For the longest time, you just sound like a broken record, but

Hear these words of Heidi Klum: “For the longest time, you just sound like a broken record, but you have to be consistent when teaching kids.” At first, they may sound simple, even weary, the confession of a parent repeating lessons to unhearing ears. Yet within this statement lies a truth as old as humanity itself — that the shaping of young souls requires patience, repetition, and an unshaken consistency. The ancients would have named this discipline a virtue, for the one who instructs the young does not sow seeds upon fertile ground alone, but upon stony soil that demands persistence before it yields.

To sound like a broken record is to speak the same truths again and again, even when they seem to fall like raindrops upon stone. The impatient heart longs for quick fruit, but the wise understand that children learn not only from words, but from the steady rhythm of repetition. Just as water shapes valleys not through one mighty torrent but through countless steady drops, so too are children shaped by the repeated reminders, the steadfast example, and the unwavering presence of their guides.

Consider the example of Thomas Edison, who, as a child, was labeled “difficult” and dismissed by teachers. Yet his mother refused to relent. Again and again, she told him he was capable, intelligent, destined for great things. Her words, repeated endlessly like that broken record, became the foundation of his self-belief. Without her consistency, perhaps the world would never have known the inventor of the light bulb. Her persistence is proof that repetition is not futility — it is the slow carving of destiny.

The ancients also knew this truth. In the schools of Greece, young boys learned their letters by chanting them daily, until the sound of the alphabet was etched into their very breath. In India, the Vedic chants were memorized by students who repeated them thousands of times, until the sacred verses became inseparable from their being. What may seem monotonous to the ear is, in truth, the training of the spirit. Consistency in teaching is the bridge from ignorance to mastery.

Yet the burden is heavy upon the teacher or parent, who may grow weary, thinking, “Have I not said this before? Have they not heard me a hundred times?” To such a soul, Klum’s words are balm: yes, you sound like a broken record, but this is the way. Children will resist, forget, wander, and stumble, but it is the unwavering consistency that draws them back to the path. To grow frustrated and abandon the effort is to let the tender vine grow wild, untrained and untended.

Let the lesson be this: if you would shape the young — whether your own children, your students, or even those you mentor — be steadfast in word and in deed. Say the truth again. Show the example again. Set the boundary again. Do not waver when the fruit seems slow to appear, for growth is often hidden beneath the soil until suddenly it springs forth. As the farmer trusts the season and continues to water, so too must you trust the process and continue to teach.

The action required is plain: choose the values you wish to instill — kindness, honesty, perseverance — and live them with consistency. Repeat them with patience, even when your voice grows tired. Celebrate the small moments when the lesson takes root, and forgive the moments when it seems forgotten. For every repetition is not wasted; it is another stroke upon the stone, another drop of water carving a canyon of character.

And so, let us embrace the role of the broken record, not as a sign of futility, but as a badge of devotion. For the child who hears the same truth a hundred times may one day, in the hundred and first, awaken to its meaning. The world is not changed by a single speech, but by the steady song of truth sung into the hearts of the young, until at last they carry the melody themselves.