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Overly Indulgent Parents
By Beth Rogers-Doll, Ph.D
Quote of the Month:
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.
Abigail Van Buren
Parent-training experts say that business is booming these days. Parents are often sadly permissive with rules and overindulgent of their children’s whims. Many parents lack “the stomach” to watch their children cry, see their children become angry with them or hear their children complain about the unhappiness of the moment.
It is as if parents fear the negative feelings of their children and as if parents fear that they are being poor parents to displease a naturally ignorant and pleasure-seeking child. And yet, a child must learn to tolerate disappointment, frustration, the difficulty of sharing when it is hard to do so, and the shame of being punished for legitimate wrongdoing. These painful experiences are vital to becoming a warm, empathetic, selfless, hardworking and achieving citizen.
When parents fail to discipline their children, the future can look like this:
- Quest for Adoration: The spoiled child will grow to be the demanding adult, constantly searching for the center of all attention. In the quest to be the center, this adult will fail to genuinely learn from others.
- Bad Marriage: This selfish adult may not learn how to meet the genuine emotional needs of other adults and children. When this selfish adult winds up in divorce court, it will be a tragedy that he or she lacked the skills to love another intimately and thought the other person was wrong for asking.
- Underemployed: This undisciplined child will grow to be a lazy, entitled adult, littering the workplace with unreasonable expectatations of employer appreciation and a history of poor work performance. All of this translates into poor career attainment and income.
- Temperamental: This angry child with too few consequences, groundings and rules, may grow to be a hostile and rude adult, creating scenes in social settings and even going so far as to verbally abuse or physically abuse others.
- Addictive potential: This child who knows little pride in hard work may value the party life too much and develop various addictions.
- Poor Aid to the Aging: This adult may not be as caring or loving to parents in the elderly years, shoving them onto the shoulders of other conscientious adults.
Okay, I’ll end this harsh and chilling story. I won’t even talk about materialism. However, if there were time to change the “ghost of Christmas Future”, would those parents develop the “stomach” to bear a child’s tears when “no” is said to candy before dinner or in the checkout line, when a reasonable bedtime is demanded and the endless pursuit of video-gaming and cell-phone-texting pleasure is ceased? Would those parents drag their exhausted selves to the forefront of a child’s character development to force him or her to work at chores, volunteer to help others in need and learn to recognize the unspoken pain of others?
Here are a few suggestions for avoiding raising a spoiled child:
- At a young age, have your child help you and others at even small tasks. Lather your child with praise. This begins to instill work ethic. Comment on how good you feel when you complete hard tasks. Reward yourself and your child when you both complete tasks
- Do NOT put your child first at everything. Ask your child to wait at times, to sacrifice for you and others sometimes
- Avoid giving your child his or her way all the time. Say “no” to unreasonable requests
- Punish your child when he or she is cruel to others. Make your child apologize. Make yourself apologize when YOU are rude!!
- Punish your child when he or she breaks your rules. Don’t just point out an infraction. Give a consequence
- Do not shower your child with material things. Shower your child with one-on-one time
- Teach manners and respect for adults. Use manners when you talk with your child. “Please” and “thank you” for every request!
- Don’t assume that teens don’t need a parent. They need you at every age
- Be a kind wife or husband if you would like to teach your child how to love other people
- In everything you do, try to avoid yelling
- Help your child to get good sleep. A crabby child cannot help but misbehave
If you are occasionally too indulgent with your children, this article is not really for you. If you are finding that your child consistently demands having his or her way and creates a crisis when that does not happen, it may be a good idea to examine your parenting.
If your child cannot seem to get along or share with other children, this can be normal for elementary kids; however, if it occurs consistently, your child may need to learn to be happy without getting his or her way. You can point out how much fun your child has with other kids, even when it is not “going his way”.
Keep in mind that when you get tougher with a spoiled child, life will get worse before it gets better. Your child will naturally test you limits. Get a good book that offers concrete suggestions for dealing with children’s meltdowns.
Recommended ReadingsHow Much Is Enough? Everything you need to know to steer clear of overindulgence and raise likeable, responsible and respectful children By Jean Illsley Clark, Connie Dawson and Dave Bredehoft, 2003.
No: Why Kids—of All Ages—Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It by David Wlash, 2007
Spoiled Rotten:Today’s Children and How to Change Them by Fred Gosman, 1993.
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