared that the photographs were taken on his son's first day of school.

"We always take pictures on the first day [of school] and we were in a bit of a hurry and having a hard time getting good pictures," he explained. "My son always has the funniest smile when he's trying too hard. I learned at some point that if I just yelled out 'POOP' and snapped the picture quickly, it always worked out way better. In this case, it was a pretty dramatic comparison, so I thought I'd share it." Perry, who is a children's book author, admitted that he was surprised by how quickly his post took off online.

"I expected 5 to 10 people to like it. Then it kept climbing... and climbing... it's now at 297k likes. Then it went first page on Reddit and viral on Instagram and Facebook," he said. "This post must have really resonated with people, and I've gotten tons of messages from people that are using this trick and getting great pictures of their kids, which to me, is the best part of all this." Many on Twitter revealed that Perry's strategy is one they've employed themselves or been on the receiving end of. Meanwhile, others shared that they couldn't wait to try it out on their little ones.

"My cute little ol' Grama used to shout, 'sex!' right before family photos & it always made for the best photos," @AshleyGWinter tweeted. "I can just hear school photographers yelling POOP several hundred times on picture day," stated @ForgetTheMoose. "For anyone trying to successfully photograph a kid: this is VERY helpful data," tweeted @MarisaElana. "The key to a little boy's heart, jokes about bodily functions," pointed out @CalebMPowers.