spoiled child essay

Spoiled Children and Parenting Mistakes Essay

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Many parents in their bid to show their love to their children end up overdoing it to the extent of missing their real intentions. In their quest to shower their children with their undying love, they tend to overdo it to the point that the children end up being pampered rather than loved. The final result of such actions is a child who behaves like a tyrannical king who has his parents at his beck and call. The resulting child will be a spoiled brat who would end up being a spoiled adult with unsavory behaviors such as selfishness, greed and, in some cases, throwing of tantrums among other despicable behaviors. Thus, it is important for parents to take appropriate measures to avoid such situations that will lead to a spoiled adult who will be an enemy to many people in society. In case appropriate measures are not taken, and the child becomes a brat, there is a need for the parent to handle the spoiled child appropriately. This will necessitate a character change at an early age before adulthood sets in which will spell doom to both parties and the society at large.

One of the reasons why many parents end up spoiling their children is the innate urge to always try and please their children by giving gifts almost every day. This behavior is so popular that the children have begun believing that they are entitled to having those gifts. Thus, failure of the parents to present the gifts will lead to the throwing of tantrums, sulking and ‘strike’. The parents in their bid to show how much they love their children have ended up pampering and inculcating a belief that these gifts are their constitutional rights of some sort. However, in order to bring a child who will earn the respect of the society at present and in the future, it is important for the parents to reverse this trend in spoiled brats by making them earn those presents. The gifts should be rewards for completing specified tasks or for good conduct. This will remove the attitude of entitlement prevalent in spoiled children and inculcate in them the spirit and attitude of hard work which will be rewarded thereby bringing a sense of pride not only to the child in question but also to the parent. Moreover, parents who are raising spoiled children should learn to be inconsistent in terms of meting out the appropriate punishment for any wrongdoing. Children who are old enough to be spoiled are also old enough to predict the punishment for their mistakes hence they prepare themselves in prior for the punishment thereby derailing the purpose and effectiveness of the punishment. They should be totally unaware of what is coming at them.

Bringing up a spoiled child is a challenge that sometimes requires big sacrifices for the good of the child’s future. Thus, parents may be forced sometimes to give away or even destroy those expensive gifts such as video games which the spoiled child is addicted to. This will help in getting the attention of the child to seriousness of the parent and the task at hand and make him reconsider his priorities in life. Most of the children and especially spoiled ones find it boring when the parents talk too much. Hence, the parents should talk less and act more. Spoiled children are always greedy hence the parents should teach them the importance of the act of giving by taking them to charity events and activities and ensuring that they participate in them.

All in all, parents of spoiled children should show tough love to their children in order to give them a better future. They should love them so much to punish them so severely and appropriately, and reward them so abundantly. In my opinion, parents should learn to distinguish between loving and giving and also pampering in order to raise spoiled children.

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Spoiling a Child

And not spoiling a child. the difference will have a considerable effect..

Posted August 24, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

Recently, I met by coincidence with two separate women, both of whom spoke to me in similar terms about their concern for their adolescent sons. “I think I may have spoiled him,” each said, almost in the same words. But the circumstances of their sons’ upbringing were quite different.

The first young man had grown up in a very wealthy family. His parents had given him many gifts over the years, including an expensive car and a motorboat of his own. In addition, he went every summer to an expensive theater camp and participated in many other activities that were even more expensive, including a group trip to Europe. There was nothing he was denied because it cost too much money.

On the other hand, he took care of these possessions and used money from his allowance to pay for repairs. He worked reliably at the theater camp hauling stage sets around. He was respectful and considerate of others. He was a good student. He was punctual and took any responsibility given to him seriously. He had regular chores around the house. When he could not get what he wanted for whatever reason, he accepted his disappointment gracefully. He was not, in my opinion, “spoiled.”

The second young man was the third child in a family of four children. His parents were not as rich as the family of the boy I just described, but they, too, were well-off by most people’s standards. They lived in a big house and took two family vacations every year. But this young man behaved quite differently than the first. He often complained, loudly, that he got less than his siblings. He sometimes borrowed their possessions without asking permission. He violated curfew frequently and would not accept punishment . He could not be counted on to do things he said he would do. He seemed inconsiderate and not concerned about the opinion of others. I thought he could reasonably be described as “spoiled.”

What, then, is the defining characteristic of a spoiled child?

A spoiled child may be recognized by an unwillingness to conform to the ordinary demands of living in a family: for example, a refusal to come for dinner on time, a demand for attention or for a privilege denied to others, a strategy for getting his or her way by creating a fuss publicly. The spoiled child is likely to be irritable and unsympathetic to others. He seems comfortable ignoring his parents’ wishes. “He wants what he wants when he wants it.” For that reason, he may seem to be impulsive. The spoiled child is likely to grow up to be a spoiled adult.

The problem with being a “spoiled adult” goes far beyond the fact that such an individual, demanding much of the time, is likely to seem unpleasant, even obnoxious, to the people around him. A spoiled person is unhappy. He feels frustrated, even cheated, if he or she is not allowed to indulge his or her wishes immediately. Being spoiled suggests to most people a desire for more and more possessions, and that is indeed one aspect of being spoiled; but another is an unwillingness to conform to ordinary social expectations. Somebody who won’t do what he or she is expected to do is spoiled. That person may seem disgruntled, complaining, resentful, and self-centered. Such a person is preoccupied by thoughts of what he or she does not have. And lacking discipline, that person may fail at work and in social situations.

The parent who sighs and tells me she is afraid of having spoiled her child is not taking this problem seriously enough. The spoiled person is discontented. It is not enough for him to have a yacht, the plumbing fixtures must be made of gold. It is not enough to be rich, he has to pretend to be even richer, it is not enough to be admired, he has to be admired by everyone. He does not need to be polite, because he can get away with being rude. He pushes himself to the front of the line. Small frustrations become intolerable. Mostly, however, since he cannot ever get enough, he will seem to others to be self-centered and insecure. Such a person is unhappy, and it falls to parents to prevent their child from growing up this way.

Spoiling a child—and not spoiling a child. I remember explaining to my kids why I wanted them to take piano lessons. I wanted them to learn, as I had learned as a kid, that I was capable of practicing for an hour a day while I could see other kids through the window playing ball. Similarly, I learned I would probably never be able to afford all the jewelry and furs and gigantic cars and far-away vacations advertised in The New Yorker. And that I was going to have to work harder than the other kids in my high school to maintain my scholarship. And that it was all okay! I did not feel deprived. In short, teaching a child to be responsible encourages a self-reliance and self-respect that does not depend on the opinion of others—let alone on having all those material possessions that these others may have.

If a child refuses angrily to behave, and is permitted to get his or her way, that child is in danger of being spoiled. Just showering a child with gifts will not necessarily spoil him; but giving him gifts, even trivial gifts such as candy, simply because he demands it, will. Similarly, a child who simply asks for special treatment will not necessarily be spoiled, but if he stomps his feet and demands it, and then gets it, he will. Conversely, a child who is dealt with firmly is not in danger of being spoiled.

