10 Sure Ways to Raise a Spoiled Child

I admit that my children live a very charmed life. Their Dad is a successful dentist which has provided them with all of their needs, some of their wants, and a multitude of opportunity. Because of this, I have always been very cognizant of the temptation to spoil them.  I have tried VERY very hard to make them work for things they desire, and also to allow them to work simply because they are a member of the family without monetary compensation. They have never received an allowance for their chores, but are required to do household jobs up and beyond the regular ones to earn money towards things they want.  Every family trip we have taken, we have required them to save up and contribute to paying their way.  If there is anything I am razor consistent in and deliberate in teaching, it is hard work and a sense of gratitude for what they have.  Still, with all of this desire and forethought on my part to rear "non-spoiled" children, I still remain hypersensitive to them becoming inadvertently spoiled and entitled.  I found this article recently to be an accurate gauge of everything NOT to do.  What I realized in reading about this topic is that spoiling a child has much more to do with failing to teach them discipline, a work ethic, and respect for others versus just simply having been raised in a home with money.  I don't think that money and opportunity, in and of themselves, result in entitled and spoiled children.  In fact, I have known several children with very spoiled and entitled attitudes that have been raised in somewhat poor circumstances.  A lot of the very poorest in our American society possess an acutely entitled attitude towards government handouts which again represents that even when having only the basics to sustain oneself, without the requirement of having to earn it, spoiled attitudes can result.

 
10 Ways to Raise a Spoiled Child

When you picture a spoiled child, you may think of a kid with a house full of extravagant toys. But child discipline experts say it's behaviors — not possessions — that define the spoiled child.

“A spoiled child is one who’s demanding, self-centered, and unreasonable,” says Harvey Karp, MD. “There is a seed of discontent that you sow when you allow a child to be spoiled,” he says. “They’ve used so much manipulation to get what they want, they don’t know when someone is genuinely giving to them.”

1. Making Your Child the Center of the World

Making your child’s wishes the top priority in every circumstance teaches her that the world revolves around her. This could prevent her from learning to consider other people’s needs and desires, says Susan Buttross, MD, chief of the Division of Child Development and Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. “Children need to understand give and take,” she tells WebMD. “When take is the only function they know, they tend to be frustrated.”

2. Ignoring Positive Behavior

Today’s busy parents may not notice when children play quietly or stay out of trouble. If you never let them know when you are pleased, Karp says, you miss the opportunity to reinforce positive behavior.

3. Accidently Rewarding Negative Behavior

Karp tells WebMD many parents make the mistake of simultaneously ignoring the positive and rewarding the negative. If you only notice your kids when they whine and cry, you send the message that tantrums and tears are the best way to get your attention.

4. Failing to put Clear Limits on Your Child’s Behavior

If you don’t set and enforce guidelines for good behavior, Buttross says, you’re likely to raise a child who is rude, uncooperative, and disrespectful. Karp adds that young kids are uncivilized by nature — part of your job as a parent is to teach social virtues, such as patience and respect.

5. Not Enforcing Rules Consistently

While some parents fail to set limits, others set “mushy or inconsistent” ones, Karp says. This occurs when you tell your kids, “Don’t do that,” but allow them to do it anyway.  If you don’t enforce rules consistently, you give your child the message that they’re really not that important. And of course what you really want to teach your child is the opposite.

6. Picking Fights You Can’t Win

“You can win the battle of not giving your child candy,” Karp says, so no-candy rules are worth upholding. But there are many other standards that are much harder to enforce — such as making your child eat broccoli. “They can close their mouths or spit it out,” Karp points out. In cases like this, you are destined to lose the battle before it begins. And unfortunately, the consequences of this loss go far beyond wasted broccoli — picking fights you can’t win proves to your kids that they can defy you and get away with it.

7. Not Holding Your Child Accountable

Refusing to hold your child accountable when he does something wrong sends the message that he never makes a mistake, Buttross says. This teaches your child to blame others whenever problems arise. Instead, teach your child the importance of taking responsibility for his own actions and then use firm boundaries to make sure he does so.

8. Giving Your Child Gifts for the Wrong Reasons

What you buy your children is not as important as why, Peters tells WebMD. She cautions against making “unreasonable” purchases, such as buying your child a new bike because she is bored with the one you bought her a few months ago.

Another common mistake is buying out of guilt, Karp says. When a child makes a pitiful face or says, “You’re the worst mother in the world,” this is not the time to buy a gift. Allowing yourself to be manipulated won’t do your kid any favors. She may get what she wants, but her joy will be diminished in knowing that you bought the gift because she goaded you into it.

9. Giving in to Temper Tantrums

Relenting when your child throws a temper tantrum is an extreme form of rewarding negative behavior. It proves to kids that they can get whatever they want by throwing a fit — which is not how things work in the real world.

10. Acting Like a Spoiled Child Yourself

How you interact with your family serves as a model for how your children will behave with others, Karp says. “If you whine and complain in front of [your kids], they will emulate that.” He says the proverb has it right — “They do what you do, not what you say.”

Here are a couple of other quotes I found that I liked on the subject:

--"Spoiled" has more to do with a bad attitude than with privilege and wealth (of stuff, or of attention, or of money). Selfishness and casual cruelty and thoughtlessness are the marks of being spoiled, whether a child has stuff or not. When a poor child is that way, people say "Well what do you really expect? Poor kid has nothing." When a rich child is that way, they say "OH, it's directly attributable to all that STUFF he has."

--“Probably one of the greatest disadvantages that spoiled children face is the fact that they have not learned to work for something that they really want,” Buttross tells WebMD. “There is no work ethic, no lesson to really strive for something.”

--Since spoiled people get what they want through manipulation, they develop “a dysfunctional way of relating to people,” Karp says.

Maintaining a consistent and effective approach to child discipline isn’t easy, but it bestows lifelong benefits. “You raise a child who is loving and self-loving, who empathizes with others, who is honest and not manipulative,” Karp says. “You teach them how to pick their friends and their spouses, because if they learn how respectful people communicate, they’ll look for that in their own relationships.”

--"Deprivation doesn't create appreciation. It creates some or all of desire, neediness, curiosity, fascination, resentment, obsession, anger…"

--Encourage delayed gratification.  Studies show that children and teens who learn to save in the short-term in order to meet a long-term goal tend to make smarter decisions throughout life and achieve higher levels of success and happiness. Impulse spending takes you down the opposite path.

All of this gives me hope that in spite of being raised in an environment of affluence and opportunity, my children still have an equal chance to anyone else's children of being thankful adults who are empathetic to other's needs, and who are capable of being hard workers.  I guess only time will tell whether I succeed in my desire to raise self-sufficient and un-entitled children.