Spoiled Children

Spoiled children are an interesting phenomena in our society. Many parents, mine included, wanted to give their kids every advantage possible, and thus make it easier for us than it was for them. While the intentions are good, the results tend to backfire in the long run. Not only the behavior problems that manifest, but we do our children a grave disservice by setting them up for much unnecessary hardship.

A spoiled child becomes very ego centered, and sees the world as revolving around him or her. Actually, there is a term called “Spoiled Child Syndrome” that was coined by Bruce McIntosh in 1989. A lot of this is the result of misdirected love. It’s the other extreme of neglected and abused children, but it still carries undesired consequences.

Excessive self centered, immature behavior coupled with plenty of tantrums are quite often the result. There is very little consideration for other people, and delay of gratification is not understood or accepted. Also the child will display extreme manipulation when dealing with others. Additional symptoms are defiance, destructiveness, aggression, and non compliance of even simple requests.

So Unnecessary

This qualifies as a model of insanity because it is so unnecessary, because love and attention can be directed constructively, while setting and enforcing consistent, age-appropriate limits and boundaries. Family parenting requires allowing a child to experience normal everyday frustrations, providing the child with positive role modeling, and not rewarding the child with gifts and privileges when the child misbehaves.

Solutions

Up to about six (6) months of age, comforting a crying child is absolutely appropriate (basic trust and attachment is forming, and the more attention and care the better), but after that time period, the child benefits from from learning to comfort themselves. Otherwise, the child will learn to associate crying with some sort of ritual.

Between eighteen (18) months and three (3) years be prepared to have all your limits and directives tested by your child. Provide choices and forget the guilt trip and aggravation the child is trying to impose. Teach them that verbal pleading does not work. The sense of morality does not kick in until a child is six (6) or seven (7) years old.

Only Children

Although psychologist Alfred Adler (1870-1937) thought that “only children” are more likely to be pampered and spoiled, which would result in many interpersonal challenges later in life, a 1987 quantitative review of 141 studies on 16 different personality traits found no evidence of this. In fact, “only kids” were found to have higher achievement motivation, and scored higher on verbal ability tests.

So the bottom line here is that spoiled children tend to develop certain characteristics that become fixed, and persist into later life. To obtain a mother’s perspective on this topic, check out this blog

Spoiled children have difficulty coping with frustration, and easily become aggravated with situations such as a teacher not accepting homework late, or failure in personal relationships and employment. Anger management can also become an issue. So let’s do our best to set up our kids for success, and channel our love and affection constructively, even when it means not granting our child’s every whim and desire. Click here for the Transforming Child Behavior Home Page.

When done reviewing Spoiled Children, click here to return to The Models of Insanity page.

SBI!