Obviously, some children will be more resistant to authority than others. It should be expected that every child will find occasion to test parents and see if the parents really mean what they say. Often there is a struggle between parents and children. Parents need not win every time, but they should not hesitate to stand up to their children simply because they seem to be so upset. And some parents accede to their children’s demands out of habit. It seems that this particular issue, whatever it may be, isn’t worth having a knock-down fight about. But as time goes on, there are more and more disputes which the spoiled child wins—to his long-term detriment.

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Practical Tips to Unspoil Your Spoiled Child

Khadija Bilal

Many parents want the best for their kids and try to do everything they can to make them happy and content. But sometimes, they go too far, giving kids so much that they end up becoming spoiled.

In this guide, we’ll explore the spoiled child meaning, as well as looking at how and why kids end up spoiled, the negative consequences this can bring, and what you can do to avoid it.

What Does a Spoiled Child Mean?

What causes a child to be spoiled.

• Negative Consequences of Being Spoiled 
• Signs of a Spoiled Child 
• How Long Does Spoiled Behavior Last? 

How to Unspoil a Child: Dealing with Spoiled Children

• How Can Parents Prevent Spoiling Their Child? 

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First, let’s focus on what the term “spoiled child” actually refers to, before moving to causes, effects, and challenges.

Generally speaking, a spoiled child is one who, in part due to the way that they are treated by parents or other caregivers, has notably high levels of immaturity, self-centeredness, and poor manners . They tend to feel and act as though the world revolves around them, and more than often get their way.

There are a lot of potential causes and contributing factors that can cause a child to become spoiled and develop the various negative traits associated with this state.

One of the primary causes of spoiled children is overindulgent parents. In other words, if parents always say yes to their child, always give them what they want, and don’t set clear boundaries or even discipline their child for acting out, it’s highly likely that the child will begin to act spoiled, as they become used to getting their own way.

In general, therefore, lenient, passive, or permissive parenting styles all tend to create spoiled children. If a child has little discipline in their life, and parents show no authority or ability to push back against their child’s demands or discipline poor behavior, they can easily become spoiled, as a result.

Negative Consequences of Being Spoiled

It’s easy for parents to inadvertently cause their children to become slightly spoiled. Many moms and dads naturally want to make their kids happy, and like to say yes when their kids ask for something, like a day out, a new toy, or some food that they enjoy. However, if you acquiesce too often, and your child becomes spoiled, negative consequences will inevitably ensue.

One of the big negative effects of being spoiled is that it gives children an imbalanced worldview . They start to think that everything revolves around them and get angry or moody when things don’t always go their way. They may then enter other environments—like school—and expect to be treated as little VIPs, but soon find the world doesn’t work that way.

Their sense of entitlement and self-importance can therefore lead to a lot of confusion. What’s more, spoiled kids often struggle to understand the value in concepts like working and earning things , or having to sometimes accept that you don’t always get what you want in life. This attitude can make it hard for them to form relationships and adapt to difficult situations.

Being spoiled can also negatively impact other life skills in children of varying ages. They may struggle to handle rejection, disappointment, or other negative emotions , stunting their emotional growth . Similarly, they may lack emotional maturity and develop obscure, unrealistic expectations of the world, entering a spiral of disappointment when things don’t go their way.

Signs of a Spoiled Child

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Next, let’s explore some of the common signs and symptoms associated with spoiled children:

• Tantrums and Mood Swings : Spoiled children often lose their temper quite quickly, especially if they don’t get their own way. They might suddenly become very angry if they hear the word “No,” even screaming, yelling, or being aggressive to their families.
• Need for Constant Attention : Since spoiled children are used to being treated like royalty, they start to crave attention more and more over time. This can make them needy, clingy, and upset whenever they’re not right in the middle of everyone’s focus.
• Low Empathy : Spoiled children tend to be very self-centered. They’re so focused on themselves that they may struggle to show any signs of empathy or understanding of how other people might feel.
• Inability to Follow Rules : Spoiled children often have very little discipline in their lives. So, when faced with rules to follow or instructions to obey, they may struggle to comply and instead just do whatever they feel like doing.
• A Materialistic Outlook : Many spoiled kids also become highly materialistic, concerned entirely with how many things they can get. They may also fail to understand the value of those items and even treat them with a lack of care.
• Difficulty Coping with Frustration : Many kids who are spoiled also find it hard to cope whenever they encounter situations of frustration or disappointment, as they haven’t learned the necessary coping mechanisms, due to a lack of experience.
• Entitled : Spoiled kids almost always have an elevated sense of self-importance and an entitled outlook. They feel that they deserve the best, they should always get what they want, and everyone should listen and do what makes them happy.
• No Respect of Authority : Parents of spoiled children may struggle to show any kind of authority. And if kids grow up without clear authority figures, they often end up being disrespectful towards people like teachers or elders.
• Lack of Gratitude : Since spoiled kids get so many nice things and get their way so often, they generally struggle to notice or appreciate when someone does something nice for them or goes out of their way to be kind and generous.
• No Desire to Work : Again, as spoiled kids get what they want more often than not just by asking or throwing a tantrum, they’re rarely interested in the concept of working or doing chores to earn rewards.

Related: Naughty Kids: How to Deal with a Naughty Child .

How Long Does Spoiled Behavior Last?

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It depends on how the child is treated and whether or not the parents adapt and decide to change their ways. As long as parents continue to give in to children and let them get their way, they’ll carry on showing signs of being spoiled and acting just as entitled as always. But, if parents make a proactive choice to change and “unspoil” their kids, the behavior can cease in a matter of weeks.

Dealing with a spoiled child can be a nightmare situation for many parents, and it may feel like there’s no way out. Luckily, there are steps you can take to unspoil your child and restore some order to your family:

• Learn to Say No : This is arguably the most important step for parents of spoiled kids. You have to be able to say no sometimes when they ask for things, rather than always succumbing to their demands.
• Don’t Apologize for Disappointments : Disappointment is part of life, and you don’t have to feel guilty for saying no to your child and not letting them always get their way. Stop apologizing for letting them down and help them learn that life isn’t always perfect.
• Manage Tantrums Effectively : Tantrums will inevitably occur as you try to unspoil your child, but try to manage them smartly and calmly . Don’t give in, as that teaches your child to keep throwing tantrums if they want to get their way.
• Establish Rules and Discipline : Set rules, limits, and discipline—this is often lacking in spoiled children’s lives. By being more authoritative, having rules, and sticking to them, you can set a better example for your young ones.
• Reinforce Good Behavior : Reinforcing good behavior is a great way to teach spoiled kids how to behave better. Reward them when they do the right thing, like accepting disappointment or helping out around the house.
• Harness the Power of Technology : These days, there are lots of helpful tech tools and apps that can support your parenting journey. Findmykids , for example, helps you keep track of your little ones to not only keep them safe but manage their time and activities too. This can also help in the battle against spoiled kids.

