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DEL.ICIO.USOur kids are not spoiled rotten
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Decatur writer Margaret Tate argues that giving your teenagers trips to Europe and cars is not necessarily spoiling them rotten.
Tate was inspired by a recent AJC story on teenagers with their own multi-room suites that include amenities like a 36-inch plasma TV, two bathrooms and a den furnished with twin sofas.
But what matters most is what parents expect of teens and what the teens deliver. “Indeed, it’s difficult to see the inherent harm of material ease when so many of today’s pampered progeny are growing into smart, accomplished, responsible and personable young people,” she writes.
Are we raising a generation of brats or simply grooming new leaders who also happen to appreciate the finer things in life?
Comments
By lopro
March 23, 2007 1:20 PM | Link to this
I was raised as a “spoiled” teen up up through my first years of college. However, I had an epihpany one day and decided to leave it all behind and start my life over when I graduated college. I have not accepted any money from home and have been making my way and doing fine.
The point is that it’s not what you give the kids but what you expect of them and how well you can also prepare them for the “real world.”
Too many parents today substitute the plush life for teaching them about life. It is easier to throw money at the problem or situation than to address it. As a result I have seen kids and teens (who are not that much younger than I) absolutely run the household. The problem is these teens are entering “our” world with the same attitute they have at home and it does not appear to be working out too well.
So give your kids plasma tvs and Ferraris but show the kids whose boss and quit turning out brats onto society.
PS. If your kid can’t behave at a restaurant, don’t take them. It’s your fault.
By TT
March 23, 2007 3:44 PM | Link to this
My oldest child, daughter, aged 15, has been spoiled by her grandparents to the point that she is unmanageable. Whenever my husband or I deny her whatever it is she wants, she pitches a fit and then makes our lives hell. Our son, aged 11, has not been given even a fraction of the attention his sister has received, and he couldn’t be a nicer, more respectful child. Of course, basic personality differences also come into play here, but with out daughter, we are at our wits end. I’m afraid one day we will either see our daughter on America’s Most Wanted or at the Academy Awards picking up her Oscar. To say she’s a drama queen is an understatement. I think it’s because she got four years head start on her brother getting every little thing she even thought about asking for, and some things she didn’t! Sometimes I tell her “no” just because I don’t think she hears it enough, and she certainly doesn’t like that! At this point, all I can think of is “Only three more years” until she’s old enough to be on her own.