Gratitude & Kindness (6 page)

Points to Remember, Actions to Take

• Key 1: Misguided Efforts:
  A misguided effort is an attempt to make your child’s life easier or better by, for example, allowing them to do or have things simply because you were not allowed to have them when growing up. Remember how children learn? They learn by watching you, not with words. That means every time you reward them (even when you do not think you are), they think they are acting in the correct way.
  
• Key 2: Haves Vs. Have Nots:
  The rule is that ANY parent ANYWHERE can spoil their child. Just because you do not hear the terms “spoiled little middle-class kid” or, “spoiled little under-privileged kid”, it doesn’t mean they can’t be spoiled. It just means they cannot be given as expensive, or as many, advantages as those in higher income households.
  
• Key 3: Needs:
  When our child’s needs are constantly met,
  they are never allowed to need something—really need something— and to experience what it feels like to go without, even for a small period. This impedes their emotional development, as they never learn to cope with going without, or to generate their own solutions to meet their needs.
  
• Key 4: Praise:
  Parents love to praise their children—we are told that it is an essential part of support, love, and being a good parent. But many parents over praise. Misguided praise comes in a variety
  of different forms.
  
• Key 5: Modeling:
  One of the reasons a child develops entitlement is because they have modeled their behavior on that of their parents’. Be careful of the behaviors you allow your child to view.
  
• Key 6: YOU are responsible:
  The truth is that YOU and I are the most likely cause of our child’s entitlement issues. That is the truth, but it is not the end. We can always change our children’s behavior by adapting our own. It is never too late to stop, learn,
  and try something different.
  

  Gratitude Action
  Create a list of your different family currencies to increase understanding, empathy, and gratitude in your home.
  

4

The Spoiled Child Syndrome: It is not the Child’s Fault!

“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude.”

[Brene brown]

Pediatrician Bruce McIntosh coined the term “spoiled child syndrome.” He viewed the term as poorly defined and derogatory, but avoiding the use of the expression “spoiled” can make it difficult when addressing parents’ concerns about their child’s behavior. Spoiling your child is not simply about overindulging them. In fact, McIntosh defined spoiled child syndrome
21
as characterized by excessive self-centered and immature behavior, resulting from the failure of parents to enforce consistent, age-appropriate limits.

We are seeing more permissive-indulgent parenting today than in the last two decades. We have found when working with parents in our psychology practice that they typically vacillate between a
boss-like parenting style
and a
buddy-like
parenting style.

These two styles of parenting are opposites.
Because I said so
parenting is more autocratic: “I’m the boss…children should be seen, not heard.” Many parents that we have spoken to consistently reported that this was the parenting style their parents used when they were growing up. Parents described feeling devalued, controlled, and disrespected; and their parents’ love
felt conditional. The parents we work with consistently say, “I don’t want to parent my child the way our parents parented us.” So it is not shocking to see parents swing the other way towards a
buddy-like
style of parenting. These parents are very communicative and highly responsive to their child’s individual needs and do not enforce many expectations or rules.

What we are shooting for is something in between:
fair-and-square
parenting. It is the style most likely to produce well-adjusted children. The parents serve as teacher or facilitator, with clear expectations and rules, working with the child to meet and follow them. Parenting decisions are based on mutually respectful forms of communication and limit-setting. This tends to have a win–win outcome: parents are able to set limits, and children experience a cooperative, supportive, and respectful interaction. It does take some work to get to this place, for sure, but it is worth it.

Notes from the Real Parenting Lab on
Spoiled Children

We have found in our research, that often it is kind and well-intentioned parents that are unknowingly giving their children power that they cannot handle, even though the children think they can.

This will sound–all too familiar to those parents that just want to see their child happy. Here is an example from one of our parenting groups:

Shannon is a single parent in her mid-30s. She has a seven-year-old daughter.

Shannon:
“What do you want to wear to school today?”

Daughter:
“My yellow t-shirt and red shorts.”

Shannon:
“It’s too chilly to wear shorts today.”

Daughter:
“I WANT to wear my SHORTS to school!”

Shannon backs off as her daughter’s behavior and voice escalate. Shannon agrees to let her daughter wear shorts, even after she shared her concerns. On their way to school, her daughter says, “I’m too cold. This isn’t a good idea. I want to go back home and get changed.” Shannon is worried that her daughter is going to be too cold, so she turns the car around and takes her home to get changed.

What would you have done in this situation? Some of you may have made the same choices as Shannon. We find parents are also faced with a similar struggle when it comes to mealtimes: The child says what they want for dinner, and after it is made, they change their minds and then the parent will prepare them another meal option.

In both of these situations, the child is in control. Failure to provide age-appropriate limits will encourage acting-out behaviors. For instance, you will notice your child becoming easily frustrated when they cannot be the boss. This decreases your child’s ability to be resilient in the face of challenge.

The risk of not setting limits with your child and facilitating spoiled-like behavior is very high. You may end up with emotional and behavioral problems in your child, such as oppositional behaviors, lying, aggression and impulsiveness. At the most extreme this may lead to conduct problems (stealing, breaking the law), getting in trouble at school or in the community, and the risk of substance use.

Age-Appropriate Limits (some examples):

*With young children, the chores do not need to be done perfectly. Just having the child involved in any way with contributing to the household helps them know they can have an important impact, and that their efforts are useful and valued. Even a two-year-old can bring one plastic cup out of the dishwasher as their chore.

We are not trying to cause undue parenting guilt or pandemonium here, but truly every parenting action (whether well-intentioned or not) that we apply when our children are even as young as one to two-years-of -age DOES affect:

• How capable they are.
  
