Are you raising an entitled child? I asked myself this question, and the first answer that comes to mind is NO!!!
I come from a family of five (three sisters, mom and dad), my father worked two jobs all my life up until he was diagnosed with Leukemia and passed away. My dad’s sole purpose for working two jobs was for my mother to be home with my sisters and I after school. We didn’t grow up financially strapped, it was a tight ship that my parents ran. We lived paycheck to paycheck, and there wasn’t a lot of money left over to spoil us with either. We received the necessities that we needed, and if there was money left over to spend…. then we may have gotten some pleasure from that.
Growing up my sisters and I knew that we had to earn any sort of rewards that was given to us by our parents. We knew that in our house there wasn’t any demanding from us the children to our parents. We grew up disciplined. We knew that there would be consequences for any bad behavior. We never got rewarded for bad behavior!! This the same philosophy that my husband and I chose to use when we started our family. I think today the sense of disciplining your children has changed. Let me first start off by saying every parent may choose to discipline their children different. I know some people who don’t chose to discipline their children at all, and that’s okay too, this may work for them.
But let’s ask ourselves the question at hand, are you raising an Entitled Child? First let’s define what it means to be an entitled child is. If your child shows signs of not accepting blame when they’ve done wrong, expects you as the parent to save them when they mess up, never helps with anything, expects things to be given to them because they demand it (acts out when it’s not given), and displays signs of being selfish, then I would consider this as signs of entitlement. Let’s be realistic here, I just described a toddler, this type of behavior becomes of concern when your child is older. Children don’t just learn to behave like this, it starts with us as the parents.
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We must let our children own their mistakes and work through solving them. We must let them deal with the repercussions and consequences when they mess up, we can’t just make it disappear for them. If we do this it only sets them up to have this false sense of belief in life as an adult that things will be handed to them because they demand it, or there are no consequences in life if you are at fault.
My husband is the son of a retired police officer, because of the way he was raised we have taught all three of our kids but have ingrained in both of our son’s that nothing will be given to you because you asked for it. We’ve taught them that because you are black (men), consequences in life will be worse because of the color of your skin. My oldest is going off to college in the fall, and we’ve had long talks with him that nothing in life is going to come easy for you, you have to work ten times harder because of the color of your skin, because you are black man.
It’s unfortunate that we still live in a society that gives you a sense of entitlement because of the color of your skin, but it’s true……. it’s our truth. This will only set my children up to be better humans in life. They will understand that nothing in life is handed to them because they demanded it, refused to take no for an answer, or had no regard for the next person. They understand when to accept fault when they are wrong, accept the consequences, and learn from that situation. First you must ask yourself what kind of child you are raising and are you happy with what kind of human they are growing up to be.