Read also: How to Discipline a Child without Shouting, Belt, or Humiliation .

How Can Parents Prevent Spoiling Their Child?

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Finally, some useful tips to prevent having a spoiled child in the first place:

• Set clear, age-appropriate rules and boundaries for your child to follow, and enforce them as necessary.
• Give your child a balanced and fair amount of attention, without being overindulgent or ignoring them.
• Train your children to respond to instructions and guidance—establish yourself as a figure of authority for them to look up to.
• Never ever give in to tantrums, as this is one of the worst mistakes that can simply make spoiled children act even worse.
• Teach your kids to be patient, and have them wait for what they want, not always providing instant gratification.
• Discipline your children when needed—identify and address problematic behavior, rather than letting it slide.
• Give children chores to do , even simple things like setting the table, to teach them skills and introduce the idea of working and earning.
• Let your children learn life lessons for themselves, don’t feel like you need to teach them everything or protect them from tough situations.
• Be available and attentive to your child’s needs, without overdoing it—you don’t need to help them solve every single problem.
• Avoid overpraising your child—there’s no harm in praising good behavior, but don’t overdo it, as it can lead to symptoms of entitlement.
• Teach your child good manners and simple elements of respect, like saying “Please” and “Thank you” and being kind to others around them.
• Try to be consistent and calm in your teaching and discipline—children can react badly when parents appear inconsistent or overly emotional.
• Say sorry when it’s right to do so, but don’t feel obliged to apologize for things like not buying something your child wants.

Don’t forget to download the Findmykids app to keep your child safe wherever they are!

Overall, it’s never a good sign when children start showing symptoms of being spoiled. Spoiling kids can negatively affect their emotional development and future relationships, as well as take a toll on their parents’ mental health. When a toddler is overindulged, they can grow up without an appreciation for boundaries or discipline, leading to undisciplined behavior. According to the definition, a spoiled child exhibits certain characteristics that can hinder their ability to function effectively in society. Thus, it’s crucial to address these issues in raising a child to prevent them from becoming overindulged .

By understanding and avoiding the tendency to spoil your baby, you can ensure they grow up with a healthy sense of appreciation and respect. Dealing with these behaviors early on is essential to prevent them from becoming any worse and to promote a well-balanced upbringing.

Share this guide around and help other moms and dads handle their spoiled children more easily!

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How Can You Tell if a Child Is Spoiled?

Common signs of a spoiled child include when they get angry or upset if you tell them “No” to something, as well as never seeming satisfied with what they’ve got, always demanding and expecting more, refusing to help out, even with simple tasks, and acting as though the world revolves around them.

How Do I Stop My Child From Acting Spoiled?

There are many methods to deal with a spoiled child, such as teaching them good values and being grateful for what they have. Avoid giving in to begging and set clear limits about what you will give your child and how they should behave. Don’t be afraid to say no and disappoint your child, and encourage them to do chores or other tasks to earn rewards.

Is It Possible to Unspoil a Child?

Absolutely. It may take some time, effort, and patience, but you can effectively “unspoil” a child and teach them to see the world and themselves differently. This requires commitment and a shift in how you treat your child, not giving in so easily or letting them always get what they want and have their own way.

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By: Brenda Scottsdale

18 December, 2018

As a parent, you want to give your kids everything their heart's desire to make them happy, but parents who give too much, too often can spoil their children. Spoiling your children can be harmful to them, both socially and developmentally. Since children who are spoiled often do not have to learn to solve their own problems, they can lack the life skills necessary to successfully negotiate the demands of adulthood.

Children who are spoiled can become overly dependent on their parents, which can cause them to have trouble making themselves happy as adults. Researchers Connie Dawson and David J. Bredehoft cite a study showing that college-aged young adults who were spoiled as children tended to believe that being alone makes a person unhappy, and that the source of their happiness is other people, rather than themselves.

Irresponsibility

Environmental Factors that Influence Social Development in Children

When children are spoiled, they often don't have to learn responsible behaviors. According to "Baton Rouge Parents Magazine," children who were spoiled are unable to understand the concept of boundaries as adults and can develop problems such as spending, gambling, overeating and drinking. These children are sometimes unmotivated and can be described as lazy or angry. Lacking in emotional maturity and having poor problem-solving skills, these adults might flounder and become unhappy with their lives.

Disrespect and Defiance

Disrespect and defiance are characteristic of spoiled children, who are likely to whine, beg, ignore or manipulate to get their way. Often, spoiled children are so overindulged they do not get to express themselves in ways other than through their negative behaviors. Rebellion can become a natural response in these children, who are overindulged and overprotected.

Poor Relationship Skills

Side Effects of Overprotective Parenting

Because they have not learned that relationships involve both give and take, children who are spoiled can have trouble making and keeping meaningful friendships. Bruce J. McIntosh, M.D., writing in the journal "Pediatrics," indicates that spoiled children can be insensitive to the needs of others, are prone to temper tantrums and have trouble deferring gratification. Because other children might not want to be around someone with these characteristics, spoiled children might become unhappy loners, who do not even like being by themselves.

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• American Counseling Association: The Unwanted and Unintended Long-Term Results of Overindulging Children; Connie Dawson, et al.
• Huffington Post: The Negative Effects of Spoiling Children; April 2009

Brenda Scottsdale is a licensed psychologist, a six sigma master black belt and a certified aerobics instructor. She has been writing professionally for more than 15 years in scientific journals, including the "Journal of Criminal Justice and Behavior" and various websites.

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Taking on the Myth of the Spoiled Child

It seems as if everyone has something negative to say about the younger generation. Critics call today’s kids narcissistic and spoiled, blaming parents for being too permissive and overprotective. They say children don’t have enough grit and determination to get through life, leaving them unprepared for the real world. 

But author Alfie Kohn debunks this kind of thinking in his new book, The Myth of the Spoiled Child: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Children and Parenting .

Kohn has made a name for himself by questioning the origins and scientific accuracy of our cultural assumptions—for example, in his book The Homework Myth , he wrote about the lack of evidence supporting the benefits of assigning homework. Now, he’s taken a similar tack with today’s “youth entitlement” and “permissive parenting” critiques, combing through the social science research and finding virtually nothing to support these claims.

Although Americans seem bent on believing that the current generation is fundamentally “spoiled,” this view is not very different than that of every previous generation, according to Kohn. Writings by prominent authors over the last 150 years and even earlier demonstrate how every generation has had similar perceptions about the youth of their times. In addition, survey results used to suggest kids are more “narcissistic” these days are flawed, writes Kohn, reflecting a bias among researchers and a failure to even distinguish between healthy and unhealthy forms of narcissism.

“The generalizations one chooses to apply to the younger generation seem to depend mostly on the worldview of the person doing the generalizing,” writes Kohn. “Older people have always insisted that children are unusually spoiled, or that young adults are usually egocentric or entitled…one can make the opposite case—that today’s youth are more tolerant than their parents were and admirably committed to making the world a better place.”

