Are Your Kids Entitled?

Are we raising a generation of entitled children? One recent blog post, “Seven Emotions That Follow a Sense of Entitlement,” talks about what emotions entitled youth feel—and how these sinister attitudes have crept into our homes and beyond.

The blog’s author, Tim Elmore, posited that anger, impatience, cynicism, resentment, criticism, ingratitude and disappointment are all byproducts of feeling entitled. Here are some questions to ask to see if you’re raising entitled children—and what to do to change the course.

• Are your children (not toddlers!) angry most of the time?
• Are your children impatient most of the time?
• Are your children cynical most of the time?
• Are your children resentful most of the time?
• Are your children cynical most of the time?
• Are your children ungrateful most of the time?
• Are your children disappointment most of the time?

Image courtesy of Clare Bloomfield/
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If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, then you have entitled children. To change that, you must help them change their attitude. Here are some tips on how to accomplish that.

Delay gratification. Whenever possible, make your child wait for whatever it is he is dying to have or do. For example, don’t give your child a snack 30 minutes before dinner just because he’s starving. Waiting a half hour to eat isn’t going to kill him, but it can strengthen his patience.

Ban complaining. No one likes to be around someone who constantly complains, yet we allow our children to whine about things all day long without correcting them. Start with something small, like no complaining at the dinner table, then add other topics. When you stop the grumbling in one zone, you’ll be surprised at how much it will decrease in other areas.

Highlight blessings. Most of us have more to be thankful for than we act like, so taking time as a family to list those blessings is a great antidote to ungratefulness. One idea is the Blessings Jar, where family members are encouraged to jot down ways for which they are grateful and drop it in the jar. Once a week or so, the family gathers to read the blessings.

Acknowledge, but don’t wallow in, disappointments. We all suffer disappointments from time to time, and so do our children. However, while we should commiserate with them, we shouldn’t allow them to obsess about a disappointment. For example, giving a hug and telling your teen that it is, indeed, a terrible thing that she didn’t get the part in the play is a good thing for a parent to do. But continually rehashing the disappointment and reliving that moment isn’t healthy, so we need to help our kids deal with the hurt and move on with their lives in a positive way.

These are just some of the ways to curb that sense of entitlement in our kids that can creep up on all of us.

Until next time,

Sarah