Gratitude & Kindness (7 page)

Spoil-Proofing Your Child

With the upcoming arrival of the newest royal baby, sibling to Prince George of Cambridge, the question is raised, “How on earth do you spoil-proof a prince?” Well, the good news for Will and Kate is that it is possible. All the basic tenets on spoil-proofing your child are the same whether you are a prince or a commoner.

As we have mentioned, an overemphasis on trying to make your child happy all the time, and protecting them from disappointments, is one of the biggest parenting traps and usually results in short-term happiness and long-term problems.

Build your child’s coping resources.
Depriving children of the opportunity to build their own internal coping resources to deal with disappointments is not what any parent intentionally sets out to do. Until you become a parent, you do not realize the emotional impact that seeing your child distressed can have on you. It can be quite emotional and overwhelming, further complicated with anxiety over what the outside world’s perception is of your child as they tantrum, and the judgment you feel directed towards you.

It is important to overcome concern around external criticism, and remember what your purpose is as a parent. Ask yourself a simple question: “Who is it that I want my child to be in the world?”
Go back to Chapter 1 and review the Parenting Values Checklist (p.19).

• Are your values consistent with your parenting approach?
  
• Will you be able to accomplish the task of shaping your child’s life, values, and behavior, by your current parenting practices?
  

Accept disappointment.
Children need opportunities to learn to “do without” and to handle disappointment. Children will provide their parents with the opportunity to learn how to accept their child’s emotions, and see that crying and yelling are not harmful to their child. If we give in to everything our child wants, it creates an unrealistic expectation of how the world will treat them.

Society will not tend to their every need. Parents have an opportunity to help their child learn by adapting their child-rearing practices, trying the strategies in this book, and understanding the full impact of their parenting.

Setting limits and validating your child’s feelings.
Children are entitled to have their parents accept the full range of their emotions, from the feel-good-happiness, excitement, and enthusiasm-to the not-so-good-anger, frustration, and disgust. That’s not to say, when a child chooses to do or say destructive things in reaction to their emotions, that they are entitled to do so. A very angry adolescent is allowed to say, “I’m so stinking angry with you, Mom,” but is not entitled to throw a glass across the room and say “F#@% you, Mom.”

Your child is not that special after all.
We get it—all of us think our children are special. Have you asked yourself,
how
healthy is it for my child to feel special?

• Being
  special means that they are not like other children, which introduces the idea that they are privileged in some way.
  
• If your child sees himself as special because he has been told he is, then he may find adapting in social situations at school or, later, at work, challenging. The outside world is not going to view your child as special. This may be hard for them to deal with.
  
• When children feel special, they often do not recognize the difference between asking for and demanding what they want. A child who believes they are special will demand, not ask.
  
• Do not confuse what we are trying to say. Yes, all children are special. But to treat children in a way that “special” translates to privileged does not help your child. We want children to feel valued and self-confident. Giving them positive attention and encouragement is worthwhile, but avoid overdoing it with praise.
  

Spoil-Proofing Challenge

Choose an answer to this: Your child draws a picture. What should your response be?

1. “You are an amazing artist!”
   
2. “What do YOU think of your creation?”
   
3. “We should tell your teacher how advanced your drawing is.”
   
4. “It’s great watching you do something you enjoy.”
   

Answers 1 and 3 are overdoing praise. Answers 2 and 4 are positive attention and encouraging.

Give your child real responsibility.
We want to balance having too many expectations of our child with all the activities and schoolwork they are doing. However, protecting them from making a contribution at home and helping out, is not the path we want our children to be on. Helping our children gain a sense of accomplishment and competency in life instills a positive work ethic. It crushes privilege and entitlement, and it helps our children to solve their own problems, approaching life in a competent and self-sufficient manner.

Points to Remember, Actions to Take

• Key 1: It is not the child’s fault.
  Spoiled child syndrome is the excessive self-centered and immature behavior that results from the parents’ failure to enforce consistent, age-appropriate limits.
  
• Key 2: Set age-appropriate limits.
  Failure to provide age-appropriate limits will increase acting out behavior in your child. You will notice your child’s behavior becoming disruptive and challenging when they cannot be the boss. Please remember it is temporary. Over time they will realize that they cannot win against your parental authority if you do not give in.
  
• Key 3: There are risks to not setting limits.
  The behavior you are unhappy about at 12-years-old will continue to be undesirable when your child is 21-years-old. The unfavorable outcomes of not setting limits with your child include lying, aggression, impulsiveness, and conduct problems.
  
• Key 4: Tantrums are embarrassing.
  Even though your child’s tantrums are embarrassing, you must go head-to-head with them and assert your authority. Do not waste your time pleading, bargaining, and ultimately giving in: your child will see the gaps in your consistency and will push harder to have their demands met.
  
• Key 5: Tantrums can be good in the short term.
  When you stop rewarding your child’s disruptive or undesirable behavior, they will tell you they are not happy with you by demonstrating even MORE undesirable behavior. If you consistently stop rewarding the undesirable behavior, your child’s intense tantrums will decrease. Warning: tantrums will get worse when you first begin to change your parenting approach.
  
• Key 6: Spoil-proof your child.
  An over emphasis on trying to make your child happy all the time is a parenting trap that leads to spoiled child syndrome. Allow your child to build coping resources and accept disappointment while validating their feelings.
  
• Key 7: My child is special.
  If your child sees themselves as special, they may experience challenges adapting to social situations. If society does not view your child in the same way as you, it may be difficult for your child to deal with the real world.
  
• Key 8: Give your child responsibility.
  Real responsibility helps your child gain a sense of accomplishment and competency. It will crush privilege and entitlement. Your child will be better equipped to solve their own problems, and approach life in a self-sufficient manner.
  