The problem, he suggests, does not lie with kids, but with the backlash coming from “traditionalist” quarters that want children to be compliant and under parental control. The traditionalist view is that positive regard toward children should be conditional rather than based on unconditional love, that not everyone deserves to succeed, and that life should include deprivation in order to instill self-discipline. This view currently pervades discussions of education and parenting, as well as politics, argues Kohn, but it is not based on science.

For example, he questions the prevailing wisdom that kids need to learn the benefits of failure. Research shows that kids who fail are less likely to try harder in the future and often just give up, he insists, and that what’s important for progress in kids is having caring mentors and long-term goals they find intrinsically worthy. Not all failure is good; in fact, exposing kids to highly competitive situations, like spelling bees or classes graded on a curve, where failure is inevitable for many, may encourage some kids to work harder at winning; but it often kills intrinsic motivation and leaves a trail of dispirited “losers” in its wake.

“What’s most reliably associated with success are prior experiences of success, not with failure,” he writes. “Although there are exceptions, the most likely consequence of having failed at something is that a child will come to see himself as lacking competence.”

Kohn also takes exception to interpretations of the famous “marshmallow” experiment by Walter Mischel and colleagues, in which children were told that they could eat one marshmallow now or, if they could wait some period of time, they would be given two marshmallows to eat.

The original experiment was meant to study the strategies kids used to stop themselves from eating the one marshmallow immediately. But, according to Kohn, that got lost in the rhetoric, and instead the focus changed to the benefits of “delayed gratification.” In follow up studies, kids who were able to wait were found to have higher SAT scores, among other positive outcomes, making people assume a causal connection between self-control and academic performance.

But Kohn argues that the children’s cognitive ability to come up with strategies for distracting themselves—i.e,. closing their eyes or singing—was what allowed them to wait for a second marshmallow, and would explain why they might score higher on an SAT test.

In fact, in another set of experiments replicating Mischel’s study but with a twist, kids who were first primed to distrust the reliability of the researcher to fulfill promises ate the one marshmallow right away much more often than those who were given reasons to trust the researcher. This suggests that kids having trustworthy adults in their lives may be more important than self-control in delaying gratification.

Kohn goes through several more studies, debunking similar conclusions about the benefits of strict parenting, corporal punishment, having “grit,” and other social theories proposed by education or parenting experts. He makes a compelling case that many of these hypotheses get bandied about freely without careful scrutiny because of the public’s desire to see their own preconceptions justified. And the danger here, he argues, is that parents may end up discounting the robust research showing that unconditional love, positive role-modeling, and working with rather than controlling children is what benefits them most and prepares them for success.

But, despite Kohn’s extensive research and cogent analyses, some of his arguments feel forced and repetitive. Perhaps his relentless critique is necessary to counter the prevailing narrative, though I found if off-putting at times.

Still, we need voices like his—even if they are occasionally strident—to remind us why we can’t blindly trust our instincts. The kids are actually all right, writes Kohn, and parents don’t need to be harsher. Unless we want to raise a generation of unhappy, unmotivated kids, who don’t know how to think for themselves, we should probably try less name-calling and more kindness toward our youth.

And perhaps we all need to question the authority of those who suggest otherwise.

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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It can seem that there is no way to discipline ungrateful, spoiled children. Kids that act ungrateful or spoiled seem out of control and unteachable. Having a self-centered, demanding, unsatisfied child is exhausting and frustrating. There is hope. It’s possible to teach kids new attitudes and behaviors. Keep reading to learn how to discipline a spoiled, ungrateful child.

How to Discipline an Ungrateful, Spoiled Child: Know How They Got This Way

Spoiled kids believe that the world and everyone in it revolves around them. They feel that they have the right to have what they want when they want it, and the needs of others aren’t as important as their own. This sense of entitlement doesn’t develop overnight. It’s a process that happens over time and is born out of usually well-meaning parenting styles .

Use this checklist to see if any of these culprits underlying self-indulgent behavior fit your household:

• Giving your child too much, buying them things they want because you like to see them happy (plus you don’t want to make a scene at the store)
• Over-nurturing your child by protecting them from all things they find unpleasant—parents might do their child’s homework, allow them to skip doing anything they don’t like, prepare special meals, and more
• Providing too little structure, routines, limits, and expectations
• Giving in to kids without making them do things to earn their privileges

The purpose of knowing how spoiled children develop is not to assess blame; again, most parents who use the above practices are well-meaning. Identifying contributing factors allows you to begin eliminating them.

How to Discipline a Child Who Is Spoiled or Ungrateful

Disciplining your child when they are accustomed to having everything go their way requires patience and consistency. When you begin to discipline, your child will very likely act out more than they already do if they don’t get their way. That’s okay. It’s part of the discipline, or teaching, process. Your child has a lot to un-learn and re-learn.

Use these discipline strategies to help your kids change their behavior to a more effective approach to their life:

• Set simple and clear limits, rules, and consequences. Make sure your child knows what they are.
• Be consistent. Always follow through with your established consequences so your child learns that you’re serious.  
• Encourage and reinforce their positive behavior ; catch them behaving in a non-entitled way.
• Increase their awareness of their ungrateful behavior or words by gently pointing out what you observed. Kids need to learn what it means to act spoiled or ungrateful so they can replace  negative behaviors with different ones.
• Avoid shaming or name-calling . Telling your child they’re a spoiled brat will only make them identify with the label and try to live up to what you think of them.
• Separate your child from their behavior. They are acting spoiled. They aren’t spoiled at their core.

Throughout the process, stay calm. Losing your temper is like having a tantrum and makes you seem spoiled to your child. Discipline is about helping your child learn better behavior, so model calm, rational conduct. When you’re calm, your child is much more likely to cooperate as you begin the next step in disciplining an ungrateful child.

To Discipline Ungrateful, Spoiled Children, Show Them New Behaviors

As you set and enforce limits and your child’s poor behavior begins to lessen, you can begin to replace spoiled behavior with something more desirable. This is done with both perspective and action.

Even more important than reducing what you don’t want is teaching grateful, unselfish behavior. Help them shift their perspective from what they think they deserve to what they can give or do for others.

Do things with your child that teach kindness and positive action. Together, help a housebound neighbor. Make a meal together for someone who could use some help. You and your child might volunteer your time and talents somewhere in your community. Also, talk about kindness with your child. Ask them about the kind things they do at school.

Fostering gratitude reverses ungrateful behavior and outlook. At dinner each night, have everyone share one thing they’re grateful for that day. Have a family gratitude “wall,” a marker board set up for family members to write about or draw things for which they’re grateful.

Teach empathy . Kids don’t instinctively know how their words and attitude affect others. Talk about how others might have felt in response to your child’s unkind words or selfish behavior. You can even use characters in TV shows or books as empathy-teaching tools.

