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Parents Who Pamper
How to Stop Over Indulging Our Children
By Emily Mendell
I am an overindulgent parent. The realization hit me like a truck this past winter as I was navigating the normal morning tumult of getting my 7- and 9-year-old sons ready for school. To speed along getting dressed, I had come up with the idea of first putting their clothes in the dryer. It worked brilliantly. The clothes came out; the boys couldn't get that warm underwear on fast enough! But my ego was quickly deflated when several weeks into this routine, the dryer was full of wet laundry and the boys had to – gasp – put on room temperature clothing again.
"I can't wear this. It's not WARM. You have to warm these clothes up."
I was immediately crippled by horrific visions of these sweet little boys growing into ungrateful, spoiled men, whining to their future wives that they expect their clothes to be warmed each morning. I asked myself, "What on earth have I done?"
Plenty, according to Dr. Betty Lou Bettner, psychologist, family therapist and co-author of several parenting books. "Pampering is an epidemic," she says. "We are producing the most indulged generation in history. The newspapers focus on abuse and neglect, which is the No. 1 worst thing you can do to a child. They don't say that the No. 2 worst thing you can do is pamper them."
I am not alone in my behavior. Dr. Bettner estimates that pampering or indulging goes on in more than 60 percent of households with children. It starts early and perpetuates itself.
Sue Butler of Lafayette Hill, Pa., mother of three boys ages 3, 6 and 8, recently noticed a troubling pattern in her home. "When something gets broken, my kids just expect to get a brand-new replacement," she says. "There is no sense of loss. We are so afraid of our kids being disappointed; we are constantly shielding them."
Despite her instincts to protect her children, Butler realizes that replacing broken items may be doing more harm than good. She wants her boys to be independent and understand concepts such as gratitude.