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More on "spoiling"
Last week I wrote about how children get "spoiled".
I asserted that spoiling is not really a problem of
giving your children too much, but of changing the
limits you set with them in response to
inappropriate behaviors they may display (tantrums,
whining, sulking, and disrespect). While this
inadvertent rewarding of misbehavior is the crux of
the problem with "spoiled children" there are other
problems associated with giving "too much".
Too Many Toys
Sometimes when I buy something for my daughter,
I am thinking, "Maybe this will occupy her a
while." I am essentially buying myself some free
time. If this becomes a habit, a child's closet can
fill up with toys very quickly. Sometimes parents
express their love for a child by buying them a
toy. The moment of receiving a gift becomes the
most intimate moment between parent and child. So
the child begins to crave this experience, not
knowing that the feeling of closeness she is really
needing can be had in other ways.
Too many toys, given too often, is sometimes a
substitute for not giving enough loving attention.
Material goods are a poor substitute for human
closeness. An endless supply of toys will not be
enough for a child who needs more one on one time
with a parent. Imagine the payoff for our children
if all the money spent on toys last Christmas had
been spent on parenting classes, to improve the
quality of the time we parents spend with our
kids.
Toys are meaningless and quickly irrelevant
unless children begin to invest some meaning in
them. If a toy you give a child becomes a focal
point for continuing interactions between you and
your child, then it is serving it's purpose well.
In fact, children will often internalize the good
interactions they have had with you as they
continue to play with the toy without you. Musical
instruments are a good example of this. You have to
spend a lot of time offering support and
encouragement to a child as they learn to play.
Eventually, though, they feel your pride in them
even when they perform just for themselves.
Too Much Attention
Sometimes it feels as though a parent is doting
too much upon a child. This impression could come
from the jealousy of those who are needing
attention themselves. It might also indicate,
however, that the doting parent has some
unconscious agenda of their own. Parents who
dedicate their whole lives to their children run
the danger of needing to be needed so badly that
they unwittingly undermine the development of their
children's independence. A vicious cycle can
result. A parent who fears that her child is in
danger without her, overprotects the child. The
child struggles against being controlled, but has
little experience identifying his own limits. He
occasionally breaks free of the control and
immediately hurts himself. The parent then
reasserts her protectiveness with a renewed sense
of its justification. And the cycle repeats.
Too much attention, then, may actually be too
little confidence in our children's ability to get
by on their own. Or it may mean that the parent has
too few sources of feeling important and worthwhile
in his life, and thus needs his children to need
him.
Too Much Freedom
Children thrive when they are allowed to
experiment with age appropriate choices. It helps
them develop a sense of responsibility. But when
the child's decision making is largely
unsupervised, or the choices they are confronted
with are beyond their maturity level, "freedom" is
really a euphemism for neglect.
Sometimes parents remember promises they made to
themselves in their own adolescence. They vowed
that as parents they would not control their kids
the way they felt they were being controlled. As
children get older this promise becomes more and
more important to remember. But when children are
young they do not benefit from the freedoms
important to an adolescent. They are not ready to
decide for themselves what to do with their summer,
or even what to do with a given day. Children need
parents to provide structure to their lives and
expose them to a variety of experiences that the
children might otherwise never have chosen for
themselves. Children should not, however, be
abandoned to these structures or choices the
parents have made for them. The parents need to
keep close watch. Is this teacher really working
out for my child? Are the social groups my daughter
is in really supporting her?
So while attention, freedom, and quality toys
are good for our children. Any of them in excess
may indicate an imbalance somewhere in the
parenting. Sorting out these multiple types of
problems can help them be addressed more
effectively than applying a catch all phrase like,
"Oh that kid is spoiled rotten". It could be the so
called "spoiled" kids are not getting what they
really need at all.
© 2008, Tim
Hartnett
Other Father Issues,
Books
* * *
Your children need your presence more than your
presents. - Jesse Jackson
Tim
Hartnett, Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist in private practice in Santa Cruz, CA. He
specializes in Individual Counseling, Couples
Therapy, and Divorce Mediation. He can be reached
at 831.464.2922 or through his website:
www.TimHartnett.com
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