Here is a question for you: What is the difference between entitled and spoiled? And who usually causes someone to feel and act entitled?
Usually, when I write an article I get the benefit of feeling a completion of the subject, at least for 6 months or so at which time I might sense that the subject needs to be revisited. This time, however, I am still stuck on not only the comments that were in the article I referred to in my last posting but on the whole idea of sharing. Here is the main comment in that article that has me all fired up. ‘ the other mother told her son, “I guess his mom didn’t teach him how to share.”
I will keep this article short because in truth there is really only one thing I have to say about this. This concept of a parent thinking they have the right to expect another child to give up anything for their child is ridiculous!
If you read my article from last week (click here to read it) you will see I believe in sharing. There’s a time and a place to teach this lesson. We, as the parents have to decide when sharing is appropriate and when they have a right to stand their ground on this subject. Both lessons are very good ones our children should learn. It is our job to teach our children when it is appropriate and when it is not.
Another parent has no right to insist or even suggest that another child should give up something they have for the benefit of any other child. In truth, this annoys me more than a child being rude or throwing a fit because they don’t get what they wanted. What this breeds is a child who feels entitled, who thinks they deserve more than someone else, who thinks others are there to make his life better in any way he deems fit. Not a great thing to teach anyone, especially our children. As you can tell I am still extremely ticked. I hear comments continually about how our children are becoming the ‘me generation’ or the ‘entitled generation’. We know that if we allow our children to be so focused on themselves that we have caused them a big disadvantage in life because the real world out there is not going to care about what they want.
The real world will tell them to work hard if they want something and that they can’t expect anything to be handed to them just because they wanted it. So what makes us think that expecting another child to share with our children just because our child wants it is a smart parenting strategy. Our job as parents is to make our children, healthy, happy well-adjusted, productive adults. If we think other children should bend over for our child’s happiness we are totally missing the point of parenting.
So I would love to hear from all of you, what do you think? Do you think we should insist our kids share? What would you do if you heard this comment from another parent regarding your child’s actions? What can we do as parents to try to instill in our children that the universe doesn’t revolve around them?