Friday, September 16, 2011

Growing up Entitled

From a young age kids are given things just for the sake of doing so, and not taught the fundamental value that is, earning something. Kids are catered to and overprotected and then these kids grow up to be adult monstrosities with no regard or respect for others because they are so self- absorbed and entitled.

I heard a story of an elementary school teacher who received a phone call from a parent who was enraged because her son came home “complaining that he was exhausted” after school. She wanted to know “why her son had been made to do something so physical that he came home in that state?” Adding that, if this level of activity continued, she “would write a note excusing him from participating.”

I fail to understand how the parent figured it was okay to hold her son’s teacher accountable and complain, rather than using this as a learning opportunity for her son.

Kids are given cars, trips, credit cards, without having done anything to deserve it. I am a true believer that if you have the money to spend, you should. However, I don’t think that we should let go the values of teaching hard work and humility to our kids.

Sometimes I feel that parents use this as a method to live vicariously through their kids, because they never had these luxuries as children themselves. Yet, it is because of not being able to have something, that people work harder to be able to attain it. Why then do we think it’s so bad to have our kids want for something and not have it?

If we hand our kids everything they want on a silver platter, then we are doing them a great disservice, because they will never learn the meaning, of self-sufficiency. They will grow up with a sense of entitlement, when in fact they never did anything deserving.

3 comments:

  1. I know what you mean. I was a school teacher myself, and I had parents who accused me if stopped their kids beating other kids. After seeing that their parents protecting them from the teacher, those kids decided that they should not listen to the teacher. And they studied worse than other kids.

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  3. Just because kids are given cars, trips, or credit cards doesn’t mean they automatically deserve the label as undeserving or spoiled. That’s like doing a book report on a book that you haven’t opened and instead just looked at the cover. Let’s use kids being given cars as the example. Parents can teach their children different values and skills with different cars. A parent that chose to purchase a new car for a child may be teaching their child negotiating skills, how to apply and receive an auto loan, how to set up car insurance, what happens when you make a late payment, etc rather than handing them the car on the silver platter. In comparison, a parent that makes their child purchase their own car may be teaching them the value of a dollar, how to save money, the pros and cons of used vs new cars, etc. What a parent values as an important teaching opportunity may not be the same as the next parent.

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