5

What to Do About It

“You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

[Abraham Lincoln]

Parent
s tell us that today’s children have tons of material belongings, but do little to contribute around the house. They say the children assert that this is okay, normal in other homes and should be okay in their home. We’ve heard the term “Entitle-mania” batted around the community, and parents we work with say it is spreading like wildfire.

We know the problem exists, but now it is time to find practical solutions to challenge it. Society’s focus today is on:

• Avoidance of discomfort.
  
• Over emphasis on meeting your child’s needs (Helicopter Parenting).
  
• Working only if there is payoff for the individual (“What’s in it for me?”).
  

A cohesive family home, with children growing up resilient and filled with positive characteristics, is unlikely under these conditions.

We’d like to share reports from brave parents, willing to be open with us about their mistakes and challenges, as they seek a balance between caring, giving, and doing for their children. Then we will offer more hands-on, how tos.

Notes from the Real Parenting Lab:
There Is No Easy Way Out

Gabby and Don were just like any other couple that walks through our office doors, adamant they want the best for their child. Unf
ortunately, because of their drive to give to their child “the life they never had,” their son Miles is, as they say, “out of control.”

Miles is not only an entitled child but, his parents say, he is also a “master emotional manipulator.” At the tender age of eight, there are thousands of dollars’ worth of gaming consoles, computer products, and hardware stacked in his room. He insists that he must have these things, and that he deserves these advantages.

In an attempt to keep Miles happy, mom Gabby, who works from home, admits to often giving him whatever he wants. “I know I’m not supposed to… and that I’m probably doing it all wrong, but I don’t like to see him cry or get angry. It’s easier to say ‘yes’.”

Like Gabby, many moms and dads often give in to their children because the repercussions seem too severe, bothersome, or time-consuming to deal with on a daily basis. And, the tantrums, anger, and acting out that can go on when a child does not get what he wants are very tiring—especially once an entitled attitude has begun to set in.

What Gabby and Don did not fully realize, is that they have unwittingly conditioned Miles to behave this way. They had an inkling that their behavior nurtured Miles’ attitude, but did not know what to do about it. They continued to take the easy way out, giving in to their son to keep the peace. Miles learned that to get his way every time, all he needed to do was get upset.

The Overpaid, Ungracious Child

We recently conducted a survey that asked parents a number of questions based on their behavior with their children. The study revealed several very interesting things about the relationships between children who have become ungracious, and their parents.

Parents reported that they often overpay their children to perform a task. They also reported a desire to encourage characteristics such as entrepreneurial spirit and an understanding of the working concept of being compensated for providing a service. They emphasized the importance of increasing their child’s positive emotional wellbeing by helping them to feel useful, and a contributing member of the household. To a busy parent, or to a parent that has not fully thought through the medium and long-term consequences of paying a child $50 to wash the family car, this may seem like a great way to motivate your child. But overpaying children is actually quite damaging to their ability to be strong and successful in the world.

Outcomes of Overpaying Our Children

Overpaying our children has little to no positive medium-term or long-term effects and misrepresents real life. It makes for youths and adults who tend to work less and expect more, make unreasonable demands, and act selfishly.

Examples of Overpayment:

• Paying a child for chores, such as making their bed, tidying their room, or helping with meals.
  

  We recommend that families make it clear that Mom and Dad are not paid for cleaning out the dishwasher, so kids should not be paid either. Family and household chores are better presented as necessary family contributions. Period.
  

  If an allowance system is something that is important to your family to help a child understand money, and/or for them to save up for unnecessary items of indulgence (that ultra-cool skateboard or the latest sparkly sneakers), we recommend allotting a certain amount per week or month, independent of the required chores.
  

• Paying above market value for services: a trip to the mall to buy $150 jeans in exchange for cleaning up the family room is not fair market value. (If you were paying a cleaning service to clean up your family room and you were paying $20 per hour, you would expect the cleaning service to complete the task in, for example, 30 minutes, making the fair market value $10, not $150.)
  

  If you or another family member, a grandparent, say, decide to contract a child for help with something that you do not typically define as standard household contributions (such as reorganizing the storage unit, cleaning out the garage, etc.), ensure you are as specific as you would be with hiring any other service (time required to go a good job; completion time; clarity with what successful completion of the job entails; whether the payment is by the job, hour, or other unit of measurement; whether partial payment is allowable for partial completion, etc.).
  

• Paying a child for good grades on their report card.
  

  Although we do not see this as a pure overpayment situation, we do have thoughts on this. If we teach our children that high grades are anything but for their own benefit (current and future), we are missing excellent learning opportunities. We also know that a child taught to focus on grades fails to appreciate the most important parts of the school experience are:
  

  • Ability to set and meet goals
    
  • Ability to study and learn
    
  • Ability to delay gratification and to work toward something in the future
    
  • Ability to motivate themselves when the going
    gets tough
    
  • Ability to work well with people—both agreeable and disagreeable
    

    We see more children who are taught to overly focus on
    A’s cheat on exams, plagiarize during their writing, purchase the previous year’s exams (college level), copy homework from peers, or sweet talk parents into doing 90 per cent of their science project for them. Yes, the chances of achieving an A are increased, but at what cost to personal integrity and work ethic?
    

    We see, as with the difference between Process vs. Person praise later on in this chapter, that when we focus recognition (“I’m proud of what you did this semester”) on the letter grade instead of the effort, work ethic, social adeptness in working with teachers/ peers, etc., a child’s
    self-esteem is not well supported, and they are easily shattered if, for whatever reason, they don’t attain A’s.