In this article, contributing author Edie Weinstein comments on the extent to which our children are listening to what we say and watching what we do, and she urges parents to take advantage of teachable moments.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings was: “Little pitchers have big ears.” It meant that my sister and I heard more than she thought we might have, so she encouraged my father to be circumspect about what he said within our earshot.

I just discovered:

One of the first written records we have of it is found in the fifth chapter of part two of John Heywood’s Proverbs (1546 C.E.): ‘Auoyd your children: smal pitchers haue wyde eares.’ We also see it used in Shakespeare’s Richard III about half a century later.