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Is My Child Spoiled?
by Pat Cramer
A dilemma facing most parents today is how to give their children the love and attention that all children need without spoiling them so that other people think of the children as "brats." Just how do you do that?
First of all, let me say that I believe there is no such thing as a spoiled child!! There are children who are overindulged in many aspects, but the term spoiled usually is used to reflect something that is rotten or needs to be thrown away. I certainly would not advocate throwing a child away!!
As parents, we need to establish a healthy balance between what our children REALLY need and what they think they want. I was raised by parents who were upper middle class. They owned their own home fully paid for, and paid cash for everything. But each time the subject came up of something I thought I just had to have, my parents told me that money was short, I'd have to go home and think about it and then they would see if they could put it in the budget!!! Now it wasn't until I was 16 and had some money saved and was going to put that towards a new car with my Mom, that I realized what exactly my parents had done. When we went to get the car, I gave my Mom the money I had saved. As we got ready to get the car, I watched my mother sit down and write a check for the full purchase price of the car, which was quite a bit more than my share. On the way home, I asked how she could do that. She replied that the money was there all along, but if you had a day or two to think about it, maybe it became not such a necessity.
It was then that I realized what a valuable lesson they had passed on to me!! And one that I in turn passed on to my family. I found that if I told the children, we didn't have the money right now, I would put it on the list, most of the time, I never got asked again!! It wasn't a necessity--it was a whim.
In short, we can either "spoil" our children by giving in to their every whim-and there will be plenty--or we can “love" our children, by making sure they have quality instead of quantity.
Pat Cramer is a former teacher in California. She has also done private tutoring for 20 years, preschool, gifted to high school. She is a grandma of one with one on the way. She can be reach via e-mail at C3035@aol.com
©2001 Pat Crammer. All rights reserved. Article used by permission
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