Help for entitlement
Entitlement isn't innate. It's learned.
Originally published in the Moultrie News.
My child had a gift card, and when it was down to a few dollars, he threw it away as an inconvenience. I sent him to buy something on sale, but they were sold out — so with my money, he bought himself one that cost three times as much. How can I help my kids not to be so entitled?
Modern parenting generally believes kids are born perfect and we corrupt them. Empirical evidence, however, suggests the opposite (spend an hour with a two-year-old to confirm). Greed, spite, and many other faults are with us from birth, and most of us struggle to overcome them for the rest of our lives.
But the kind of entitled behavior you’re talking about is different. It’s not innate. It’s learned. We’re naturally frugal, probably for self-protection. We don’t waste food; we hoard it so we don’t starve. Take candy from babies and they cry.
That doesn’t mean thrift is always selfish. It can find proper motivation in gratitude, preparedness, and stewardship. But at the basest level, we conserve things so we can keep things.
The point is that wastefulness, excess, and entitlement are learned vices. We instill them into our children — usually unknowingly and often in love. We give birth to economizers and turn them into prodigals.
There are many ways parents can ensure they don’t unwittingly train their kids to be squanderers. The most obvious is not to spoil them by giving them everything they want. Let them learn about priorities, delayed gratification, saving toward a goal, and appreciating what they already have.
Another is don’t modify the adage, “Waste not, want not,” to, “Waste all you want; there’s more where that came from.” If they lose something, don’t automatically replace it. The lost and found at my school is teeming with $70 lunch bags, $80 water bottles, and $100 coats. Why aren’t kids more careful with expensive items (or at least industrious enough to retrieve them from the lost and found)? Because it’s easier to tell their parents they lost it (or it was “stolen”) and let their parents buy a new one. Combat this attitude by making your children find what they lose or replace it themselves.
The same applies if children break something. Make them replace it or teach them to fix it. Kids frequently come to school with brand-new phones because their old ones broke. Many kids admit they purposefully break their phones just to get new ones. Don’t teach your kids that just because something breaks, it’s trash. Economy means salvaging what’s useful, not tossing it for something new.
Hold kids accountable for taking care of things. Many students abuse their school books and laptops because they’re not personally liable for the damage. Teach them responsibility. If they want a pet, make them care for it. This is how kids learn to be good stewards.
Entitlement can even be acquired through eating habits. When you make a meal your kids don’t like, don’t let them cast it aside for something they prefer. What lesson do you think they’ll learn from that?
Regulate kids’ consumption. For many kids, if they want a new lacrosse stick, they just tell their parents, access an online vendor, punch in credit card info, and a day later the new stick arrives. You couldn’t devise a better system for entitlement. So, whether you give them an allowance or they work for money, make them pay for their own extras. When they see how a $7 latte depletes their limited funds, it will teach them to make more economical decisions.
Griping and giving in is an ineffective strategy for preventing entitlement. Nagging your kids about being spoiled then giving them whatever they want won’t work. You have to actually do something to instill the right values.
Finally, practice what you preach. Your kids are watching you. When you replace your car and furniture every year because you’re “tired” of it, you’re teaching entitlement.
This is a tall order in today’s on-demand society, but if you want your kids to become thriving adults with high character and good values, you have to teach them yourself. No one is coming to your rescue.
Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.