While there are no quick fixes, there are ways to discipline ungrateful, spoiled children. Be calm, consistent, and view the process not as punishing away bad behavior but as teaching positive behavior that builds character.

article references

APA Reference Peterson, T. (2022, January 11). Ways to Discipline Ungrateful, Spoiled Children, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, July 10 from https://www.healthyplace.com/parenting/discipline/ways-to-discipline-ungrateful-spoiled-children

Medically reviewed by Harry Croft, MD

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How Do You Define a Spoiled Child?

Monday, August 6, 2012

What are we talking about when we talk about “spoiled” kids?

It’s a question that more and more of us are worrying about; witness the huge online reaction to the recent New Yorker essay about spoiled children .

So before I start down the road of researching my book about using money as a tool to raise kids who are the opposite of spoiled, I want to ask you what it is exactly that we’re all so afraid of. After all, just about every kid has episodes or phases of lazy, self-centered behavior. When is that normal, and when does it cross the line?

Here are a five things that seem clear to me so far:

1) Money’s not the cause . Sure, it’s a symptom. After all, it’s easier to spoil children if you can afford to give them everything they want. But spoiling happens when we give in, not just when we give.

2)   Context matters.  Spoiled children don’t know how good they have it. They’re lacking perspective. They don’t know many people who are not like them, and older ones may not want to know them either.

3)   Grandparents spoil kids worst of all.  Just sayin. Our parents know exactly what kind of challenges their loose rules will create when the kids are back home with us again, but it’s not their problem at that point.

4)   The word is not a weapon.  Don’t call your kids spoiled to their face, no matter how angry you get. We’re trying to promote confidence here, not shame. And if we can’t quite define it just yet ourselves, how can we expect them to know what we mean if we hurl the word at them?

5)   It’s not a synonym for privileged.  Plenty of working class people raise spoiled kids, and lots of wealthy people turn out grounded children. Class is not destiny.

Are there any observations that you would add to the list? Which ones, if any, would you remove? And how much does money ultimately matter in spoiling — and unspoiling — our children?

Comments are closed.

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Spoiled Rotten

In 2004, Carolina Izquierdo, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, spent several months with the Matsigenka, a tribe of about twelve thousand people who live in the Peruvian Amazon. The Matsigenka hunt for monkeys and parrots, grow yucca and bananas, and build houses that they roof with the leaves of a particular kind of palm tree, known as a kapashi . At one point, Izquierdo decided to accompany a local family on a leaf-gathering expedition down the Urubamba River.

A member of another family, Yanira, asked if she could come along. Izquierdo and the others spent five days on the river. Although Yanira had no clear role in the group, she quickly found ways to make herself useful. Twice a day, she swept the sand off the sleeping mats, and she helped stack the kapashi leaves for transport back to the village. In the evening, she fished for crustaceans, which she cleaned, boiled, and served to the others. Calm and self-possessed, Yanira “asked for nothing,” Izquierdo later recalled. The girl’s behavior made a strong impression on the anthropologist because at the time of the trip Yanira was just six years old.

While Izquierdo was doing field work among the Matsigenka, she was also involved in an anthropological study closer to home. A colleague of hers, Elinor Ochs, had recruited thirty-two middle-class families for a study of life in twenty-first-century Los Angeles. Ochs had arranged to have the families filmed as they ate, fought, made up, and did the dishes.

Izquierdo and Ochs shared an interest in many ethnographic issues, including child rearing. How did parents in different cultures train young people to assume adult responsibilities? In the case of the Angelenos, they mostly didn’t. In the L.A. families observed, no child routinely performed household chores without being instructed to. Often, the kids had to be begged to attempt the simplest tasks; often, they still refused. In one fairly typical encounter, a father asked his eight-year-old son five times to please go take a bath or a shower. After the fifth plea went unheeded, the father picked the boy up and carried him into the bathroom. A few minutes later, the kid, still unwashed, wandered into another room to play a video game.

In another representative encounter, an eight-year-old girl sat down at the dining table. Finding that no silverware had been laid out for her, she demanded, “How am I supposed to eat?” Although the girl clearly knew where the silverware was kept, her father got up to get it for her.

In a third episode captured on tape, a boy named Ben was supposed to leave the house with his parents. But he couldn’t get his feet into his sneakers, because the laces were tied. He handed one of the shoes to his father: “Untie it!” His father suggested that he ask nicely.

“Can you untie it?” Ben replied. After more back-and-forth, his father untied Ben’s sneakers. Ben put them on, then asked his father to retie them. “ You tie your shoes and let’s go ,’’ his father finally exploded. Ben was unfazed. “I’m just asking ,’’ he said.

A few years ago, Izquierdo and Ochs wrote an article for Ethos , the journal of the Society of Psychological Anthropology, in which they described Yanira’s conduct during the trip down the river and Ben’s exchange with his dad. “Juxtaposition of these developmental stories begs for an account of responsibility in childhood,” they wrote. Why do Matsigenka children “help their families at home more than L.A. children?” And “Why do L.A. adult family members help their children at home more than do Matsigenka?” Though not phrased in exactly such terms, questions like these are being asked—silently, imploringly, despairingly—every single day by parents from Anchorage to Miami. Why, why, why?

With the exception of the imperial offspring of the Ming dynasty and the dauphins of pre-Revolutionary France, contemporary American kids may represent the most indulged young people in the history of the world. It’s not just that they’ve been given unprecedented amounts of stuff—clothes, toys, cameras, skis, computers, televisions, cell phones, PlayStations, iPods. (The market for Burberry Baby and other forms of kiddie “couture” has reportedly been growing by ten per cent a year.) They’ve also been granted unprecedented authority. “Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval,” Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, both professors of psychology, have written. In many middle-class families, children have one, two, sometimes three adults at their beck and call. This is a social experiment on a grand scale, and a growing number of adults fear that it isn’t working out so well: according to one poll, commissioned by Time and CNN, two-thirds of American parents think that their children are spoiled.

The notion that we may be raising a generation of kids who can’t, or at least won’t, tie their own shoes has given rise to a new genre of parenting books. Their titles tend to be either dolorous (“The Price of Privilege”) or downright hostile (“The Narcissism Epidemic,” “Mean Moms Rule,” “A Nation of Wimps”). The books are less how-to guides than how-not-to’s: how not to give in to your toddler, how not to intervene whenever your teen-ager looks bored, how not to spend two hundred thousand dollars on tuition only to find your twenty-something graduate back at home, drinking all your beer.

Not long ago, Sally Koslow, a former editor-in-chief of McCall’s , discovered herself in this last situation. After four years in college and two on the West Coast, her son Jed moved back to Manhattan and settled into his old room in the family’s apartment, together with thirty-four boxes of vinyl LPs. Unemployed, Jed liked to stay out late, sleep until noon, and wander around in his boxers. Koslow set out to try to understand why he and so many of his peers seemed stuck in what she regarded as permanent “adultescence.” She concluded that one of the reasons is the lousy economy. Another is parents like her.

