“Spoiling a child” is more than giving him whatever he wants and creating unreasonable expectation of how the rest of life works. 
Such children often grow up to be self-centered, demanding adults, but humans, even those who have not been “spoiled” seem endowed with a natural propensity toward this anyway.

The real terror of spoiling a child is that he grows up without having had to develop innate skills and abilities to cope with adversity, because one or both parents (or teachers and coaches) refuse to allow natural consequences following the child’s choices to occur. 

Such parents (and others) constantly interject themselves as buffers between the child and what the world will naturally deliver. 

“They (indulgent parents) spend huge amounts of time and energy trying to separate cause and effect, behavior and consequence,” a high school football coach observed recently.

Pain is a wonderful teacher and motivator. It develops character and promotes the development of crucial survival skills. While no loving parent wants his or her child to be deliberately subjected to pain, there are enough natural moments in any childhood where “clean” pain comes to teach, and the wise parent gets out of the way and allows it to do its necessary work.

Posted on May 3, 2017 at 9:43 am in Difficult Relationships   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL