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Debi Pearl: Papa and I are going to record, so y’all go ahead and shut the door.
Child: Let’s go to the porch. But, what can we build in the porch, out there?
Voiceover: Welcome back to vintage answers. This week we continue with our tough letter, answering a question about a perfectionist attitude.
Michael Pearl: Alright, it goes on to say, we start using the rod consistently. Then after two and a half months, he begins to whine. Said, we have rewarded each time with a spanking but it still continues. For example, almost every morning, almost without exception, he whines about the clothes he will be wearing for the day, the collar is too tight, the pants are crooked, his socks are twisted, et cetera. The thing we can’t understand is that we don’t change what he’s wearing because he whines and we don’t fix or rearrange whatever he thinks needs to be adjusted. A child who whines because these things are not as he would have them to be and he expects you to do something about it has a reason for expecting that.
In other words, probably you have in the past shown concern about adjusting his collar, adjusting his pants, or making everything just right for him, or maybe not in the area of clothes, maybe in some other area of life. You have displayed tendencies to rush to his aid and make life comfortable, make life suited to his whims, make life suited to his pleasure.
This thing is a whole lot bigger than whining about clothes. What you have here is a person, an individual, a human being whose perspective on life is that, life should make me comfortable, that I have a right to be soothed, I have a right for people to stop and be concerned about my discomfort. That, I’m afraid that’s going to carry on into adult life and going to make for a very miserable human being.
Debi: He’s established three years of panic about his clothes and in order to break the established pattern not only in his clothes, in every area of his life, he’ll be good to break the habit about his clothes. You’re probably are going to have to do something not fun and radical. What do you think about telling him the story about our missionaries?
Michael: Yes, tell them about Dwayne then, do you want to do that?
Debi: I’ll let you.
Michael: We have a missionary, Dwayne Noel, on the field and he’s got several small children. He’s got a little boy, and what is he? About five...?
Debi: Yes.
Michael: A little girl about three, maybe, and then, they got a new one that was just born.
Debi: And a seven‑year‑old.
Michael: And a seven‑year‑old. When they were around the house here a lot, before they went to Papua New Guinea, we noticed that the little fellas were always dressed just perfectly neat. They’d have on a little pair of cowboy boots, and a little pair of overalls or a shirt neatly tucked in with their belt and quite often they’d wear a little hat. The daddy was like that way too. His overalls were always clean and pressed and his shirt was neat and he had on his boots and they were usually polished and they were just Texans, extremely neat, extremely organized and very careful. Dwayne said that one of the things that was difficult when they first got to Papua New Guinea on a top of a mountain at about seven thousand feet, where it was a tropical rain forest, it rains over a couple hundred inches a year, and there’s mud on the ground all the time. It’s not rocky or gravely it’s just clay mud and you slosh and you drag and you suck through the mud and the people in the village of course never take baths or almost never, and so they’re dirty and they’re smelly. They live in a bamboo hut so it’s not like you had carpet, no indoor shower or anything like that.
When they first got there, it was such a shock to the little five‑year‑olds system that he withdrew, wouldn’t come out and wouldn’t play with the others. Then when he finally, after a few days, began to make his way out, he was very uncomfortable in the dirty environment but Dwayne said after a month or so that, that was broken in him and that they were all dirty and they were all grimy and they were all enjoying it and getting along just fine. They’d adjusted.
But basically, you had the same situation there, a child that was just really given over to neatness and cleanliness and organization, nothing wrong with that, but when life becomes miserable, unless you maintain that then that’s a pretty selfish, self‑centered attitude. Even though it’s self‑centeredness about being clean, it’s nonetheless, the whole world stops until I’m organized. The whole world stops until I’m clean. The whole world stops and everyone pays attention and they listen to my concerns.
It’s a selfish self‑centered point of view that needs to be broken and just getting out there and being deprived of the ability to be organized, be clean, be neat. It finally broke that habit for Dwayne’s kids.