“Our offspring have simply leveraged our braggadocio, good intentions, and overinvestment,” Koslow writes in her new book, “Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest” (Viking). They inhabit “a broad savannah of entitlement that we’ve watered, landscaped, and hired gardeners to maintain.” She recommends letting the grasslands revert to forest: “The best way for a lot of us to show our love would be to learn to un-mother and un-father.” One practical tip that she offers is to do nothing when your adult child finally decides to move out. In the process of schlepping Jed’s stuff to an apartment in Carroll Gardens, Koslow’s husband tore a tendon and ended up in emergency surgery.

Madeline Levine, a psychologist who lives outside San Francisco, specializes in treating young adults. In “Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success” (HarperCollins), she argues that we do too much for our kids because we overestimate our influence. “Never before have parents been so (mistakenly) convinced that their every move has a ripple effect into their child’s future success,” she writes. Paradoxically, Levine maintains, by working so hard to help our kids we end up holding them back.

“Most parents today were brought up in a culture that put a strong emphasis on being special,” she observes. “Being special takes hard work and can’t be trusted to children. Hence the exhausting cycle of constantly monitoring their work and performance, which in turn makes children feel less competent and confident, so that they need even more oversight.”

Pamela Druckerman, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal , moved to Paris after losing her job. She married a British expatriate and not long after that gave birth to a daughter. Less out of conviction than inexperience, Druckerman began raising her daughter, nicknamed Bean, à l’Américaine . The result, as she recounts in “Bringing Up Bébé” (Penguin Press), was that Bean was invariably the most ill-behaved child in every Paris restaurant and park she visited. French children could sit calmly through a three-course meal; Bean was throwing food by the time the apéritifs arrived.

Druckerman talked to a lot of French mothers, all of them svelte and most apparently well rested. She learned that the French believe ignoring children is good for them. “French parents don’t worry that they’re going to damage their kids by frustrating them,” she writes. “To the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can’t cope with frustration.” One mother, Martine, tells Druckerman that she always waited five minutes before picking up her infant daughter when she cried. While Druckerman and Martine are talking, in Martine’s suburban home, the daughter, now three, is baking cupcakes by herself. Bean is roughly the same age, “but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to let her do a complicated task like this all on her own,” Druckerman observes. “I’d be supervising, and she’d be resisting my supervision.”

Also key, Druckerman discovered, is just saying non . In contrast to American parents, French parents, when they say it, actually mean it. They “view learning to cope with ‘no’ as a crucial step in a child’s evolution,” Druckerman writes. “It forces them to understand that there are other people in the world, with needs as powerful as their own.”

Not long ago, in the hope that our sons might become a little more Matsigenka, my husband and I gave them a new job: unloading the grocery bags from the car. One evening when I came home from the store, it was raining. Carrying two or three bags, the youngest, Aaron, who is thirteen, tried to jump over a puddle. There was a loud crash. After I’d retrieved what food could be salvaged from a Molotov cocktail of broken glass and mango juice, I decided that Aaron needed another, more vigorous lesson in responsibility. Now, in addition to unloading groceries, he would also have the task of taking out the garbage. On one of his first forays, he neglected to close the lid on the pail tightly enough, and it attracted a bear. The next morning, as I was gathering up the used tissues, ant-filled raisin boxes, and slimy Saran Wrap scattered across the yard, I decided that I didn’t have time to let my kids help out around the house. (My husband informed me that I’d just been “kiddie-whipped.”)

Ochs and Izquierdo noted, in their paper on the differences between the family lives of the Matsigenka and the Angelenos, how early the Matsigenka begin encouraging their children to be useful. Toddlers routinely heat their own food over an open fire, they observed, while “three-year-olds frequently practice cutting wood and grass with machetes and knives.” Boys, when they are six or seven, start to accompany their fathers on fishing and hunting trips, and girls learn to help their mothers with the cooking. As a consequence, by the time they reach puberty Matsigenka kids have mastered most of the skills necessary for survival. Their competence encourages autonomy, which fosters further competence—a virtuous cycle that continues to adulthood.

The cycle in American households seems mostly to run in the opposite direction. So little is expected of kids that even adolescents may not know how to operate the many labor-saving devices their homes are filled with. Their incompetence begets exasperation, which results in still less being asked of them (which leaves them more time for video games). Referring to the Los Angeles families, Ochs and Izquierdo wrote, “Many parents remarked that it takes more effort to get children to collaborate than to do the tasks themselves.”

One way to interpret these contrary cycles is to infer that Americans have a lower opinion of their kids’ capacities. And, in a certain sense, this is probably true: how many parents in Park Slope or Brentwood would trust their three-year-olds to cut the grass with a machete? But in another sense, of course, it’s ridiculous. Contemporary American parents—particularly the upscale sort that “unparenting” books are aimed at—tend to take a highly expansive view of their kids’ abilities. Little Ben may not be able to tie his shoes, but that shouldn’t preclude his going to Brown.

In “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting” (Broadway), Hara Estroff Marano argues that college rankings are ultimately to blame for what ails the American family. Her argument runs more or less as follows: High-powered parents worry that the economic opportunities for their children are shrinking. They see a degree from a top-tier school as one of the few ways to give their kids a jump on the competition. In order to secure this advantage, they will do pretty much anything, which means not just taking care of all the cooking and cleaning but also helping their children with math homework, hiring them S.A.T. tutors, and, if necessary, suing their high school. Marano, an editor-at-large at Psychology Today , tells about a high school in Washington State that required students to write an eight-page paper and present a ten-minute oral report before graduating. When one senior got a failing grade on his project, his parents hired a lawyer.

Today’s parents are not just “helicopter parents,” a former school principal complains to Marano. “They are a jet-powered turbo attack model.” Other educators gripe about “snowplow parents,” who try to clear every obstacle from their children’s paths. The products of all this hovering, meanwhile, worry that they may not be able to manage college in the absence of household help. According to research conducted by sociologists at Boston College, today’s incoming freshmen are less likely to be concerned about the rigors of higher education than “about how they will handle the logistics of everyday life.”

One of the offshoots of the L.A. family study is a new book, “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century” (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology), which its authors—the anthropologists Jeanne Arnold, of U.C.L.A., Anthony Graesch, of Connecticut College, and Elinor Ochs—describe as a “visual ethnography of middle-class American households.” Lavishly illustrated with photographs (by Enzo Ragazzini) of the families’ houses and yards, the book offers an intimate glimpse into the crap-strewn core of American culture.

“After a few short years,” the text notes, many families amass more objects “than their houses can hold.” The result is garages given over to old furniture and unused sports equipment, home offices given over to boxes of stuff that haven’t yet been stuck in the garage, and, in one particularly jam-packed house, a shower stall given over to storing dirty laundry.

