“My ears do not hear whining.”

Kathy created this proverb to say to her children.  She first explained that the thing that annoys her most is when she hears little children whining and screaming when they want something.  Because of this, when Kathy became the mother of two girls, she coined the phrase, “my ears do not hear whining.”  She explained to me, “I could not stand whining as any kind of interaction.  I don’t ever want to give someone what they want because they whined at me to get it.  I refused to have my kids think that the way they would successfully go through life is to whine enough, and be so incredibly irritating that someone would give in to them.  I want them to earn what they get based on merit, not whining.  The result of my phrase was impeccable.  The moment I first explained what I meant to my kids, they would instantly change their tone, speak in a normal voice, and ask again for what they wanted.  Most of the time they got their way, as a reward for asking without whining.”

Kathy’s children would whine, hear the proverb, continue to whine, realize that she was completely ignoring them, and then speak normally.  It did not take long for her children to completely rid of the habit.  They even began saying it to their own whining friends.  Kathy believes that it was this phrase that curbed her children’s whining habits.  This proverb began as folklore in Kathy’s house, but soon spread to the houses of all of her friends.  The mother’s in the neighborhood began telling their children that their ears just did not comprehend whining, and soon, the children would automatically speak normally as opposed to whine when they wanted something.

I think Kathy’s strategy is a very effective way to impact your children.  She would ignore them completely until they spoke to her in a normal voice.  This item of folklore spread to many households because it was so effective.  It also displays the many different strategies that effective parents create when raising their children.  Each family has different proverbs and traditions, and they are usually passed down through generations. This proverb is one that Kathy and her children identify with, and I’ll bet her children will also have ears that don’t hear whining.