• How motivated they are.
  
• How responsible they are.
  
• How trustworthy they are.
  
• How kind they are.
  

It also affects every other desirable or non-desirable characteristic about them when they are 12 years old, 22 years old, and beyond.

TIP 1 Spoil-Proofing Your Child
Each time you find yourself thinking or saying to your spouse,
“We should deal with Junior’s behavior / attitude before he’s a teenager,”
that is an immediate signal to you to take action to deal with it NOW!

I’
m SO Embarrassed By My Child’s Tantrums

In the last decade, we have not met a parent who is not fully aware of the importance of consistency, structure, and limit setting. Parents do not need a PhD in parenting to figure this out.

However, even if you really are a rock star of a parent, it is hard to consistently have the stamina to go head-to-head with your child and assert your authority. Instead, parents will often spend valuable time
and energy pleading, bargaining and, ultimately, giving in to their child.

Avoiding a scene in public is something that most parents try their hardest to do. Parents can be fearful of saying “no”, especially in public. This fear and avoidance will create a situation where your child will learn that they are in control and you cannot handle them. (Eventually, they will believe this lack of control is true of all adults). The child concludes: “I can do as I please and demand to have my needs met at any given time.”

• Setting limits differently in public opens a gap in our consistency. Children will find any opportunity they can to hone in on our weak spots in parenting—when we are on the phone, when we have a friend over, when we are out for dinner, etc. These are the moments we must put in extra effort to fill any gaps in our consistency.
  

Tantrum Tips

In very young children, consider these tantrum facts:

• Tantrums appear around two or three and tend to vanish at four. There is a difference between a two- or three-year-old having a normal tantrum, and a five-year-old throwing a tantrum because she wants something you are not giving her.
  
• Parental response is critical during this time. You need to calm yourself, state clear rules, learn to vocally appreciate appropriate behavior, and teach empathy to the child when teaching opportunities arise.
  
• Giving in to the tantrum is the worst thing you can do. It will simply increase the frequency and severity of the tantrums the next time. These can be mild or shocking, depending on the child.
  

Interestingly, many tantrums are directed towards an individual parent, proving that they are responding in an emotionally destructive way to get what they want with that individual.

TIP 2 Spoil-Proofing Your Child
The next time your child begs for candy and you find yourself thinking that it is simply easier to give in than to hear the complaints and arguing, try saying “NO!” It may be exhausting and overwhelming and your child may be mad, but it will all make sense as you read what we have to say below.

Ca
n Tantrums Be a Good Thing?

We have already established that in some cases, parents find giving in to their child’s behavior is worth avoiding the embarrassment of a tantrum and/or the fear of losing their child’s affection. What if we told you that tantrums are not so bad after all? Is it possible that your child’s tantrums could mean what you are doing as a parent is ACTUALLY working?

Be prepared: should you decide to change your parenting approach from inconsistently reinforcing your child’s misbehavior, you will
need to power up your courage and dig in so you can deal with what comes next.

We are preparing you because, unless you are a behavioral psychologist, you may not fully grasp what is going to happen. We are sure you have all heard that it gets worse before it gets better, and in behavoural psychology, that process is called an “extinction burst.”

Extinction not only applies to the poor dodo bird, it can also apply to human behavior. Extinction occurs when behavior that is typically reinforced or rewarded no longer receives rewards or reinforcement. This means that the undesirable behavior or target behavior will stop, or is extinguished.

What does this have to do with my child’s misbehavior? Well, let us assume your child’s reinforcements are co-sleeping, getting your attention (in a disruptive manner), or ice cream for breakfast. You have decided that you want this to stop. They are to move out of your bed, quit the attention-seeking behavior, and a healthy breakfast is a priority. This is where the mental control of the
ninja parent
is required—armor up and dig in! Up until now your child has been persistent in his/ her attempts to get these things from you. Your child has had more practice at winning the battle, and the new reality, or
extinction burst,
will result in them displaying more of the undesirable behavior you want to prevent. This escalation in behavior is happening because you have stopped reinforcing your child. Do not let your child beat you down.

When parents come to us and they have witnessed firsthand the extinction burst, they will say, “Dr. F, your suggestions are not working. In fact, my child’s behavior is WORSE.”

What parents are witnessing is:

• Their child’s behavior gets LOUDER and MORE persistent.
  
• Their child will work harder at pursuing them in order to break them down.
  

If you remain courageous and consistent and dig in, your child will learn their poor behavior will no longer be rewarded. If you break down and reinforce your child’s behavior during the extinction burst, the message you will be sending your child is,“I just have to get louder and push harder and my parent will back down, and then I will continue to get what I want”.

The behavioral science behind extinction has been proven, both in the labs and real-life settings. When parents come to us and let us know that setting limits with their child to eliminate target behaviors does not work for them, what they are really telling us is that they were not ready to deal with the extinction burst and their child has broken them down. They eventually reinforced the undesirable behavior by giving in. We understand that it is easier in the short term to stop the pestering and the tantrums by reverting back to reinforcing the inappropriate behavior. However, understand: you will be battling these behaviors long term.
It is so important to stay the course and resist your child a bit longer.
We assure you the extinction burst will end. We have science to back
this up.
22
,
23

Tip 3 SPOIL-PROOFING YOUR CHILD
Before changing your parenting style, make sure you are ready to walk your talk. Ninja parents, you will need to equip yourselves with the ENERGY, PATIENCE, and STRENGTH to make it through the extinction burst. You can do it!