Children, according to “Life at Home,” are disproportionate generators of clutter: “Each new child in a household leads to a 30 percent increase in a family’s inventory of possessions during the preschool years alone.” Many of the kids’ rooms pictured are so crowded with clothes and toys, so many of which have been tossed on the floor, that there is no path to the bed. (One little girl’s room contains, by the authors’ count, two hundred and forty-eight dolls, including a hundred and sixty-five Beanie Babies.) The kids’ possessions, not to mention their dioramas and their T-ball trophies, spill out into other rooms, giving the houses what the authors call “a very child-centered look.”

When anthropologists study cultures like the Matsigenkas’, they tend to see patterns. The Matsigenka prize hard work and self-sufficiency. Their daily rituals, their child-rearing practices, and even their folktales reinforce these values, which have an obvious utility for subsistence farmers. Matsigenka stories often feature characters undone by laziness; kids who still don’t get the message are rubbed with an itch-inducing plant.

In contemporary American culture, the patterns are more elusive. What values do we convey by turning our homes into warehouses for dolls? By assigning our kids chores and then rewarding them when they screw up? By untying and then retying their shoes for them? It almost seems as if we’re actively trying to raise a nation of “adultescents.” And, perhaps without realizing it, we are.

As Melvin Konner, a psychiatrist and anthropologist at Emory University, points out in “The Evolution of Childhood” (Belknap), one of the defining characteristics of Homo sapiens is its “prolonged juvenile period.” Compared with other apes, humans are “altricial,” which is to say immature at birth. Chimpanzees, for instance, are born with brains half their adult size; the brains of human babies are only a third of their adult size. Chimps reach puberty shortly after they’re weaned; humans take another decade or so. No one knows when exactly in the process of hominid evolution juvenile development began to slow down, but even Homo ergaster , who evolved some 1.8 million years ago, seems to have enjoyed—if that’s the right word—a protracted childhood. It’s often argued by anthropologists that the drawn-out timetable is what made humans human in the first place. It’s the fact that we grow up slowly that makes acquiring language and building complicated social structures possible.

The same trend that appears in human prehistory shows up in history as well. The farther back you look, the faster kids grew up. In medieval Europe, children from seven on were initiated into adult work. Compulsory schooling, introduced in the nineteenth century, pushed back the age of maturity to sixteen or so. By the middle of the twentieth century, college graduation seemed, at least in this country, to be the new dividing line. Now, if Judd Apatow is to be trusted, it’s possible to close in on forty without coming of age.

Evolutionarily speaking, this added delay makes a certain amount of sense. In an increasingly complex and unstable world, it may be adaptive to put off maturity as long as possible. According to this way of thinking, staying forever young means always being ready for the next big thing (whatever that might be).

Or adultesence might be just the opposite: not evidence of progress but another sign of a generalized regression. Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education, and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why this should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage and tie our kids’ shoes. ♦

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HOW TO RAISE A SPOILED CHILD

3 comments:.

well, i try to do all my best for writing this essay, but i know tha there many thigs i have to learn such as my tittle of my essay should be centered. I also try to use a correct punctuation and spelling. I used an information (statistic) in the introduction to call the readers' attention and the paragraph ends with the thesis statement. The body has 3 paragraphs and each one explains three steps for parents how to raise a spoiled child. I think in all my essay I talk about the steps to raise a spoiled child and the conclusion I summarized all the essay. I hope you enjoy reading my essay. For the next time I will do it better if it doesn't like you.

Hey! I think your essay is interesting! I like it because you wrote the principal steps to raise a spoiled child. Maybe you can make this part more clear: "According to a new statistic, in which showed..." Well it is good!

It is me again =)... Well Your introduction shows an statistic and also it has the thesis statement so it is interesting. I can see your essay has 5 paragraphs and each one talks about one step people should keep to raise a spoiled child. The supporting ideas are ok because you even use quotations. It think your essay has coherence and unity. You also used expressions to link paragraphs as first, second and finally. Your conclusion is a summary of the main points, and finally i think your essay is good; just check some details.

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[Essay]   Spoiled children

• Thread starter ambitious-girl
• Start date Aug 8, 2017
• Views : 12,671

ambitious-girl

Senior member.

• Aug 8, 2017

Hello, Could you please kindly check this paragraph? I hope the topic sentence and the support sentences have developed well. Nowadays children are getting/being less and less responsible than they used to be for the following reasons. Firstly, parents are becoming more responsive and less demanding than they were in the past. In other words, children will be allowed to do and get whatever they want, whenever they want. In some families, for example, children are still being supported financially as well as emotionally, even though they are fully grown-up. Secondly, the way in which children are now being raised makes them more spoiled than ever. For instance, rather than letting children to clean up their own messes, and them being responsible for own actions, parents do pick up after them. As a result, children will gradually be used to their parents' doing everything for them. In this way, they may end up being less self-sufficient and may lack self-discipline.  

• Aug 9, 2017

You should not use words like "firstly" and "secondly" in a paragraph like this. They are not necessary. The first sentence does not need the ending that you gave it, "Nowadays children are getting/being less and less responsible than they used to be [strike]for the following reasons[/strike]." I would use this wording if I was making a list. Nowadays children are getting/being less and less responsible than they used to be for the following reasons: 1. lkdaslkdaslkdaslkdksaldlkd 2. sldskmdkdfffneefce'x But you are writing in paragraph form so such a format is not used. Your first sentence should be Nowadays children are getting less and less responsible then they used to be. "In other words, children will be" The sentence that is before is about parents and this sentence is about children. "In other words" is not wording that belongs here. Also, "will be" should be changed to "are" to be consistent. Make another draft of this writing using these suggestions. There are other issues in this writing. Think about some changes as you do your second draft. As we did before we shall take this one step at a time.  

Thanks Lynxear. Your suggestions were great, as usual. Now, I was trying to fix the first sentences as follow: Nowadays, children are getting less and less responsible than they used to be. What this means is that they way in which children are now being raised makes a child spoiled. This is because parents are becoming more responsive and less demanding than ever, so it is children who are given permissions to do and get whatever they want, whenever they want.  

• Aug 10, 2017

children will be allowed to do and get whatever they want, whenever they want. In some families, for example, children are still being supported financially as well as emotionally, even though they are fully grown-up. Click to expand...

• Aug 11, 2017

Hello Lynxear, Hope you do well. Now, I made following changes. Hope this is what you have suggested. Nowadays children tend to be less and less responsible than they used to be. The parenting style under which they are now being raised and taken care of makes a child much more overindulged than ever. That is, children are allowed to do whatever they want and given everything they ask for without making any efforts, due to their making excessive demands. In this way, they will not probably appreciate and value what they have been given in their personal lives, as a result of having parents who have more lenient and less demanding attitudes towards their children. What's more, children are no longer expected to take any responsibility because it is parent who will immediately take the responsibility in behalf of their children. Consequently, children will gradually be used to their parents' doing everything for them. Therefore, children may end up being less self-sufficient, and lack self-discipline in their lives.  