Debi: It was a lack of reality in their life, the lack of actually living that caused that to be in that child. For your child, where it says that he whines every morning because his collar’s too tight and the pants are crooked and his socks are twisted, I would suggest you go to the mountains of Papua New Guinea and let him play in the dirt with the village people so he can learn what life really is. If you can’t do that, I would suggest another thing. I would suggest that you go out to a junk store or somewhere and buy five pair of sweatpants that are all blue, and five tee‑shirts. If it’s the wintertime, buy long‑sleeved tee‑shirts that are all blue. Or buy him two pair of overalls and five tee‑shirts. Buy socks all the same color and one pair of play shoes. Then pack up everything else up that he has away, including his dress‑up clothes for his going to meeting.
Then you tell him, “We’re going to learn to be thankful for what we have. You’re three years old now and you can dress yourself.” From this point on, he dresses himself. He takes care of putting on his socks and whatever he has, putting on his shoes. Get shoes that he can put on himself with Velcro or something. He can just push them into place so he can be his sole caretaker in dressing.
Also, get the little fellow where when he gets through taking his clothes off in the evening and puts on his PJs, you need to have real plain PJs for him to put on, that he goes and puts his dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. When the clothes come out of the dryer or off the line, he’s the one that folds them and keeps them put in his drawer. He takes care of everything that belongs to him.
When he complains that his sock is crooked or his shirt is crooked and he’s just still terribly unhappy, then walk in his room and strip him down to his underwear and tell him he can wear his underwear for the next 10 minutes until he’s ready to get dressed again.
Be smiling. Be happy. This is fun. Your son is learning something very important. He’s learning to be thankful. Then, look at the clock and tell him when the time is going to come around. He’ll learn to tell time as well.
When his time’s over, then say, “Here’s your clothes.” Put them in a pile so they’re not neatly folded when he gets ready to put them on. Then let him put his clothes back on. If he whines again, even a tiny little whine, strip him down again and say, “Ten more minutes, boy. You’re going to spend your whole day in your underwear if you don’t learn to be happy and thankful.” Let him go again.
The cycle that he has established for the last three years needs to be broken. Since you can’t go to the mountains of Papua New Guinea, you’re going to have to do it at home and be a little radical. After a few days, he’s going to learn that he’s going to need to be satisfied with what he’s wearing or he’s not going to get to wear a whole lot.
Also, you need to get that boy outside and let him get in the dirt. Let him roll in the grass. If he’s not inclined toward that end, then you help him be inclined.
Michael: Children whine because it works. That’s the only reason. It doesn’t have to work every time. If it works one time out of 10, they’ll keep whining, expecting the wheel to come around and allow them that opening when they get their way. You said here in your letter that, “Every time we hear him whine, we spank him throughout the day.” Spanking is not our only tool. Spanking is a last resort. Spanking itself is insufficient to train a child, especially a three‑year‑old child.
You need to think more in terms of arranging circumstances that mold his behavior, as Deb has given you a sample here, rather than just trying to cause through fear of pain or fear of chastisement, cause him to do the right thing. Often a child that young is incapable of reasoning and maintaining a continuity of thought long enough to think, “Well, if I whine, I’m going to get a spanking.”
But if you stop rewarding that whining, if you make it counter‑productive, then strictly from a viewpoint of selfishness, the child is going to stop whining because it’s a useless endeavor. It just doesn’t work. So arrange the circumstances to eliminate the effectiveness of the whining and the whining will go away.
In our second book, called No Greater Joy, Volume 1, there are several articles in there on whining. We discussed it rather thoroughly. Those were articles that were written in our newsletter the first year and a half of publication. Many times we received letters. In seminars, we have people ask questions about this thing of whining. Get that book and read those articles.
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Voiceover: We’ll be back next week with answers for this parent about selfishness. Don’t forget to visit Cane Creek Corner for those great specials.
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I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4
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My son seems to whine about every little thing. I also have tried spanking to no avail. Lately I have been trying to reason with him about his attitude, done my best to point out my own clumsyness and the appropriate reactions when things are less than perfect, but there is still something missing because it's not working real well. My plan for action is to take note of the particular kinds of things that he whines and cries about and try to apply the principles stated this article.I'm so thankful for your ministry!