Friday 25 March 2011

Spoiled Children – Where Do YOU Draw The Line ?

Too often, it seems, parents are far too indulgent with their children. I do not just mean how many presents and treats they buy them. I am referring here to the overuse of praise for every little thing they do which of course will result in spoiled children. If these rewards and prizes are not linked at all to real merit, well, they are not much use.  This is not the way to bring up responsible well adjusted adults for the real world out there!

But we have to balance that with being over critical and destroying our children’s sense of confidence and self esteem. If we spoil them they are not prepared or equipped with the right life skills.  If we are too critical and severe, we may ruin their self confidence. It seems that we have to walk the tightrope here and try to find the right balance- no pun intended!

We have to be really careful about reinforcing any messages which could lead to our kids getting too hung up about a negative self image and being too critical of how they look, how confident they feel and whether they feel successful or not.

There are other parents who just praise their kids so much that they grow up feeling as if thy own the world. They have an exaggerated sense of their own abilities and they may well be in for a downfall.  This is another aspect of spoiled children which is often overlooked.

The secret of positive parenting when dealing with potentially spoiled children is to keep a realistic perspective. The best way they can do that is to stop their children trying out tactics and new behaviors just to get what they want. These behaviors, tricks or tactics or whatever you want to call them need to be redirected. A consultant child psychologist devised a program to help you do just that so that spoiled children will never again be a problem in your family.