This is an improvement definitely. Now we will look at individual sentences. The parenting style under which they are now being raised and taken care of makes a child much more overindulged than ever. The bolded section should be removed. You are repeating yourself here for no real reason. That is, children are allowed to do whatever they want and given everything they ask for without making any efforts, due to their making excessive demands. You have a habit of adding these type of phrases to the beginning your sentences. They include: "that is", "in this way", "what's more", "consequently", "therefore". When used occasionally they can be effective. However you are using this construction in almost every sentence. That becomes annoying to me. In most cases they don't add anything to the sentence. Try to rewrite the above sentence either in a shorter single sentence or broken up into two smaller sentences In this way, they will not probably appreciate [strike] and [/strike] or value what they have been given in their personal lives, as a result of having parents who have more lenient and less demanding attitudes towards their children. This sentence is much too long. It should be broken up into two sentences and perhaps some of the sentences might have their order changed. Consequently, children will gradually be used to their parents' doing everything for them. Therefore, children may end up being less self-sufficient, and lack self-discipline in their lives. See how " Consequently" followed by "Therefore" in the next sentence does not seem right? You are requiring the reader to pause after the first word in many sentences and this gets tiresome after a while. Actually I think you should combine these two sentences into one, but in such a way that the result is strong and not too wordy. this would be a strong ending to the paragraph. Finally, I really think you should not forget to add this information: children are still being supported financially as well as emotionally, even though they are fully grown-up. This is an important statement that you have made. It deserves to be placed in a proper place in the middle of your paragraph. Your writing of this paragraph has improved... keep it up!  

• Aug 12, 2017

You have a habit of adding these type of phrases to the beginning your sentences. They include: "that is", "in this way", "what's more", "consequently", "therefore". Click to expand...

ambitious-girl said: Unfortunately, the way I have learned English was not good enough. My teachers always told me that my essays were too simple. Then, they recommended me using more connecting words in my writing. Do you mean that I need to use a variety of connectors or only use limited ones? And, Could you please tell me which words I should use where I need to connect my sentences? Click to expand...

I do my best to use as least connecting words as possible. I had to use "in this way" as I didn't know how to connect sentences together. I would be appreciate it if you could help me if it is still wrong. Thanks Lynxear for all your practical and useful comments and suggestions on my essay. Nowadays children tend to be less and less responsible than they used to be. The parenting style under which they are now being raised makes a child much more overindulged than ever. Due to their making excessive demands on everything, children are allowed to do whatever they want and given everything they ask for without making any efforts. Likewise , they are being supported financially as well as emotionally, even though they are fully grown-up. [ In this way ,] Children will not probably appreciate or value what they have been given in their personal lives. Growing up in families whose parents have more lenient and less demanding attitudes towards their children, they are no longer expected to take any responsibility because it is parent who will immediately take the responsibility in behalf of them. As a result , children will gradually be used to their parents' doing everything for them. They may end up being less self-sufficient, and may lack self-discipline in their lives.  

• Aug 13, 2017

You have given a good try and I applaud you for it. Click to expand...

I will not torture you any more. Click to expand...

You will note that I have started only a couple of sentences with prepositional adverb clauses. Click to expand...

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Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child Essay | Essay on Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child for Students and Children in English

February 14, 2024 by sastry

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child Essay: This proverb ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ means that a child should be punished severely for his offences, otherwise he will be spoilt. This proverb seems to be the product of those Spartan days, when people knew only one language, which was harsh discipline, often severe brutal punishment.

Perhaps a wild beast can be controlled by a rod, but not a child, although it has been proved by experiments that even wild beasts understand love and kindness. The story of Androcless and the lion is known to all of us, when a hungry lion does not attack Androcless remembering his kindness.

Spare the Rod Spoil the Child (Against)

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Long Essay on Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child 350 Words in English

Below we have given a long essay on Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child of 350 words is helpful for classes 7, 8, 9 and 10 and Competitive Exam Aspirants. This long essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 7 to class 10, and also for competitive exam aspirants.

Actually, a child will not be spoilt by the lack of whip but by the presence of it. A child can only be nourished and developed into a fine specimen of humanity if he is carefully looked after and affectionately brought up. A happy childhood is a guarantee of a happy and successful life in future, whereas a child punished severely becomes insensitive, uncaring and a hardened man and God knows what kind of complexes, that is, psychological and emotional problems are deep rooted in his mind.

Can you expect a person to give you something which he does not have and never had, have? A child who is always scolded, beaten, punished and never given a kind word, by his so-called disciplinarians will always live in a world of fear, his innocent, delicate mind unable to understand this cruel world around him and its devious ways will have nothing but hatred & revenge and become a rebellion in his mind. Such a child will always feel insecure and unhappy and in return, will either live in his make-believe world unable to cope with the realties of life or a hardened criminal. Whenever a child or a teenager commits a crime, there is a big hue and cry in the newspapers with statements from the politicians or influential people advocating strict disciplinary actions, but no one stops to ponder over the reason behind such atrocities. The reason is their environment, the broken homes or cruel parents or teachers.

In a child’s world, environment lays a very important part. Harsh discipline and discipline differ. Discipline is a very important part of life, without which no one can stand or walk or succeed in life but in the name of discipline, cmel treatment, severe beatings, and inhuman punishments can make child’s mind sick and complicated. He/she will be unable to lead a normal life. Can you expect such a person to be sincere, loyal, loving and successful? Never. He will always be a burden to society, and burden to his own self. The children, who are abused, carry an unforgettable burning scar for their whole life and whenever they get the chance, they pay back in full.

Many of us may remember the survey report of the remand home for teenage offenders, which should be taken as an eye opener for them who have been advocating corporal punishment. The report said that 70% of the offenders were the children who had been badly beaten and punished for petty offences in their schools and homes, 25% came from disturbed, unhappy and poverty ridden families only 5% were the off springs of normal families. There is no need to say more except to ask a question.

Will you not try to shelter a young sapling from harsh winds and scorching heat? A child is also like a young delicate sapling which will never flower and flourish in extreme heat or strong wind of corporal punishments.

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Essay, Paragraph, Speech on “Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child ” Complete English Essay for Class 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, Graduation classes.

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child  

This statement stresses the need of physical punishment to children in order to keep them on the right track. But the question arises if it is a right method to correct the children. Children are after all not criminals. It is absolutely wrong, and psychologically too, to use a rod for erring children. Physical punishment is no remedy to reform the children. On the contrary it kills their delicate feelings. They become used to physical punishment and grow to be hard-skinned. Physical punishment is a brute force. It compels them to fall into our line of thinking though they remain unconvinced in their heart of hearts. To use physical force against them is to take undue advantage of their physical weakness. Nobody would dare use physical force if they were physically strong and could hit back. It is their helplessness which we exploit when we give them physical punishment. Children who are spoilt can be prevailed upon otherwise also. Instead of using the logic of force, we should use the force of logic to bring them around.

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