Squash the Entitlement

According to Fay, when parents and caregivers fail to set boundaries, one sad result is that kids can develop a sense of entitlement and never learn to understand delayed gratification. Fay likens a family unit to a team, and when a child on that team feels entitled, he or she may act “like an honored guest with no limits whatsoever.” The child starts believing that everything is owed to him, and “that’s a prescription for a lifetime of unhappiness,” Fay noted.

“Nothing will ever be their fault, and they’ll never have enough of the stuff that they never needed in the first place,” he said. “Think of the home like a little mini society, where we practice how to live out in the bigger society.”

Infeld also added that while it’s only natural for parents to want their child to avoid getting hurt – so much so that they might try to see to it that their child never makes a mistake – that kind of approach can be detrimental as well. Although it can be tough to watch a child deal with negative consequences, parents cannot protect their children 100 percent of the time.

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