Are Our Children Spoilded?

SELENA ASKINS

Are Today’s Kids Spoiled? By Selena Haskins

Are today’s kids spoiled? According to Debate.Org, 75 percent of the people voted Yes! I also conducted a poll on Facebook and 98 percent of my 8,000 followers said Yes!

Agung Pandit

Why are children so spoiled today? There are several reasons that could contribute to children being spoiled, but let’s address three of the main factors—economics, education, and alternative parenting methods.

Photo Credits: Agung Pandit

After the 21st century, the U.S. economy grew after struggling to regroup from battling two world wars. The U.S. Embassy stated, “the U.S. had a period of economic calm in the 1990s: prices were stable, unemployment dropped to its lowest level in almost 30 years…” According to the Census, the average median household income in the U.S. increased from $47,839 in 1990 to $57, 617 in 2016.

No doubt that this tremendous increase in economic growth was due to inflation. However, it was also the result of family heads working longer work hours to provide professional services or services for goods to help grow the economy. With longer work hours, even today, parents

have little time for their children. Studies show that workaholic parents are more likely to overcompensate for their absence.

The New Yorker stated, “contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff—clothes, toys, cameras, skis, computers, televisions, cell phones, PlayStations, iPods….they’ve also been granted unprecedented authority.” Kids without active parents in their lives become their own boss, defiant, and rebellious to rules.

This trend not only applies to households who may have money, but also to families with little means. The paradox is, poorer families give their children their last and expect them to fit in with their peers and rich families give their children everything and expect them to be modest. By the time the children become teens, they have already been predisposed with a sense of entitlement.

The Christian Post stated: “a growing number of students enter college with a sense of entitlement. This mentality is part of a growing movement within our culture. A movement that believes access to benefits, institutions, and the like is more akin to a right than a privilege.” Studies have shown that rich privileged teens entering college have poor grades, but expect to attend ivy league schools because their parents did, according to Inside Higher Ed. No doubt, upbringing plays a part in children’s viewpoint of self-entitlement. Has alternative parenting helped?

When all else fails, some parents have allowed video games or other devices to take place of their parenting and spending quality time with their children. The results? Psychologytoday.com states: “Children or teen are “revved up” and prone to rages” from playing videogames. Other parents who have been poorly disciplined themselves will likely allow their children to rule themselves. The results of a lack of proper parenting, neglect, and giving children anything they want has been the root cause for children being spoiled and undisciplined today.

Additionally, society as well as psychologists have made alternative recommendations that have failed some parents, because not every method can be applied to every child. For parents who actually do try and discipline their children the right way, laws have been created to favor the child over corrective and appropriate discipline. On the one hand, the laws may protect the child from abuse, but on the other hand, it could excuse the child too much from bad behaviors.

So, what can you do? Here are some suggestions….

1. Get to know your child. Don’t allow work or anything else to crowd out quality time. 2. Set limits. Just because you can afford to buy your child whatever he/she wants, does not mean that you should. 3. Give them responsibilities. Allow your child to see the value of hard work by giving them chores according to their age and rewarding them small gifts at first.

4. Teach them kindness. Help your child to learn to share at an early age. This will help them to be unselfish.

5. Let your “NO” mean no. Let them cry. Let them pout. Let them complain, but don’t you change by giving into their every whim.

6. Stop Self-Importance. Teach them that good self-esteem is not an arrogant sense of entitlement. It’s a belief in one self that breeds confidence, not cockiness.

Yes, most children are spoiled today, and if your child is spoiled, it’s not too late to break the habit now!

-Author Selena Haskinswww.booksbyselena.com